ABA Urges Supreme Court to Restore Limits on Chevron Deference

The American Bankers Association (ABA) on June 8 filed its reply brief urging the U.S. Supreme Court to review a lower court ruling in the association’s challenge of the National Credit Union Administration’s 2016 field of membership rule.

In August, a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld much of rule while remanding a portion related to redlining concerns. The court will grant ABA’s petition if four of the nine justices vote to accept the case.

In appealing, ABA argued that the D.C. Circuit’s decision “stretches Chevron deference past the breaking point” in ruling that NCUA could define a “local community” as a combined statistical area inhabited by up to 2.5 million people or define an entire state as a “rural district.” Under the Supreme Court’s Chevron doctrine, courts defer to administrative agencies’ interpretation of statutes they administer where Congress has not specifically addressed the question at issue.

In its reply brief, ABA said that NCUA sought to “dodge the issue” of Chevron deference. The association argued that the case does in fact present the question of whether an express delegation of definitional authority expands an agency’s discretion at Chevron step two, and that agencies are not granted “vast discretion” simply because of express delegation. “The Court should grant review and restore appropriate limits on Chevron deference,” ABA said.

Read the reply brief.