You may think you’ve seen the last of Chevron deference, but in the year since SCOTUS pronounced the era of Chevron dead, it has garnered more attention than ever. As a reminder, Chevron deference was overturned in the 2024 Loper Bright case, which held that federal courts may not defer to an agency’s interpretation of an ambiguous statute.[1] In the first six months after Loper Bright was decided, lower courts cited the decision more than 400 times[2], the president cited the decision in a memorandum ordering review and revocation of “conflicting” agency regulations[3], and states have moved to both codify Chevron and to preclude it via statute. Maybe Chevron’s time in the spotlight hasn’t quite faded, as the ripple-effects of overturning it continue to pervade all branches of government even a year after Loper Bright.
Effect in Federal Courts
Federal Courts are still attempting to untangle the effects, if any, that Loper Bright has on federal agency functions, such as rulemaking.[4] The Third Circuit has distinguished agency interpretations subject to Loper Bright from the promulgation of implementing regulations.[5] Similarly, the Seventh Circuit held that Loper Bright requires federal courts to uphold agency regulations where Congress expressly delegated rulemaking authority to the agency.[6]
“Perhaps the biggest battle emerging among the lower courts centers around what Loper Bright did to other sources of judicial review of and deference to the executive branch. For example, some courts insist that their review must be pursuant to the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) before Loper Bright eliminates deference, retaining deference to agencies in other circumstances.”
On one hand, the Third Circuit refused to extend the Loper Bright holding to apply to its pre-Chevron standard of deference to certain National Labor Relations Board classifications under the National Labor Relations Act, since district courts have held Loper Bright inapplicable to criminal law issues. On the other hand, the DC Circuit held that Loper Bright extended to judicial review of the EPA’s decisions pursuant to the Clean Air Act’s judicial review provisions, “because judicial review under the Clean Air Act is ‘essentially the same’ as judicial review under the APA.”[7] While it appears that Loper Bright does not address the issue of agency interpretation of regulations, that question has been the subject of litigation in the wake of the decision. Overall, the lower federal courts seem to interpret Loper Bright as broadly as possible when in a conservative circuit, and as strictly as possible when in a liberal circuit.
State Deference Standards
State-level approaches to agency-deference were varied prior to Loper Bright, and they remain varied, rooted in local politics, in the post-Chevron world. New Jersey and other traditionally blue-aligned states adopted their own version of Chevron deference, memorialized in either judicial precedent or state legislation. State-level deference to agencies to resolve statutory ambiguity is unlikely to be affected by Loper Bright, but we probably cannot refer to it as Chevron deference anymore.[8] On the other hand, several states have codified the Loper Bright holding to preclude Chevron deference at the state-level. This divide has only widened since Chevron’s downfall.
“Nearly two-thirds of the states continue to operate under some form of deference….”[9] In 2025, more than 13 states have introduced aligned anti-deference bills, five of which — Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Texas — prevailed.[10] So what we are seeing is, in effect, a political shifting of the deference standards, depending upon the voting color of your state, where blue states tend to defer to state agencies, and red states defer to the judiciary to interpret statutory ambiguity at the state-level.
Congressional Inaction
Finally, we turn to Congress, because Loper Bright envisioned a future in which Congress legislates with little to no ambiguity, so that we can avoid the issue of agency vs. judicial deference altogether. In the post-Chevron world, Courts should ideally rely on Congress to “legislate with greater precision, define agency authority more explicitly and ensure that statutes are interpretable, enforceable and implementable.”[11] Loper Bright sets an expectation for Congress to take a more active role – its intended Constitutional role – in legislating.
Though “congressional deference” is traditionally viewed as the proper vessel for statutory construction and interpretation, Congress has stayed largely silent in the post-Chevron debate. In the environmental space alone, Congress failed to take any action to reauthorize any of EPA’s principal statutes or authorities in decades, forcing the EPA to rely on outdated and ambiguous laws when drafting rules.[12] All things considered, we are not living in the ideal post-Chevron world that SCOTUS envisioned, especially where most of the existing statutes were passed under the expectation that agencies could rely on the historic Chevron-doctrine to clear up any ambiguities and reasonably fill in the gaps.
The true cost of Chevron’s death falls on the taxpayer, who is stuck with the bill for seemingly endless litigation stemming from Loper Bright and yet unanswered questions about the lasting impact of overturning Chevron deference. Chevron may be dead, but we’ll be haunted by the ripple effects of its execution for years, maybe decades to come.
[1] https://ballotpedia.org/Auer_deference
[2] https://minnesotalawreview.org/article/the-impact-of-loper-bright-v-raimondo-an-empirical-review-of-the-first-six-months/
[3] President issued a memorandum April 9 directing federal administrative agencies to revoke regulations they believe are unlawful without the standard 30- to 60-day public notice and comment period under the Administrative Procedure Act of 1946 (APA). The memo orders agencies to prioritize immediate elimination of rules that may conflict with recent Supreme Court rulings based on criteria outlined in Executive Order 14219, issued Feb. 19. https://ballotpedia.org/The_Checks_and_Balances_Letter:_May_2025
[4] ARTICLE: The Impact of Loper Bright v. Raimondo: An Empirical Review of the First Six Months, 109 Minn. L. Rev. 2671, 2716.
[5] Id.
[6] Midthun-Hensen v. Grp. Health Coop. of S. Cent. Wis., 110 F.4th 984, 988 (7th Cir. Aug. 5, 2024).
[7] ARTICLE: The Impact of Loper Bright v. Raimondo: An Empirical Review of the First Six Months, 109 Minn. L. Rev. 2671, 2708.
[8] States that adopted Chevron deference as a matter of state law face the issue of whether the U.S. Supreme Court’s overruling of Chevron automatically changes the state court standard of review as well. Id. at 2685.
[9] https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/5570270-one-year-later-a-world-without-chevron-deference/
[10] Id.
[11] https://thehill.com/opinion/congress-blog/5374349-a-year-after-loper-bright-congress-has-failed-to-step-up/
[12] COMMENT: A TALE OF TWO AGENCIES: CONTRASTING HOW THE LOSS OF CHEVRON DEFERENCE WILL IMPACT THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE AND THE ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY, 61 Cal. W. L. Rev. 491, 523