Chevron Is Gone, But the Bureaucracy Remains
The Supreme Court's 2024 decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo ended judicial deference to agency interpretations of ambiguous statutes, restoring interpretive authority to federal judges. That ruling did not shrink the administrative state. It merely returned the power to say what the law means to Article III courts. The real work of restoring self-government lies ahead.
The case involved a challenge to a National Marine Fisheries Service rule requiring fishing boats to pay for at-sea monitors. Lower courts had upheld the rule under Chevron deference. Chief Justice Roberts wrote for a six-justice majority that courts must exercise independent judgment in identifying the meaning of statutes. Agencies may still inform that judgment, but they no longer receive automatic deference.
The practical effect is enormous. Between 1984 and 2024, federal courts cited Chevron deference thousands of times to uphold regulations covering healthcare, energy, finance, and the environment. The Congressional Research Service noted in a 2024 report that the decision created uncertainty for existing rules and pending litigation. Entire regulatory programs now face renewed judicial scrutiny.
The ruling also puts pressure on Congress to write statutes with precision. Lawmakers can no longer pass aspirational language and expect agencies to fill the gaps with judicial blessing. That is a feature, not a bug, of a system that separates lawmaking from execution.
Lower courts will now decide which old regulations survive and which fall. That process will take years. In the meantime, agencies should prepare for a world where their word is no longer final. The most durable rules will be those grounded in explicit statutory text.
Congress Abdicated Long Ago
Lawmakers did not accidentally hand power to agencies over many decades of statutory drafting and regulatory expansion. They did it on purpose because vague statutes let Congress claim credit for popular goals while blaming unelected bureaucrats for the unpopular details. That arrangement serves politicians. It does not serve the Constitution.
The Constitution places all legislative power in Congress. Article I does not say Congress may delegate lawmaking to commissions, boards, or departments. Yet the modern administrative state rests on statutes that authorize agencies to fill in the blanks. The Clean Air Act instructs the Environmental Protection Agency to set standards that protect public health with an adequate margin of safety. The Affordable Care Act empowered the Department of Health and Human Services to define essential health benefits. These are legislative judgments dressed up as technical determinations.
The Supreme Court has occasionally pushed back. In West Virginia v. EPA in 2022, the Court invoked the major questions doctrine to block a sweeping power plant regulation. The majority insisted that agencies need clear congressional authorization for actions of vast economic and political significance. That doctrine remains contested. Critics call it a tool for judicial activism. Supporters call it a minimal safeguard for representative government.
Both sides should agree on one fact. The volume of federal regulation far exceeds what any legislature could plausibly have intended. The Code of Federal Regulations contains roughly 180,000 pages. The Federal Register published more than 70,000 pages of proposed and final rules in 2024 alone. No member of Congress read all of them. Few could even summarize the agencies they supposedly oversee.
The result is a constitutional bait and switch. Voters elect representatives to make hard choices. Instead they get rule books written by career staff, enforced by administrative judges, and insulated from normal political accountability. That may produce technocratic competence. It does not produce self-government.
Reform need not mean abolition. The executive branch requires specialists to enforce complicated laws. The issue is whether those specialists may also write the laws they enforce. That distinction lies at the heart of the separation of powers.
The Court Must Finish the Job
Loper Bright was a beginning, not an ending, and the Supreme Court should now require Congress to speak clearly when it wants agencies to make major policy choices. Clear statement rules would force legislators to take responsibility and give courts a manageable standard for review.
The Court can build on existing doctrines without inventing new ones. The nondelegation doctrine, long dormant, holds that Congress cannot transfer its legislative power without an intelligible principle to guide the recipient. The justices considered reviving it in Gundy v. United States in 2019 but fell one vote short. A future case presenting a clearer abuse could provide the opportunity the Court has been seeking.
Opponents of reform often invoke expertise. Agencies know more about fisheries, air pollution, and drug safety than generalist judges. That expertise matters when agencies apply facts to clear legal standards. It does not give them authority to create the standards themselves.
Some worry that aggressive review will paralyze government. That fear is overblown. States with weaker administrative deference function fine. Texas and Florida have both limited agency power through state law without descending into chaos. The federal government can adapt if Congress does its job. If lawmakers cannot agree on a rule, then the rule should not exist.
The alternative is rule by people nobody elected. That contradicts the basic promise of American government. The Supreme Court has the chance to restore that promise. It should take it.
