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Page Number: 113

32 

LOPER BRIGHT ENTERPRISES v. RAIMONDO 

KAGAN, J., dissenting 

Today,  the  majority  does  not  respect  that  judgment.    It 
gives courts the power to make all manner of scientific and 
technical judgments.  It gives courts the power to make all 
manner of policy calls, including about how to weigh com-
peting goods and values.  (See Chevron itself.)  It puts courts 
at the apex of the administrative process as to every con-
ceivable subject—because there are always gaps and ambi-
guities  in  regulatory  statutes,  and  often  of  great  import.
What  actions  can  be  taken  to  address  climate  change  or
other  environmental  challenges?  What  will  the  Nation’s 
health-care system look like in the coming decades?  Or the 
financial or transportation systems?  What rules are going 
to  constrain  the  development  of  A.I.?    In  every  sphere  of
current or future federal regulation, expect courts from now 
on to play a commanding role.  It is not a role Congress has 
given to them, in the APA or any other statute.  It is a role 
this Court  has now claimed for  itself, as well as for other 
judges.

And  that  claim  requires  disrespecting,  too,  this  Court’s 
precedent.  There are no special reasons, of the kind usually 
invoked  for  overturning  precedent,  to  eliminate  Chevron 
deference.  And given Chevron’s pervasiveness, the decision 
to do so is likely to produce large-scale disruption.  All that 
backs today’s decision is the majority’s belief that Chevron 
was  wrong—that  it  gave  agencies  too  much  power  and
courts not enough.  But shifting views about the worth of 
regulatory actors and their work do not justify overhauling
a cornerstone of administrative law.  In that sense too, to-
day’s majority has lost sight of its proper role.

And it is impossible to pretend that today’s decision is a 
one-off, in either its treatment of agencies or its treatment 
of precedent.  As to the first, this very Term presents yet 
another example of the Court’s resolve to roll back agency
authority,  despite  congressional  direction  to  the  contrary.
See SEC v. Jarkesy, 603 U. S. ___ (2024); see also supra, at 
3.  As to the second, just my own defenses of stare decisis—