Defending Judicial Independence After Loper Bright
The America First Policy Institute (AFPI) is standing firm in defense of judicial independence, filing an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to correct the First Circuit’s misinterpretation of its landmark decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo.
What’s at stake?
Loper Bright made it crystal clear: courts must independently interpret statutes and not rubber-stamp agency interpretations simply because the statute is ambiguous. Judicial abdication to agencies is no longer the norm post-Chevron. Yet, the First Circuit wrongly allowed the Department of the Interior to “balance” statutory requirements with perceived Congressional intent—without first determining the “best” meaning of the law as Loper Bright demands.
Key Points of Our Argument:
• Loper Bright requires courts to perform their own independent statutory analysis—even when agency discretion might seem “reasonable.”
• The First Circuit failed to determine the “best reading” of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (43 U.S.C. § 1337) and wrongly deferred to agency judgment.
• This error creates a split among the circuits. Other courts, like the Sixth Circuit, are correctly applying Loper Bright by independently interpreting statutes before granting any agency deference.
• Offshore wind energy projects, like Vineyard Wind 1, must ensure safety and environmental protections under the law—yet the lower court simply trusted the agency’s word, despite clear evidence of major navigational risks and national security concerns.
• Loper Bright instructs that agency discretion must be the result of an explicit Congressional grant—not inferred from ambiguity.
The bottom line:
The First Circuit’s ruling threatens the constitutional principle that courts—not unelected bureaucrats—say what the law is. If left uncorrected, it would allow agencies to self-expand their powers far beyond what Congress intended.
America First Center for Litigation urges the Supreme Court to grant review and reaffirm that judicial independence, not agency convenience, governs statutory interpretation.
Call to Action:
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