Very few people had probably ever heard of the Chevron Doctrine before the Supreme Court's landmark decision (voting 6 to 3) on June 28, 2024, to overturn the 40-year-old ruling. In a nutshell, SCOTUS restored the constitutionally mandated separation of powers and has ended the unelected bureaucrats' ability to govern We the People. This is huge.

Background

Under the current system, judges make decisions, interpret statutes, and settle disputes, but sometimes, the ruling can be ambiguous or unclear. In 1984, the Supreme Court (SCOTUS) ruled that federal agencies could make reasonable interpretations of a judge's "unclear" decisions and that the agency's interpretation would take precedence, even if the judge had intended a different outcome.

In the landmark case, Loper Bright Enterprises vs. Raimondo, Secretary of Commerce, the interpretation of the Federal Magnuson-Stevens Act by an obscure federal agency, the National Marine Fisheries Service, was challenged. The law required commercial fishermen to pay steep government fees so that a mandated compliance officer could ride along in their fishing boat to monitor their daily catch. The federal ruling didn't say who should pay, but the agency interpreted the law in a way that made fishermen pay an average of $700 per day for these government 'yahoos' to monitor their 'wahoos' (fishermen will get this inside joke.) In the Loper case, the SCOTUS agreed with the plaintiffs, two New England fishing companies who challenged the fees. The result was the overturn of Chevron.