On June 28, 2024, the Supreme Court ruling on Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo (Loper Bright) significantly reduced the power of federal agencies to interpret the laws they administer. 

By a vote of 6 to 3, the justices overruled a previous court case which gave rise to a doctrine known as the Chevron doctrine. This doctrine states that if there is an ambiguous statute for federal agency, a court was required to uphold the agency’s interpretation of the statute as long as it was reasonable. 

Before the recent Loper Bright ruling, when the Supreme Court decided on ambiguous EPA policy related decisions they would typically defer to the EPA reading of that statute rather than trying to resolve the ambiguity itself. In Loper Bright, the majority justices rejected the Chevron doctrine. Following this ruling, lower courts are now no longer required to defer to agency views when interpreting statutes, but only consider them in their decisions.