By: Riley Amdor
I. INTRODUCTION
The overturning of the administrative deference established in Chevron, U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., could have major impacts on the environment and public health.[1] Under Chevron deference, if a statute under an agency’s purview is ambiguous, and Congress’s intent is not clear, the court looks to whether the agency’s rule “is based on a permissible construction of the statute.”[2] By overturning this doctrine, the courts now use the new standard: independent judgment by the court to determine whether an agency has acted within its purview.[3] Agencies are the experts in a particular field at issue, and by leaving the determination to the courts, many environmental regulations may be deemed unreasonable, though the result will vary by jurisdiction.[4] This could exacerbate an already worsening environmental crisis and have detrimental effects on public health.
II. BACKGROUND:
In Chevron, the main question before the Supreme Court was whether the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) interpretation of the Clean Air Act[5] for their air pollution source regulation was a “reasonable construction of the ‘statutory source.’”[6] The Supreme Court created Chevron deference, holding that deference should be given to agencies’ constructions of statutes, so long as two requirements were met.[7] First, the court looked to whether Congress has spoken directly on the issue that is the subject of agency regulation.[8] If Congress has spoken directly on the issue, or if Congress’s intent was otherwise clear, the agency must defer to Congress’s meaning.[9] If Congress had not spoken on the issue, then a court would look to whether the agency’s interpretation of the statute was permissible.[10] If a court found that the agency’s interpretation permissible, the agency’s interpretation would be given deference, and that interpretation would fill the gap the Congress left.[11] This deference was overturned in Loper Bright Enters. v. Raimondo.[12]
In Loper Bright, the main question before the Supreme Court was whether Chevron deference was lawful.[13] Ultimately, the Court found that Chevron went against the principles outlined in the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), which specifies that the courts will decide “‘all relevant questions of law’ arising on review of agency action.”[14] In overturning Chevron, the Court stated that “courts need not and under the APA may not defer to an agency interpretation of the law simply because a statute is ambiguous.”[15]
III. ANALYSIS
Many cases concerning regulations intended to positively impact the environment have relied on Chevron deference.[16] In Luminant Generation, a Clean Air Act case, the Petitioners sought review from the Fifth Circuit on the EPA’s rule that revised Texas’s State Implementation Plan; the EPA required each state to create plans that outline measures to limit and control emissions.[17] Ultimately, applying Chevron deference and other standards of review, the Fifth Circuit deferred to the EPA rule, finding that it was not an arbitrary and capricious.[18] By allowing deference under Chevron for the EPA decision, the Fifth Circuit allowed the EPA to take affirmative action to limit emissions and help further clean air.[19]
Similarly, Chevron deference was applied in another environmental case: Catskill Mountains Chapter of Trout Unlimited, Inc.[20] In Catskill, a case involving the Clean Water Act, the Second Circuit was asked to determine whether the EPA’s Water Transfers Rule should be granted Chevron deference.[21] The Second Circuit reversed the district court’s decision, finding that the second step of the Chevron analysis, whether the EPA’s interpretation was permissible, was satisfied, and that the Water Transfers Rule was reasonable.[22] Without Chevron deference, the result of Catskill would have continued the release of pollutants into water, resulting in a negative impact on the environment and public health in general. In contrast, in his dissent in Catskill, Circuit Judge Chin disagreed that the Water Transfers Rule was a reasonable interpretation of the Clean Water Act, concluding that Chevron deference would be inapplicable in the case.[23] It is unlikely that cases such as Catskill would pass the new standard that Loper Bright outlines, especially when considering Circuit Judge Chin believed that the Water Transfers Rule did not meet the prongs of the Chevron test.
