I n the spring of 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court considered a set of challenges alleging that the contraceptive coverage regulations under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) violate the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). Following oral arguments in which the eight sitting Justices appeared to be evenly divided, the Court unanimously declined to declare an answer in the set of seven consolidated cases, each brought by nonprofit religious entities with objections to the provision and use of contraceptives as well as to the process by which their objections may be accommodated under ACA regulations that require employers to provide contraceptive coverage in group health plans. The question at issue is whether the accommodation process—requiring employers with religious objections to inform the government of their objection and third-party insurers to provide required coverage to the employer's employees—would impose a substantial burden on religious exercise in violation of RFRA. The Court's consideration of these cases (consolidated under the case name Zubik v. Burwell and referred to collectively throughout this report as "the nonprofit challenges") followed its landmark 2014 decision, Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. , and presented the Court with an opportunity to clarify the meaning of substantial burden on religious exercise under RFRA. However, the Court's disposition of the case provided no decision on the merits, instead vacating and remanding each of the cases to the respective federal appellate courts for reconsideration after allowing time for the parties to reach a compromise that would accommodate the employers' religious objections and the government's interest in ensuring contraceptive coverage for female employees. This report examines the current parameters on governmental restrictions on religious exercise. It discusses the history of federal protection offered under the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment and RFRA, and notes parallel protections available at the state level. It analyzes the current interpretations of RFRA as applied to the contraceptive coverage requirement of the ACA, including discussion of Hobby Lobby and a review of the lower courts' interpretations of the nonprofit challenges. Finally, the report highlights a range of issue areas of interest to Congress that may be affected by the Court's interpretation of RFRA. Federal law includes several protections to prevent the government from interfering with the free exercise of religion. Both constitutional and statutory protections exist to protect the ability of individuals and groups to exercise their sincerely held religious beliefs. The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution states that "Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.... " The latter clause, known as the Free Exercise Clause, guarantees the right to practice religious beliefs without government interference. Historically, the Court had required that the government demonstrate a compelling interest in any action that would interfere with religious exercise. In 1990, however, it clarified the standard of the Free Exercise Clause in Employment Division, Department of Human Resources of Oregon v. Smith , effectively lowering the constitutional barrier and barring religious objection as a basis for exemption from neutral laws of general applicability. In Smith , the Court explained that it "never held that an individual's religious beliefs excuse him from compliance with an otherwise valid law prohibiting conduct that the State is free to regulate." The Court noted the distinction between regulation of religious belief and religious exercise, affirming a principle it had first established in 1879: "Laws," we said, "are made for the government of actions, and while they cannot interfere with mere religious belief and opinions, they may with practices ... . Can a man excuse his practices to the contrary because of his religious belief? To permit this would be to make the professed doctrines of religious belief superior to the law of the land, and in effect to permit every citizen to become a law unto himself." Under the Court's interpretation of the Free Exercise Clause in Smith , laws that do not specifically target religion or do not allow for individualized assessments are not subject to heightened review under the Constitution. Rather, these laws of general applicability are required only to be rationally related to a legitimate government purpose—a baseline of constitutional protection analysis often referred to as rational basis review. Congress responded to the Court's decision in Smith by enacting RFRA, which statutorily augmented the standard of protection for government actions interfering with a person's free exercise of religion. RFRA prohibits the federal government from restricting religious exercise in certain cases, stating that it "shall not substantially burden a person's exercise of religion even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability, except [ ... ] if it demonstrates that application of the burden to the person—(1) is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest; and (2) is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest." This standard of review, though effective through federal statute, is typically used in constitutional analysis and is widely known as strict scrutiny analysis. Congress explicitly provided for retroactive as well as prospective application of RFRA's protections. As a statutory enactment, rather than a constitutional standard, RFRA is not necessarily absolutely binding against