The Supreme Court this year overturned “Chevron deference” in its Loper Bright ruling, which deals a seismic blow to federal bureaucracy. Under the old standard, federal courts deferred to agency interpretations of law when a statute was deemed ambiguous. That’s no longer the case & here are some facts on the scope of its impact:Lower federal courts relied upon Chevron somewhere between 17,000 - 19,000 judicial opinions. A 2022 study found that federal appellate courts applied Chevron in ~85% of cases in which an agency interpretation is at stake. In ~60% of these cases, the court concluded the statute was ambiguous (Chevron Step One) and proceeded to determine whether the agency’s interpretation was reasonable (Chevron Step Two), at which point they sided with the agency 77% of the time.A separate study evaluated more than 1,300 courts of appeals cases from 2003 to 2013 and found 94% deference to the agencies’ position at Chevron Step Two.Overturning Chevron deference, combined with the Major Questions Doctrine codified in West Virginia vs EPA, paves the way for not a slight but a *drastic* reduction in the scope of the federal regulatory state. It’s coming.