Supreme Court appears ready to reel in administrative state in landmark challenge from East Coast fishermen

The Supreme Court's conservative majority in Wednesday's arguments appeared ready to reel in a legal precedent challenged by a group of fishermen who say the decades-old doctrine gave the administrative state too much power over their business.

On Wednesday morning, the high court heard a set of two cases stemming from lawsuits brought by New Jersey fishermen and herring fishermen from Rhode Island who argued that a regulation issued by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) requiring them to pay $700 a day for an "at-sea monitor" is out of the bounds Congress set for the federal agency.

The core of their arguments, presented Wednesday by the New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA) and veteran Supreme Court litigator Paul Clement, is what’s known as the Chevron doctrine — a legal theory established in the '80s that says anytime a federal regulation is challenged, the courts should defer to the agency’s interpretation of whether Congress granted them authority to issue the rule.

"How do we determine how much deference is too much deference?" asked Justice Clarence Thomas in the roughly four-hour-long arguments. "How do we know where the line is?"

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Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh appeared the most skeptical of the Justice Department’s counterarguments to let Chevron stand, with Gorsuch at one point questioning Chevron’s "disparate impact" on classes of people who have "no power to influence agencies."

"The cases I saw routinely on the courts of appeals—and I think this is what niggles at so many of the lower court judges—are the immigrant, the veteran seeking his benefits, the Social Security disability applicant, who have no power to