Chevron Principles: A Critical Review of Administrative Law

Running head: CHEVRON PRINCIPLES
Chevron Principles
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1CHEVRON PRINCIPLES
Introduction
The U.S. Supreme Court had handed down two decisions in the case of Holder v.
Gutierrez; Holder v. Sawyers1 and Astrue v. Capato,2 where the court had put its reliance on a
special doctrine to reach its decision known as Chevron deference. According to Sweeney (2018)
Chevron deference is a rule relating to administrative law which requires courts to defer statutory
interpretation carried out by government agencies responsible to enforce them, unless the
interpretations are not considered as reasonable3. This rule is named after the land mark case of
Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. NRDC4, which had to address an issue regarding the interpretation of
Clean Air Act Amendments of 1977 by the Environmental Protection Agency’s. It had been
ruled in the case that even in situations where the court is of the opinion that an alternative
interpretation of a provisions is reasonable or better than the interpretation of the agency it has to
defer to the reasonable interpretation of the agency. Reasonableness depends on whether the
issue is unambiguously addressed by the statue. In case it does, priority would be provided to the
unambiguous meaning. On the other hand if the statue is not clear, the court would raise a
question that whether the interpretation by the agency in relation to the statue is within the scope
of allowed construction of the statue. Kagan (2018) has defined a permissible construction as one
which is not capricious, arbitrary or prima faice in contradiction with the statue. It can be also be
defined as a very low threshold of deference5. However, this practice carried out by the courts
has been subjected to criticism.
1 566 U.S. 583 (2012)
2 566 U.S. 541 (2012)
3 Sweeney, Maureen A. "Enforcing/Protection: The Danger of Chevron in Refugee Act Cases." (2018).
4 467 U.S. 837 (1984)
5 Kagan, Michael. "Loud and Soft Anti-Chevron Decisions." (2018) Wake Forest L. Rev. 53 37.