Prof. Kristin Hickman Quoted in Washington Monthly About the Supreme Court’s Reconsideration of the Chevron Deference

Professor Kristin Hickman was quoted in Washington Monthly about the Supreme Court’s Reconsideration of the Chevron Deference, a 40-year-old precedent that grants federal agencies significant leeway in interpreting the scope of their own powers as shown in two cases that came before the high court in January. According to the Monthly, during the arguments, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett asked questions arguably more in the “mend it, don’t end it” mode and the parties and most justices seemed to concede that, even in the absence of Chevron, agency interpretations of law are entitled to “respect” based on a host of factors that the Court has identified in yet other cases. Professor Hickman commented that “there isn’t a lot of daylight for outcomes” between “respecting” versus “deferring to” an agency’s reasoning. The Monthly goes on to point out that if Professor Hickman is correct, Roberts and Barrett may think there is little to be gained if they can induce lower courts to be less deferential to agencies by offering a new Supreme Court “clarification” of Chevron rather than overruling it.