State AGs Poised to Lead Post-Chevron Regulatory Litigation Surge
In-house counsel for regulated businesses must update compliance and enforcement strategies to address an expected surge of state attorney general-led challenges to federal agency rules following the overturning of Chevron deference.
The 2024 Supreme Court ruling in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo overturned the 40-year-old Chevron deference doctrine, which previously required courts to defer to reasonable federal agency interpretations of ambiguous statutes. With that precedent eliminated, state attorneys general—who already regularly challenge federal regulations on policy and partisan grounds—are poised to lead both defensive enforcement of state-level rules and offensive litigation against federal agency actions they oppose. Regulated industries should anticipate increased parallel state and federal regulatory scrutiny, more frequent challenges to existing compliance obligations, and divergent state-level rulemaking. In-house counsel should audit current compliance frameworks, monitor state AG policy priorities in their operating jurisdictions, and build cross-jurisdictional litigation response plans to navigate this fragmented enforcement environment.