WASHINGTON, D.C. (Jan. 23, 2026) – NFIB filed an amicus brief in the case Relentless Inc. et al. v. U.S. Department of Commerce at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. The case concerns the obligation of courts to review agency interpretations of statutes after the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Loper Bright v. Raimondo, which eliminated Chevron deference. NFIB’s brief argues that courts must independently and thoroughly review whether a statute provides an agency the authority that it claims.

“This case will reveal whether the lower federal courts are following the Supreme Court’s command in Loper, or whether they continue to place a thumb-on-the-scale in favor of federal agencies, to the detriment of small businesses,” said Beth Milito, Vice President and Executive Director of NFIB’s Small Business Legal Center. “The district court failed in its obligation to assess the challenged statute independently and thoroughly. NFIB urges the court to reverse the decision below in favor of promoting faithful compliance with the new Loper standard.”

NFIB’s brief argues several points: 1) Loper requires Courts to perform both an independent analysis and thorough review to determine the best reading of a statute, 2) The district court’s analysis failed to comply with this obligation to provide a sufficiently independent and thorough judgment, instead relying on deference-based reasoning to uphold the agency action, and 3) The notion that regulated entities are responsible for the costs of being regulated has no legal basis and is harmful for small businesses.

The NFIB Small Business Legal Center protects the rights of small business owners in the nation’s courts. NFIB is currently active in more than 40 cases in federal and state courts across the country and in the U.S. Supreme Court.