Civil Disagreements: Power, Liberty, and Regulation after Chevron

Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo overturned the Chevron doctrine, a legal precedent that guided how federal courts treated agency interpretations of ambiguous statutes. Under the Chevron doctrine, a court would prioritize an agency’s interpretation, citing the agency employees’ expertise in the relevant data, science, and general subject matter. Environmental issues, for example, would be best handled by the Environmental Protection Agency. This allowed federal agencies to enact regulations in many areas–e.g. environmental protection, healthcare, labor, worker safety. Striking down the doctrine means courts will no longer automatically defer to agencies’ interpretations of ambiguous laws; instead, they will exercise independent judgment. This decision reduces the power of federal agencies to interpret statutes broadly and potentially shifts more authority to the courts and, indirectly, to states. States might have greater freedom to enact their own laws and regulations to address problems, potentially leading to a more fragmented regulatory landscape across the country. States could also challenge federal regulations they deem too burdensome or not aligned with their priorities, leading to a potentially more decentralized and varied approach to addressing national issues.

Join us for a panel discussion about how this decision might shape regulations in Illinois and across the country.

Civil Disagreements is a series of moderated debates on current, critical, and often contentious civic questions sponsored by Reform for Illinois, the American Bar Association’s Division for Public Education, the American Constitution Society (Chicago and Austin, TX chapters), and the Federalist Society (Chicago chapter).