all post-RFRA legislation, however. Rather, it is possible that future statutes may not be required to comply with RFRA, if Congress explicitly includes language exempting the legislation from RFRA. Thus, Congress may amend RFRA's scope of application generally or may provide specific exemptions from RFRA in future legislation. It may be noted that after the Supreme Court held that the federal RFRA did not constrain the states, many states enacted their own versions of RFRA to prevent burdens on religious exercise at the state and local levels. Almost half of the states have enacted a version of RFRA, many of which follow the federal model. Some states have proposed broader protections than are available in the federal RFRA, with mixed results. In one example of broader protection enacted by a state, Indiana's RFRA explicitly applies to individuals, organizations, and a broad range of businesses (not only closely held corporations), and can be invoked not only when religious exercise has been substantially burdened, but also when it "is likely to be substantially burdened." It also permits eligible persons to assert a violation of the protection provided "as a claim or defense in a judicial or administrative proceeding, regardless of whether the state or any other governmental entity is a party to the proceeding." Notably, states that have not enacted heightened statutory protections may have constitutional provisions that the state has interpreted to provide heightened protection without additional legislation. The Supreme Court and other federal courts have considered issues related to the questions currently arising under RFRA in a number of cases historically. It is important to remember that these decisions were issued as a matter of free exercise rights under the First Amendment, not RFRA. However, the general understanding of the common terms in the analysis of religious exercise claims, whether constitutional or statutory, may be illuminating of the parameters of protection from substantial burdens on the exercise of sincerely held religious beliefs. Notably, at least as a matter of constitutional interpretation of free exercise rights, the Court has long recognized a distinction between religious belief and religious conduct. It has stated that free exercise of religion "embraces two concepts—freedom to believe and freedom to act. The first is absolute, but in the nature of things, the second cannot be." The Court has explained that "[l]aws are made for the government of actions, and while they cannot interfere with mere religious belief and opinions, they may with practices." As such, the government cannot regulate the belief itself, but it may regulate the exercise of that belief, subject to any protections provided by the First Amendment or RFRA. Under the First Amendment, any law not targeting the exercise of religious beliefs would be subject to rational basis review, while under RFRA, federal laws that substantially burden the exercise of religious beliefs would be subject to strict scrutiny. Thus, there are essentially two threshold questions to any religious exercise claim—whether a belief is sincerely held and whether exercise of that belief has been substantially burdened. These requirements, developed over the course of the Court's free exercise jurisprudence, were adopted by Congress through enactment of RFRA. In the Court's constitutional analysis of religious exercise claims, in order for an individual's religious beliefs to be protected, the beliefs must be sincerely held. An individual's beliefs are not required to conform with the beliefs of other members of his or her religious group; nor is the individual required to be a member of a religious group at all. Furthermore, the accuracy of an individual's religious belief need not be verified by factual findings. The U.S. Supreme Court has held that courts are not to judge the truth or falsity of religious beliefs. Instead, courts generally examine whether the individual applies the belief consistently in his or her own practices. These limitations reflect the Court's prescription of avoidance of matters involving religious doctrine. The Court has maintained an understanding that "courts should refrain from trolling through a person's or institution's religious beliefs." Accordingly, courts are generally reluctant to inquire as to the nature of religious beliefs. As a result, the sincerity of religious beliefs often is not in question in various legal challenges. The Court has defined a substantial burden on religious exercise as a constitutional matter as one that puts "substantial pressure on an adherent to modify his behavior and to violate his beliefs." It has required evidence that the legal requirement in question violates the individual's sincerely held belief. That is, if the legal requirement that the individual opposes does not actually interfere with the individual's exercise of his or her religious belief, the government may still require the individual to comply with the requirement. For example, a religious organization challenged the imposition of a sales tax on religious products that it sold, claiming the tax burdened the organization's religious exercise. The organization's religious doctrine did not include a belief that payment of taxes was forbidden, but rather claimed that the government was taking part of the money the organization raised as a part of its religious practice. The Supreme Court held that a sales tax applied generally to products distributed by religious and non-religious entities did not constitute a significant burden on religious exercise because the tax itself did not violate the religious entity's sincerely held beliefs.