A Supreme Court ruling on Friday effectively ended the “Chevron Deference,” a doctrine that’s largely shaped American law for the past 40 years. This decision will significantly cut federal agencies’ power, a move that Utah politicians are celebrating, but environmental groups are deeply concerned about.
In 1984, the Supreme Court’s ruling in the case involving the oil company Chevron established that judges should defer to a reasonable federal agency and their interpretations when dealing with seemingly ambiguous laws.
This precedent has made room for federal agencies to engage in lawmaking by filling in the gaps left by Congress. The rationale behind this was that “Congress won’t always know best,” and that details were better left in the hands of experts, scientists, and economists at federal agencies.
Fast-forward four decades, and this landmark ruling has shaped thousands of legal decisions and has been cited by federal courts more than 18,000 times.
However, a historic 6-3 ruling on Friday ends the doctrine.
Utah conservative politicians celebrate
Rep. Celeste Maloy called the ruling a win for the American people. She said it was “one that gives a real blueprint to the process and cuts the red tape that adds costs and time to every project.”
Gov. Spencer Cox posted a video on X saying the old rule “empowered federal agencies to grow their missions and expand their power in ways that are consistently bad for state authority, bad for economic growth and bad for individual liberty and human flourishing.”
Sen. Mike Lee also started a thread on X, further explaining why he thinks that the Chevron Doctrine is so harmful.
He said that “Congress has delegated much of its lawmaking power to unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats,” and when that power is taken away from elected lawmakers, it “becomes dangerous and unwieldy.”
Environmentalists fear putting power in hands of courts
Environmental experts are deeply concerned about the environmental impacts of the ruling.
“This ruling not only threatens decades of progress towards a clean and healthy environment, it also puts pollution, food safety, airline safety, healthcare, worker protection — essentially thousands of safeguards in our day-to-day lives — at risk,” said Sarah Puzzo, regulatory associate at Utah Clean Energy.
She said that having unelected judges put in charge of writing specific laws “will cause years of chaos in federal courts, while Americans suffer the consequences.”
Logan Mitchell, Utah Clean Energy’s climate scientist and energy analyst cited specific legislation that was now in doubt. “Looking back at Utah’s air quality issues, and progress made to improve air quality, much of that progress was made with help from the [Environmental Protection Agency’s] Clean Air Act. That is an important example of the benefits these regulations bring to Utahns,” he said.
Lexi Tuddenham, executive director of Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah, told The Tribune that the ruling is “potentially very destructive.”
“If we defer too much to local authorities who may or may not have expertise in these things, we really move away from the ability to not only pivot to new science as it emerges, but also to have the idea of a basic human right,” Tuddenham said. “The basic biology of how air pollution harms public health does not change and the vast majority of the people who are making decisions won’t actually have expertise to decide what is best for my child for someone else’s child.”
However, Lincoln Davies, a law professor at the University of Utah and an expert in energy law, is more cautious about predicting the policy or environmental impact.
Davies said that during the Reagan administration in the 1980s, court rulings faced criticism for potentially leading to laxer environmental regulations. Since then, administrations have used the Chevron ruling to advance their own agendas.
“All we know for now is that regulations will be made on more uncertain ground because they can always be challenged,” Davies said.
