Jameson Rice is an Associate and Lynn E. Calkins is a
Partner in Holland & Knight's
Washington, D.C., office.
For more than 30 years, the bedrock of administrative law has
been so-called Chevron deference – deference by the courts to
an administrative agency's reasonable interpretation of a
statute when, subject to certain circumstances, that statute is
ambiguous under Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Nat'l Res. Def.
Council, 467 U.S. 837 (1984).
On July 12, 2016, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the
Separation of Powers Restoration Act of 2016, which would overturn
Chevron and the cases that have built upon and shaped the
scope of Chevron as well as other related doctrines such
as deference to agency interpretations of its own regulations under
Auer v. Robbins, 519 U.S. 452 (1997). The House vote
– 240 to 171 – was largely along party lines.
