The Supreme Court ruled against me to empower federal agencies. They got it right.

Forty years ago, I argued a clean air case before the Supreme Court and lost — at least on the specific question in the case.

The court, though, laid out sound and essential principles for judicial restraint when reviewing federal agency decisions.

Now, in a pair of cases to be argued today, the court will rule on whether to radically change course and put unelected judges in the driver’s seat for decisions that should be made by politically accountable officials.

The court got it right in 1984. It should stand by that ruling. 

At stake is how effective our government can be in protecting clean air and water, safe food and medicine, workplace conditions, the integrity of our financial markets and much more.

As a young Natural Resources Defense Council advocate in 1984, I argued what became a landmark Supreme Court case — Chevron USA v Natural Resources Defense Council.

The Reagan administration had weakened a key Clean Air Act provision to benefit oil and gas giants like Chevron and other big industrial polluters at the expense of clean air and public health. We asked the court to overrule the administration, arguing that the Environmental Protection Agency was contradicting the clear intent of Congress.

The court ruled, though, that, in voting to cut air pollution, Congress had given the EPA leeway to decide which industrial projects should have to meet the law’s toughest clean-up requirements, and which could be built without them. 

In such cases, the court ruled, it wasn’t the role of unelected judges to substitute their personal policy preferences for agency expertise — even if groups like ours disagreed with the agency’s specific choices.

It wasn’t the answer we’d hoped for, but we came to respect the ruling and the doctrine of “Chevron deference” it articulated. That framework protects the essential role of federal agencies in writing the rules and standards required to administer laws passed by Congress. 

Judges should step in when agencies flout the clear intent of Congress. But when Congress has enlisted federal agencies to help make the detailed decisions needed to carry out its laws, judges should exercise restraint. 

And, when there’s more than one reasonable way to interpret a law, a judge should respect the choice the agency makes. Unelected judges shouldn’t impose their own policy views on agencies that serve the president and respond to Congress.

That essential doctrine is being challenged before the court today, in a pair of cases: Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo and Relentless, Inc. v. Department of Commerce. The cases narrowly involve the management of the Atlantic herring fishery, but the stakes are much broader.

The court is being asked to do away with or weaken the Chevron deference doctrine that has guided four decades of law. That could allow hundreds of unelected lower court judges to make decisions based on personal preferences, disregarding the expertise of the federal agencies that are accountable to the public through the elected branches.

The result could be to undermine safeguards the public has counted on for decades and the ability of federal agencies to administer the laws that Congress passes.

That, of course, is the point of these cases. 

A few fishing boat owners are out in front, but siding with them are big business interests that seek to weaken the government oversight functions a modern society requires and public protections demand. They want the option to forum shop for favorable judges to make critical policy decisions, rather than the agencies Congress has tasked to carry out its laws.

The current Supreme Court has already handed down rulings in two recent cases — West Virginia v EPA and Sackett v. EPA — that bow to industry interests and significantly weaken the EPA’s ability to protect clean air and water. Once again, industry is asking the court to limit the government’s ability to faithfully administer our laws and protect the public from needless risk.

In the past 40 years, NRDC has argued hundreds of cases before federal courts. We’ve both lost and won, based on the Chevron deference. We understand, as well as anyone, that the doctrine can benefit different groups depending on the party in office.

Relying on the expertise of agencies accountable to the public, though, remains a far better way to administer our laws than leaving such questions in the hands of unelected judges who lack the same expertise. The court should tread carefully on this fraught ground.

David Doniger is senior strategic director of the climate and clean energy program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental advocacy organization with more than 3 million supporters nationwide.