The Shortcomings of Auer Deference

This very real possibility is highlighted by the high level of deference given to agencies under Auer vs. Robbins and its subsequent line of cases.

Please link to the cases, so the reader can immediately and conveniently see for herself what they say.

Auer deference threatens the separation of powers by allowing agencies to essentially determine the law without going through notice-and-comment rulemaking without subjecting interpretations to a high enough level of analysis.

If the agency can achieve the same result by a different means, it is not the separation of powers that has been affected: the power didn't move. Nor has judicial review been eliminated, because the citizen suing over agency action reaches the court of appeals by the same means she previously had, with all the same remedies available. Why does the standard of review used by the appellate court in deciding whether the agency's interpretation of the regulations should be applied in the court of appeals—before proceeding to determine whether the regulation comports with the agency's statutory authorization, etc.—implicate the separation of powers?

Even the subsequent exceptions carved out to narrow Auer deference fail to enable courts to investigate agency decisions thoroughly. As it is, Auer deference should be abandoned by courts in favor of Skidmore deference, which empowers courts to use their interpretive tools to determine the level of deference owed to agencies.

Deference under Auer is extremely high - unless an agency’s interpretation of its own ambiguous regulation is clearly erroneous or inconsistent, deference is warranted. Further, an agency’s interpretation need not be the only possible interpretation or the best possible interpretation; it only has to be a reasonable interpretation for deference to be warranted. In effect, agencies are able to have their interpretations given the force of law without having to undergo notice-and-comment rulemaking or other procedures.

No, the regulation made pursuant to the APA is made pursuant to the APA. If the regulation is interpreted by the agency in a fashion unsupported by the record resulting in the rule, than the agency's interpretation of the regulation is clearly erroneous. What more is there to this argument?

The exceptions to Auer that the Court created after realizing the potential for agency abuse of Auer deference are not enough to temper the separation of powers concerns. The exceptions are either lacking in substantial clarification as to how and when they should be applied, are unreasonably narrow in many circumstances, or are easily avoidable by agencies with a passing familiarity of their applications. The exceptions to Auer apply when an agency interpretation lacks fair and considered judgment, when an agency interpretation comes as an unfair surprise, or when an agency’s regulation parrots statutory language.

While the first exception regarding judgment sounds like it would have a straightforward application and a high bar. However, the Court has declined to clarify what is meant by fair and considered judgment and has instead opted to suggest what it is not. Thus far the Court has said that a lack of fair and considered judgment might be evidenced by either an interpretation that conflicts with a prior interpretation or a post hoc rationalization or convenient litigating position. This definition, or lack thereof, is not in line with what we might expect fair and considered judgment to mean.

Which is?

Further, agencies do not have to affirmatively show that they used fair and considered judgment. Despite the exceptions to fair and considered judgment, the Court has made clear that an agency is not disqualified from changing its mind because agencies are encouraged to scrutinize their interpretations and policies. The non-dispositive nature of the exception allows agencies to wiggle out of it. Once the exception of a post hoc rationalization was established, agencies were put on notice of the requirement and therefore became able to again escape the loophole with simple actions. Finally, a convenient litigating position is a collection of words that seem arbitrary and without meaning. While the Court has made clear what fair and considered judgment is not, it has not elucidated what it is. Fair and considered judgment does not seem to require citations to data, precedent, or experts (as the agencies are presumed to be the experts). In effect fair and considered judgment becomes a meaningless, squishy standard that agencies can circumvent without showing anything.

How do we know that this is true? Here is where one might have expected some cases to be cited, demonstrating that the courts of appeals are unable to hold agencies to the use of fair and considered judgement.

The exception regarding parroting is similarly laughable. While the Court has made clear that summarizing or paraphrasing will suffice to meet this exception, even this standard is easy enough to meet. Since agencies are aware of the standard, they can be sure that their regulations go beyond parroting by explaining and clarifying what a statute or statutory term means.

The point was that if the agency's interpretation of the regulation uses statutory language, then it is reasonable for the court of appeals to read the statute for itself, as it would expect to do in reviewing the interpretation of a statute by the District Court, de novo.

Why does the analysis assume that the agency and the reviewing court are adversaries, with the agency "weaseling out" or "getting around" what is in fact a common task: giving effect to the Congressional direction?

Agencies can then lean on presumptions of expertise and knowledge implicit and necessary to administrative law in order to escape this exception as well.

Finally, the exception of unfair surprise is unreasonably narrow. Unfair surprise applies when notice is not provided to a regulated agency or when liability is imposed for past actions. Not only are the applications of unfair surprise when interpreted this way narrow, but they also disregard the consequences agency actions have on individuals. In reading unfair surprise as only applying to regulated entities, the exception disregards that agency guidelines have very real effects on private citizens. For instance, if the Department of Education issues an interpretation that overturns a prior regulation, which is of course permitted despite the fair and considered judgment exception, the concern of unfair surprise should be for the students, families, and school officials affected more so than for the regulated entities.

Here we now get to the underlying issue, which is bathrooms.

Various points can be made on both sides of that proposition. But for people who are concerned about non-cisgendered persons using the bathroom in which they feel comfortable, the relevant interests aren't those of the regulated entity (called a school), but rather someone who isn't subject to the regulation at all. It's a little hard to understand why their "surprise," unfair or otherwise, should have any effect on the rather remote question of the standard of review to be applied by courts of appeals to agency interpretations of the agency's own regulations. But when people want to fight about bathrooms, apparently, nothing in reason will stop them.

Given that Auer deference diverts judiciary power to agencies, it should be discarded for Skidmore deference, which balances the interests of respecting agency expertise and recognizing judges’ roles. Skidmore deference is afforded on a sliding scale based on how an agency’s interpretation does against factors including thoroughness of consideration, validity of reasoning, consistency and contemporaneousness of an interpretation, and other persuasive powers of the agency. While these factors are similarly somewhat lacking in clarity, they provide Courts with more tools and agency by which to determine how much deference is owed. Skidmore deference is already applied in cases where courts are unsure whether Auer applies, so the transition would be smooth and clarifying. Applying Skidmore to agencies’ interpretations of their own ambiguous regulations would address the shortcomings of Auer, while allowing for courts to determine how to best apply the different factors.

The most important route to improvement is to find a point of contact between what you are writing and what someone who doesn't agree with you would write. If you are writing about the standard of review question, then you would want to acknowledge and respond to the arguments of those who think clearly erroneous review of agency interpretations of agency regulations is in general the correct posture for the court of appeals. There are no shortage of such writers to discuss, on and off the bench, but they and their ideas are all absent from this draft.

If you are writing about whether the Department of Education has to make a new rule defining "sex" for the purpose of interpreting its own existing regulations to apply them (as "Dear Colleague" guidance, now revoked) to decisions by schools about which bathrooms non-cisgendered persons should use, then the best way of strengthening the essay is to explain that this is the subject, and to encounter the arguments on the other side of that question.

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