Syllabus

NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued. The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader. See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

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LOPER BRIGHT ENTERPRISES ET AL. v. RAIMONDO, SECRETARY OF COMMERCE, ET AL. CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

No. 22–451. Argued January 17, 2024—Decided June 28, 2024* The Court granted certiorari in these cases limited to the question whether Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837, should be overruled or clarified. Under the Chev- ron doctrine, courts have sometimes been required to defer to “permis- sible” agency interpretations of the statutes those agencies adminis- ter—even when a reviewing court reads the statute differently. Id., at 843. In each case below, the reviewing courts applied Chevron’s frame- work to resolve in favor of the Government challenges by petitioners to a rule promulgated by the National Marine Fisheries Service pur- suant to the Magnuson-Stevens Act, 16 U. S. C. §1801 et seq., which incorporates the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), 5 U. S. C. §551 et seq. Held: The Administrative Procedure Act requires courts to exercise their independent judgment in deciding whether an agency has acted within its statutory authority, and courts may not defer to an agency inter- pretation of the law simply because a statute is ambiguous; Chevron is overruled. Pp. 7–35. (a) Article III of the Constitution assigns to the Federal Judiciary the responsibility and power to adjudicate “Cases” and “Controver- sies”—concrete disputes with consequences for the parties involved. The Framers appreciated that the laws judges would necessarily apply in resolving those disputes would not always be clear, but envisioned —————— *Together with No. 22–1219, Relentless, Inc., et al. v. Department of Commerce, et al., on certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. 2 LOPER BRIGHT ENTERPRISES v. RAIMONDO

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that the final “interpretation of the laws” would be “the proper and peculiar province of the courts.” The Federalist No. 78, p. 525 (A. Ham- ilton). As Chief Justice Marshall declared in the foundational decision of Marbury v. Madison, “[i]t is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is.” 1 Cranch 137, 177. In the decades following Marbury, when the meaning of a statute was at issue, the judicial role was to “interpret the act of Congress, in order to ascertain the rights of the parties.” Decatur v. Paulding, 14 Pet. 497, 515. The Court recognized from the outset, though, that exercising inde- pendent judgment often included according due respect to Executive Branch interpretations of federal statutes. Such respect was thought especially warranted when an Executive Branch interpretation was is- sued roughly contemporaneously with enactment of the statute and remained consistent over time. The Court also gave “the most respect- ful consideration” to Executive Branch interpretations simply because “[t]he officers concerned [were] usually able men, and masters of the subject,” who may well have drafted the laws at issue. United States v. Moore, 95 U. S. 760, 763. “Respect,” though, was just that. The views of the Executive Branch could inform the judgment of the Judi- ciary, but did not supersede it. “[I]n cases where [a court’s] own judg- ment .