Filling in “details” was the conceit of Chevron, but that’s not how it was used in practice. The agencies were creating vast new programs from whole cloth and demanding that courts defer to their interpretation of the statute as allowing it. Moreover, it has the effect of making it impossible for the legislature to count on the executive actually honoring compromises and trade offs baked into the legislation.

>> The whole reason Chevron came into existence is because it's impossible for Congress to pass explicit regulations for every little thing as soon as it's needed. So agencies were instead given broad legislative mandates like "keep the water clean" or "manage fish stocks" because it was impossible to enumerate every circumstance.

This misunderstands Chevron and the effect of its abandonment. Chevron stood for the proposition that the executive branch could generally interpret laws without judicial review (subject to a minimal standard which was nearly always met). What this meant in practice was that any agency could change its view on what the law means (and therefore change what the law is because courts were generally required to accept the new interpretation) whenever it wanted and that new view was binding law. This undermines two core principles of the American system: separation of powers (the judiciary says what the law is) and the rule of law (laws should be applied equally and consistently).

Eliminating Chevron returns us to the proper state of the law: the executive branch proposes a reading of the law, the other side proposes another, and an independent court considers both and states what the law is. And that’s the law going forward. It cannot be changed absent legislation. Congress passes a law, the judiciary says what the law is, and the executive executes it. If the executive wants to enforce a different law then it must get the legislative branch to pass that different law.

This is not a conservative talking point, it’s a talking point for anyone that thinks the President is not a king. It just seems like a conservative talking point to you because it was overturned during the Biden administration. Recall that Chevron came to be because of a Reagan administration interpretation.

Consider what the state of reality would be if Chevron remained good law today under the Trump administration. Trump’s interpretation of a statute would be what the statute says.

For example, 8 USC 1401 provides that “The following shall be nationals and citizens of the United States at birth: (g) a person born outside the geographical limits of the United States and its outlying possessions of parents one of whom is an alien, and the other a citizen of the United States who, prior to the birth of such person, was physically present in the United States or its outlying possessions for a period or periods totaling not less than five years, at least two of which were after attaining the age of fourteen years: Provided, That any periods of honorable service in the Armed Forces of the United States, or periods of employment with the United States Government or with an international organization as that term is defined in section 288 of title 22 by such citizen parent, or any periods during which such citizen parent is physically present abroad as the dependent unmarried son or daughter and a member of the household of a person (A) honorably serving with the Armed Forces of the United States, or (B) employed by the United States Government or an international organization as defined in section 288 of title 22, may be included in order to satisfy the physical-presence requirement of this paragraph. This proviso shall be applicable to persons born on or after December 24, 1952, to the same extent as if it had become effective in its present form on that date;”

Do you really want the Trump administration to be able to what any of the ambiguous terms mean in this provision? What do you think Trump’s interpretation of the “geographical limits of the United States” is? What about what “honorable service” means?

This is incorrect. Chevron deference wasn't giving the executive branch sole power to interpret ambiguous statutes as you claim (despite your scary example). The so-called Chevron deference doctrine was simply that the Supreme Court ruled (~40 years ago in the Reagan administration) that if an agency is responsible for administering a statute that's ambiguous, that agency's interpretation should be deferred to.

But the real problem comes in because 40 years of laws were written both both parties with Chevron deference in mind. Not only did Congress not take action to overrule Chevron, consistently for 40 years, they intentionally wrote ambiguous statutes to give agency's the power to interpret those statutes, mostly because enumerating every possible circumstance was impossible.

Take managing fish stocks. What fish stocks? When should fishing seasons be? What's the inspection mechanism? How are licenses and quotas issues? How are they enforced? How should all this be reported to the public, Congress and the president? What about fish stocks that border international waters? How should they be managed?

Chevron acknowledged what was already happening: it was impossible to write legislation that way. Congress didn't have the bandwidth to initially write it, let alone maintain it as circumstances change.

The Supreme Court (rightly) recognized that without Chevron deference it would be impossible to an agency manage anything because any ambiguities or any simply unofreseen gaps would be used to neuter the agency in the courts. It made it impossible to have such agencies and that's the whole point of overturning Chevron. The very wealthy don't want Fedearl agencies. The whole thing is a libertarian wet dream and over the coming years we'll see the consequences as the same people poison the water supply and the food supply, overfish alal fishing stocks, crash the economy through unregulated financial markets and so on.

>> The so-called Chevron deference doctrine was simply that the Supreme Court ruled (~40 years ago in the Reagan administration) that if an agency is responsible for administering a statute that's ambiguous, that agency's interpretation should be deferred to.

This is a misstatement of what the law was. Under Chevron, the agency’s interpretation MUST be deferred to, not should. This is an affront to the separation of powers.

Agencies are not neutered. Nor are they prevented from interpreting ambiguous statutes post-Chevron. They are prevented from being the final say on interpretation. This is good, just, and in line with America’s constitutional regime.