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In 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court introduced a sea change to federal administrative law when it formally ended the Chevron deference doctrine in Loper Bright v. Raimondo. In its place, Loper Bright calls on judges to review agency interpretations of their statutory authority using de novo review. Two years later, we are still grappling with the full implications of this decision — not just for administrative law, but for our entire system of governance.

As part of its aggressive campaign to “deconstruct the administrative state” on behalf of the Trump administration, the so-called Department of Government Efficiency controversially outsourced many crucial tasks to artificial intelligence (AI) programs like ChatGPT. In one episode, the program flagged funding for research on plastics industry lobbying and for digitizing audio reels by the Boston Symphony Orchestra while searching through National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) grants to eliminate those supposedly promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion. Despite such glaring errors, DOGE fully adopted ChatGPT’s recommendations to terminate over 1,400 grants. These errors illustrate two intrinsic problems with AI: hallucination (an AI system producing nonsensical or inaccurate outputs) and sycophancy (an AI system modifying its response to align with users’ views). With AI use likely to become more prevalent within the federal government, existing legal safeguards — including those supplied by administrative law — will need to be updated and adapted to account for these problems.

This past summer, the United States endured a string of climate change-linked heat waves, contributing to an estimated 70 deaths and wrecking food production at farms and ranches across the country. Wildfires, many amplified by climate-driven changes in weather patterns, have already burned 8.4 million acres of land — an area larger than the state of Maryland — destroying homes and other property and subjecting tens of millions of Americans to hazardous air pollution. With disasters like these, it is easy to see how various studies have pinned the average household cost of climate change at well over $1,000 per year. If the oil and gas industry has its way at the U.S. Supreme Court, those households — rather than Big Oil itself — will continue footing that bill.

As the United States reaches the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, we at the Center for Progressive Reform find ourselves reflecting on a history that is both extraordinary and in progress. We also recognize that this anniversary carries different meanings for different people. Skye Perryman, President and CEO of Democracy Forward, puts it […]

With its June 29 decision in Trump v. Slaughter, the U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority takes another step toward building an imperial presidency on the ashes of the U.S. Constitution’s vision of a democratic republic. This clash over removal authority of independent agency heads was always meant as just the opening volley in this broader war. The end of the independent civil service, and even of administrative law itself, no longer seem improbable. The only real stopping point appears to be what the business community will tolerate, as today’s related decision in Trump v. Cook demonstrates.

For the pro-democracy crowd, the arrival of June each year brings a palpable sense of dread. We are keenly aware that it marks the end of the U.S. Supreme Court’s annual term, when the most controversial decisions are handed down. And each year, we are left to anticipate how exactly our oligarchs in black robes […]

The growing use of AI for such complex governance functions as regulatory decision-making is attracting attention. The practice risks putting two existing bodies of public law—those governing the rulemaking process and procurement, respectively—on a collision course: in particular, rulemaking’s emphasis on transparency and procurement’s emphasis on quick commercial transactions that often do not include robust transparency audits. The impetus for this potential clash is that the architecture of many of the AI systems that the federal government employs are developed by private contractors.

On April 24, The Washington Postpublished an op-ed that sought to blame an unusual source for the high energy and gas prices Americans are now facing: justice. Specifically, it claims that these price increases are the result of state and local governments trying to hold Big Oil accountable for the climate-related harms their constituents are continuing to suffer. I submitted a letter to the editor debunking the op-ed’s argument, noting that the real cause of higher gas prices is the illegal war in Iran.

The pursuit of idiosyncratic grievances and obsession with exerting unconstrained power have been the hallmarks of President Trump’s second term so far. But it was only last week, during a pair of congressional hearings, that the American public received its first real introduction to the obscure administration official largely responsible for translating Trump’s worst impulses into action: Russell Vought.