About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline

16 Vill. Envtl. L.J. 1 (2005)
Chevron Matters: How the Chevron Doctrine Redefined the Roles of Congress, Courts and Agencies in Environmental Law

handle is hein.journals/vilenvlj16 and id is 7 raw text is: VILLANOVA ENVIRONMENTAL
LAW JOURNAL
VOLUME XVI                     2005                      NUMBER 1
CHEVRON MATTERS: HOW THE CHEVRON DOCTRINE
REDEFINED THE ROLES OF CONGRESS, COURTS
AND AGENCIES IN ENVIRONMENTAL LAW
E. DONALD ELLIOTT*
Has the Chevron' doctrine really affected the way that adminis-
trative lawyers think, how courts decide cases and how agencies be-
have? As recent as 1991, a co-author and I described Chevron
U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. (Chevron) as
merely a significant but subtle change in legal doctrine.2 In his
oral presentation at this symposium, Professor Peter Shane was
* Professor (adjunct) of Law, Yale Law School and Georgetown University
Law Center; Partner, Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP, Washington, D.C. Professor
Elliott was General Counsel of EPA during the first Bush administration,
1989-1991.
1. Chevron, Inc. v. Natural Res. Def. Council, Inc., 467 U.S. 837, 842-45
(1984) (deferring to agency interpretation of its governing statute when Congress
fails to explicitly express its intent). Of course, no case stands alone. There were
precursors to Chevron including Train v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc.,
421 U.S. 60 (1975), and Chevron would have had no meaning. if it had not been
followed in subsequent cases. Any case is both an epiphenomenon and a partial
cause of what comes later. An opinion, particularly a Supreme Court opinion,
represents and exemplifies underlying trends in the law, but also by reifying these
trends in a particular text, it becomes a causal factor influencing subsequent devel-
opments. Unless the context indicates otherwise, references to Chevron through-
out this article should be understood to refer to what is sometimes called the
Chevron doctrine, the legal principles for defining deference in statutory construc-
tions between courts and agencies, as stated in Chevron and refined in subsequent
cases. See, e.g., INS v. Cardoza-Fonseca, 480 U.S. 421 (1987); United States v. Mead
Corp., 533 U.S. 218 (2001). It would be a fine topic for an article to address how
the legal tests stated in the Chevron case differ from those in other cases, both
before and after. In fact, many such articles have already been written. That is not
the topic of this article, which is concerned instead with how the Chevron doctrine
as a whole has affected the relationships of courts and agencies, particularly in the
environmental area.
2. Peter H. Schuck & E. Donald Elliott, To the Chevron Station: An Empirical
Study of Federal Administrative Law, 1990 DuKE L.J. 984, 1026 (1991) (analyzing sta-
tistical data that offered support for proposition that Chevron caused subtle change
in statutory interpretation and administrative law).

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

profiles profiles most