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Be Reasonable: The Applicability Of Chevron To Agency Interpretations Of Split-Authority Statutes, Jessica L. Asbridge

Marquette Law Review

The well-known Chevron doctrine is under siege as courts continue to carve out exceptions to its scope and some scholars and judges question whether it should be overruled entirely. One ongoing battle concerns whether the doctrine, which requires courts to defer to reasonable agency interpretations of ambiguous statutes, applies to certain “split-authority” statutes administered by multiple agencies, such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act’s whistleblower provisions (SOX) and similar employment statutes. Both the Department of Labor (DOL) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) administer SOX’s whistleblower provisions, with the DOL having formal adjudicative authority and the SEC having rulemaking authority, leading …