Fair question... with Chevron, the experts in the executive were just presumed to be acting in good faith, particularly in the face of vague legislation.
The bar to overturning those executive rules is now potentially much lower.
Take the ATF's bump stock ban (overturned prior to Chevron being killed, IIRC)...
- Congress has effectively banned machine guns (for normal people to own)
- ATF decides bump stocks make machine guns
- Bump stock owner sues ATF, claiming they overreached
- Courts initially upheld ATF rule (deferring to ATF experts)
- Appeals courts overturned lower court ruling, claiming bump stocks don't meet the definition spelled out by Congress.
As much as I hate it, the appeals court is technically correct. The law passed by Congress was narrowly tailored and bump stocks don't meet that rule.
So, this was a case where Chevron was actually "worse" than "no-Chevron".
But, it's easy enough to imagine the reverse. Congress says "hey EPA, make the air clean!" with little or no guidance on the mechanism they want followed. EPA does its best, but now gets sued by any big industry that wants to pollute. With Chevron in place, implementing that vague law is still possible. Without it, EPA does it's best and often ends up losing to the other side's experts (and very likely the various districts decide differently, leading to inconsistent application of the law across the country, until/unless SCOTUS takes a case).
The simple answer is to require Congress to write detailed laws. But, that's not really possible (given the scope of the government). And exacerbated by the dysfunctional state of affairs we've seen in Congress these last few decades.
I'm not sure what's worse... inconsistent rulings, or a central authority with possibly ulterior motives (which might also change every few years). Perhaps they're in a way, the same thing?
Either way, neither option sounds particularly favorable to me.
The bar to overturning those executive rules is now potentially much lower.
Take the ATF's bump stock ban (overturned prior to Chevron being killed, IIRC)... - Congress has effectively banned machine guns (for normal people to own) - ATF decides bump stocks make machine guns - Bump stock owner sues ATF, claiming they overreached - Courts initially upheld ATF rule (deferring to ATF experts) - Appeals courts overturned lower court ruling, claiming bump stocks don't meet the definition spelled out by Congress.
As much as I hate it, the appeals court is technically correct. The law passed by Congress was narrowly tailored and bump stocks don't meet that rule.
So, this was a case where Chevron was actually "worse" than "no-Chevron".
But, it's easy enough to imagine the reverse. Congress says "hey EPA, make the air clean!" with little or no guidance on the mechanism they want followed. EPA does its best, but now gets sued by any big industry that wants to pollute. With Chevron in place, implementing that vague law is still possible. Without it, EPA does it's best and often ends up losing to the other side's experts (and very likely the various districts decide differently, leading to inconsistent application of the law across the country, until/unless SCOTUS takes a case).
The simple answer is to require Congress to write detailed laws. But, that's not really possible (given the scope of the government). And exacerbated by the dysfunctional state of affairs we've seen in Congress these last few decades.