이른바 세브론 법리에 관한 미국 연방대법원의 최근 판결례-Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo

On June 28, 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled its Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo (603 U.S. (2024)) decision reversing Chevron U.S.A. Inc. v. Natural Resource Defense Council (467 U.S. 837 (1984)). This decision overturned the Chevron deference doctrine, which states that if the interpretation of the law by administrative agencies are is determined to be a permissible interpretation of the law when the Congressional laws are not clear on the meaning of a federal statute, the court must respect and follow the interpretation of the administrative agency even if the court may interpret it differently. According to the Federal Fisheries Conservation and Management Act (MSA), which was enacted to prevent indiscriminate over-fishing and to ensure sound fishery resource management in the coastal waters of the United States, when fishing within the exclusive economic zone under the jurisdiction of the United States, at least one observer must be on board the vessel to collect data necessary for the conservation and management of the fishery, and the National Marine Fisheries Service (hereinafter referred to as ‘NMFS’) is to bear the cost. The MSA listed the three major categories of subjects of application, but did not include clear provisions on the burden of costs related to observers for vessels engaged in herring fishing in the Atlantic Ocean. Nevertheless, the NMFS, a federal agency, exercised its own interpretation of the law and enacted relevant regulations to require herring fishing vessels in the Atlantic Economic Zone to directly bear the costs of observers. The plaintiffs in this case, who were engaged in the Atlantic herring fishery, filed suit, arguing that the NMFS, as a federal agency, had no authority to impose the costs of monitors on them. The United State District Court for the District of Columbia ruled the case(544 F. Supp. 3d 82, 107 (DC 2021) and the U. S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit affirmed it(45 F. 4th 359 (2022)) in favor of NMFS by applying the Chevron doctrine. It followed the Chevron doctrine that courts would deference the interpretation of a statute by an administrative agency if it was reasonably possible to do so, even if there was ambiguity in the statutory language. The opinion, written by Chief Justice Roberts C.J. and joined by all six conservative justices, made clear that it was the province of the judiciary to say what the law was, that there was no precedent for deference to the administrative agency's interpretation of statutes, and that the Administrative Procedure Act (5 U.S.C. §706 (1946)) specified that all questions of law, including the interpretation of ambiguous statutes, were for the courts, not the administrative agencies, to decide, and that courts were authorized to overturn administrative actions that were inconsistent with the law, making it clear that courts need not be bound by an administrative agency's interpretation of statutes, thereby overturning the Chevron doctrine. The U. S. Supreme Court's Loper Bright Enterprises case can be understood in the sense that the federal court's judicial review of the administrative agency's right to interpret statutes has been strengthened. It can be expected that the court's judicial review will be exercised more strongly and actively while recognizing to some extent the administrative agency's right to interpret statutes in cases where the law is ambiguous since the Skidmore deference principle has not been overturned,