Leaving the courts to determine whether an agency’s interpretation of a statute is permissible is problematic, especially for cases involving the environment.[24] With cases involving clean air and clean water, such as those mentioned above, many courts are not equipped to determine whether an agency’s interpretation is permissible under a particular statute because determinations regarding clean air and water involve “complex scientific questions of toxicology, risk, and environmental fate.”[25] Clean air and clean water are crucial to protecting public health. Placing the permissibility determination with courts could not just slow necessary protections from being implemented through a flood of legal challenges, but if courts do not fully understand the science behind an agency interpretation, it could prevent the protections from being implemented entirely.[26]
Justice Kagan explains the idea of courts being ill-equipped to handle complex environmental cases in her Loper Bright dissent.[27] Justice Kagan explained that Congress is aware that it alone cannot write perfect statutes without ambiguities,[28] and it would usually prefer to have the correct agency fill in the gaps.[29] Justice Kagan also discussed how agencies, not courts, hold the expertise on technical and scientific matters.[30] Additionally, Justice Kagan added that, because the Court has overturned Chevron, the courts will now become “the country’s administrative czar,” flooding the courts with regulatory challenges.[31] While Justice Kagan’s dissent outlined concerns about all agencies, the technical nature of environmental regulations are particularly of concern because courts are neither equipped nor have the time to handle challenges.[32]
IV. CONCLUSION
In sum, the Supreme Court’s overturning of Chevron could cause potentially devastating effects on the environment because agencies are no longer given deference when creating regulations based on their understanding of a statute. Leaving the decision up to the courts to determine whether an agency’s interpretation is reasonable creates uncertainty in the field and takes environmental protections out of the hands of experts.
[1] See Daniel Esty, In the Wake of the Chevron Decision, Yale Sch. of the Env’t (July 16, 2024), https://perma.cc/9ST5-PRQP.
[2] Chevron, U.S.A., Inc. v. NRDC, Inc., 467 U.S. 837, 843 (1984).
[3] See Loper Bright Enters. v. Raimondo, 144 S.Ct. 2244, 2261 (2024).
[4] See Stephen Wolfson, The Purposeful Messiness of United States Caselaw, Penn Libr. News (May 22, 2024), https://perma.cc/ZG5T-ZCDF.
[5] See 42 U.S.C. § 7401 et. seq. (1970).
[6] Chevron, 467 U.S. at 840.
[7] See id. at 842.
[8] Id.
[9] See id. at 842-43.
[10] See id. at 843
[11] See id. at 843-44.
[12] See Loper Bright, 144 S.Ct. at 2261 (2024).
[13] See id. at 2254.
[14] Id. at 2261.
[15] Id. at 2273.
[16] See, e.g., Luminant Generation Co. LLC v. United States EPA, 714 F.3d 841 (5th Cir. 2013) (explaining that, because the Fifth Circuit allowed an agency’s decision to stand based on Chevron deference, the EPA was able to pass rules to better air quality); Catskill Mts. Chptr. Of Trout Unlimited, Inc. v. United States EPA, 846 F.3d 492 (2d Cir. 2017).
[17] See Luminant, 714 F.3d at 845 (5th Cir. 2013).
[18] See id. at 853, 855.
[19] Id.
[20] See Catskill, 846 F.3d 492 (2d Cir. 2017).
[21] See id. at 500.
[22] See id. at 500.
[23] See id. at 533 (Chin, C.J., dissenting).
[24] See Esty, supra note 1.
[25] See id.
[26] See id.
[27] See Loper Bright, 144 S.Ct. at 2294 (2024) (Kagan, J., dissenting).
[28] One rebuttal to this argument is that Congress should be more proactive in writing clearer statutes or more reactive to issues that arise in court. Since the first prong of the Chevron test is whether Congress had spoken directly on the issue at hand, a solution under the new Loper Bright rule would be for Congress to create more clear statutes. However, this issue hinges largely on constitutional arguments that are outside the scope of this article.
[29] See Loper Bright, 144 S.Ct. at 2294 (2024) (Kagan, J., dissenting).
[30] See id.
[31] Id. at 2295.
[32] Although courts might not be equipped to handle complex environmental questions, expert testimony will be permitted as evidence in proceedings. So, although Chevron’s overturning could create negative effects on the environment, the overturning is not detrimental to environmental protections being passed.
About the Author:
Riley Amdor is a second-year J.D. candidate at Penn State Law. She received her B.S. from Illinois State University in 2022 where she double majored in Legal Studies and Political Science with a minor in Philosophy. At Penn State Law, Riley is a Student Clinician with the Center for Immigrants’ Rights Clinic and is a Research Assistant with the Penn State Center for Agricultural and Shale Law.
Suggested Citation: Riley Amdor, Chevron’s Collapse: How Ditching Deference Could Greenlight Environmental Harm, Penn St. L. Rev.: F. Blog (Apr. 22, 2025), https://www.pennstatelawreview.org/the-forum/chevrons-collapse-how-ditching-deference-could-greenlight-environmental-harm/