That "Chevron case" that keeps coming up in Gorsuch hearing...
From Bloomberg
Get Ready, Supreme Court Fans. Brush Up on Your Chevron Doctrine.
By
Noah Feldman
Confirmation hearings for Judge Neil Gorsuch are likely to feature a somewhat offbeat topic: administrative law, and particularly a key issue known as the “Chevron doctrine.” Central to environmental law and all other forms of federal regulation, the doctrine, adopted by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1984 in a case involving the Chevron oil company, says the courts should defer to agencies’ interpretations of ambiguous laws.
Dry as it may sound, the principle is in fact the subject of heated debate among scholars -- and last year, Gorsuch weighed in with a lengthy opinion proposing to abandon the prevailing approach, thus strengthening the judiciary and weakening the agencies. Democratic senators are likely to question him intensively about his views, which for the first time may make Chevron doctrine into a household word -- and a partisan flashpoint.
The origins of the doctrine aren’t especially political. The original opinion was written by Justice John Paul Stevens, then still a moderate Republican in the mode of Gerald Ford, who appointed him. (Stevens later became a liberal, one of the most outspoken on the Rehnquist court.)
Stevens’s basic reasoning was that when Congress passed a law that did not have a clear meaning, the agency charged with applying the law should have the first crack at interpreting it. This made sense against the background of the now somewhat-old-fashioned idea that agencies are politically neutral experts whom Congress trusts to make wise decisions.
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https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-02-03/get-ready-supreme-court-fans-brush-up-on-your-chevron-doctrine