Finance

FHLBs Invoke End of Chevron Doctrine in Face of New US Rules

  • Trade group cites high court’s recent ruling in letter to FHFA
  • Loper Bright opinion limits agency’s power, group’s chief says

The FHFA outlined a series of planned actions in a sweeping report in November. 

Photographer: Ting Shen/Bloomberg
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Eight months after US regulators laid out a sweeping plan to overhaul the $1.3 trillion Federal Home Loan Bank system, a fresh Supreme Court ruling risks derailing their strategy for muscling through changes.

The Council of Federal Home Loan Banks, a trade group representing the system, wrote to rulemakers this week that they need to consider the high court’s decision upending a 40-year-old legal precedent known as the Chevron doctrine. Under the old standard, courts generally deferred to the technical expertise of regulators when interpreting ambiguous laws.