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What Can Booker Teach Us About Chevron?, Joshua L. Sohn

Joshua L. Sohn

Since 1984, courts have used the Chevron framework to review administrative agencies’ rules and regulations. However, there is an unresolved debate over how to determine when an agency interpretation of its governing statute is “reasonable” at Step 2 of Chevron. This article seeks to inform that debate by analogizing to an unlikely source: the Supreme Court’s 2005 opinion in United States v. Booker. Booker was a criminal sentencing case that may seem far removed from the interpretive question in Chevron. But the two cases are striking similar in the “reasonableness” standard that they impose on reviewing courts.

This article suggests …