Paul DeCamp, Member of the Firm in the Employment, Labor & Workforce Management practice, in the firm’s Washington, DC, office, was quoted in HR Dive, in “What Employers Can Expect Following the End of Chevron Deference,” by Ryan Golden.
Following is an excerpt:
It did not take long for federal courts to apply the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark June 28 decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo overturning the court’s Chevron deference standard.
In fact, on the same day the high court handed down Loper Bright, Judge Sean Jordan cited the decision in his own analysis of the U.S. Department of Labor’s overtime regulations under the Fair Labor Standards Act. Jordan found that DOL exceeded its statutory authority by issuing a salary level test in its final overtime rule that “effectively displaces” the FLSA’s exemption of employees with certain duties from overtime pay. …
Chevron overturning has long-term implications …
Instead, the Supreme Court held late last month that courts must “exercise their independent judgment in deciding whether an agency has acted within its statutory authority” in accordance with the Administrative Procedure Act.
The decision could cause a number of DOL’s regulations to fall, according to Paul DeCamp, member of the firm at Epstein Becker Green and former administrator of DOL’s wage and hour division, though employers may not see the effects for some time. That’s in part because the court did not overturn any decisions that were made in accordance with its Chevron holding. …
And now that the government’s “heavy thumb on the scale” has been removed in the form of nixing Chevron deference, courts will not afford special status to the interpretations of agencies like DOL, DeCamp said.
“The longer-term impact is that the elimination of Chevron deference will probably force agencies, including the DOL, to be more thoughtful and judicious in the rules that they issue,” DeCamp said. “In the long run, it will lead to better regulations that adhere more closely to the statutes that Congress enacts.” …
DOL rules may not fare well in federal courts
Another long-term effect for employers to watch is that the back-and-forth nature of regulatory actions between election cycles could be mitigated by the Loper Bright ruling to some extent, DeCamp said.
“Of course when there’s a change of administration, there’s oftentimes a dramatic shift in policy preferences that’s a normal part of the ebb and flow of the elections process. I don’t think that will change,” he added. “But the elimination of Chevron and the pressure it puts on the executive branch agencies to be more thoughtful will help to mitigate this see-sawing effect that we get.”
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