John A. Townsend (Houston), Loper Bright Flip Flops on Chevron Deference: A Tax Lawyer’s Perspective, 79 Tax Law. 323 (2026):

This Article examines Chevron deference and the Supreme Court’s rejection of it in Loper Bright. The Article develops three central themes. First, Chevron deference required deference to the agency interpretation only when statutory ambiguity left courts unable to determine which interpretation was “best” within the zone of uncertainty; in that setting, Chevron functioned as a tie-breaker, not deference to an opposing best interpretation. Second, Loper Bright—now binding by Supreme Court fiat—rests on a flawed reading of APA section 706, which, properly understood, embeds requires deference in cases of interpretive ambiguity. Third, taking Loper Bright as mandated by fiat, the Article discusses some key issues that tax lawyers and practitioners will confront in Loper Bright’s aftermath.

As the title suggests, Loper Bright was a sharp flip-flop from Chevron and from the pre-Chevron deference doctrines that stretch back at least to the 1920s. Whether a future Court will reverse the flip-flop (at least incrementally) remains to be seen.

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