Title: Who Will Regulate the Regulators? Administrative Agencies, the Separation of Powers, and Chevron Deference | The Heritage Foundation
Headings: Who Will Regulate the Regulators? Administrative Agencies, the Separation of Powers, and Chevron Deference
Who Will Regulate the Regulators? Administrative Agencies, the Separation of Powers, and Chevron Deference
An Unaccountable Fourth Branch of Government
Judicial Deference to Agencies
Problems with Chevron Deference
Restoring the Balance
Authors

Content: The President is the “ringmaster of the government,” Congress is tasked with “passing laws and juggling bills,” and the courts “take the law and they tame the crimes … balancing the wrongs with your rights.” [ 1]
But Schoolhouse Rock’s basic overview of American government overlooks the largest and perhaps most powerful part of the federal government: administrative agencies. An Unaccountable Fourth Branch of Government
Though typically categorized as part of the executive branch, administrative agencies perform legislative, executive, and judicial functions by issuing, enforcing, and settling disputes involving regulations that have the force of law. James Madison called such an accumulation of power the “very definition of tyranny.” [ 2] The Founders sought to prevent such tyranny—thereby safeguarding Americans’ individual liberties—by dividing the powers of the federal government among three coordinate branches. The modern administrative state, however, blurs the separation of powers and the system of checks and balances and has become an unaccountable fourth branch of government. The Progressive Era led to the creation and strengthening of agencies like the Federal Trade Commission and the Food and Drug Administration; the New Deal brought the Securities and Exchange Commission, the National Labor Relations Board, and the Federal Communications Commission; the 1970s heralded the Environmental Protection Agency;