A year after Loper Bright, Congress has failed to step up

The Hill

6 hours ago

One year after the Supreme Court ended judicial deference to federal agencies in its landmark Loper Bright decision, Congress shows no sign of stepping up to the constitutional role the court affirmed.
Instead, Congress is actively dismantling its own capacity: proposing deep cuts to the very institutions that provide the expertise, oversight and support it needs to do the job that the court squarely placed in the first branch of government.
The absurdity of this mismatch was crystallized in a remarkable confluence of events this week. In one House hearing room, the Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party held a hearing on 'Algorithms and Authoritarians: Why US AI Must Lead,' grappling with complex issues of geopolitical and existential import.
That same day, the House Appropriations Committee released a bill proposing to slash funding for the very experts Congress relies on to understand and address these emerging issues. The bill would cut the Government Accountability Office by 50 percent and the Library of Congress (home to the Congressional Research Service) by 10 percent. These cuts would eliminate over 1,000 expert positions at the exact moment Congress needs them most.
Loper Bright overturned the 'Chevron doctrine,' under which for four decades courts deferred to agency interpretations of laws considered ambiguous. Many champions of the old doctrine argued that Congress could never possess the expertise to legislate with sufficient speed or clarity to address emerging issues. As Justice Elena Kagan put it during oral argument, 'Congress knows there are going to be gaps [in any future artificial intelligence legislation] because Congress can hardly see a week into the future with respect to' AI.
The court's majority rejected that argument and clarified that the Constitution places the lawmaking responsibility squarely with Congress, whether it likes it or not. And if Congress doesn't step up, the courts will decide.
But one year after Loper Bright, those initial doubts appear well-founded.
In the first six months after Loper Bright was decided, lower courts cited the decision more than 400 times. Rules on everything from firearm bump stocks to environmental permitting are being invalidated or reopened, but Congress has taken no meaningful steps to review or update those laws and is now actively undermining its ability to do so in the future.
Congress is now expected to legislate with greater precision, define agency authority more explicitly and ensure that statutes are interpretable, enforceable and implementable. That requires subject-matter expertise, rigorous oversight and modern legislative infrastructure. But rather than invest in those capabilities, Congress is defunding them.
This is more than just poor timing. It is a structural failure to respond to the new legal environment and to the most significant change driver of our time: artificial intelligence. Across the economy, AI is being deployed to write code, analyze documents, simulate regulations and accelerate research. Meanwhile, in Congress, AI is treated primarily as a risk to manage — not a capability to leverage.
The House Appropriations Committee, to its credit, acknowledges the potential of artificial intelligence. In its Financial Year 2025 report, it highlighted the value of large language models to improve legislative efficiency and encouraged collaboration between GAO, the Congressional Research Service, the Congressional Budget Office and the Library of Congress.
But those same agencies are being gutted. The rhetoric of innovation is paired with budgets that eliminate the very expertise required to realize it — the policy equivalent of demanding a sports car while removing the engine.
Loper Bright didn't just shift legal doctrine — it shifted responsibility. If lawmakers want regulations to stand, they must write clearer laws. If they want policy outcomes, they must legislate them. And if they want to govern effectively in an age of accelerated change, they must modernize how they work.
To be serious about reclaiming its constitutional role, Congress must start by rebuilding its own capacity. That means restoring funding for expert support agencies; hiring and retaining policy staff with legal, scientific and technical knowledge; and modernizing legislative technology and workflows. And yes — it means using AI to improve research, workflows and constituent engagement, so Congress can function in an era of exponential change.
The Supreme Court made clear that the pen is (and always has been) in Congress's hands. The question now isn't whether Congress has the authority, but whether it will invest in the tools and talent to use it.
Marci Harris is founder and CEO of POPVOX.com and the executive director of the nonprofit POPVOX Foundation. She is a lawyer and former congressional staffer.