U.S. Solicitor General Noel Francisco, choosing a middle path in a major dispute over the power of regulators, told the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday that two precedents directing courts to defer to an agency's interpretation of its own ambiguous regulations should be significantly narrowed but not reversed.

“As appropriately limited,” Francisco wrote in a brief posted Monday night, “stare decisis counsels against overturning Seminole Rock and Auer in their entirety.”

Auer v. Robbins, a 1997 Supreme Court decision, and its 1945 predecessor Bowles v. Seminole Rock & Sand have long been targets of business advocates and conservatives because they are viewed as giving too much power to agencies that may interpret ambiguous regulations too broadly or vaguely.