It's important to note that balajis is anti-regulation, so his bias points out all the downsides of Chevron while ignoring the benefits.
I once ran a chemical plant and we partnered with the state to reduce emissions to single-digit parts per billion levels (from parts per million). They were completely aware that this was a difficult problem to solve, expensive, and technically challenging. They worked with us to get this done in a space of a couple of years, and we quickly reached a point where we could proudly state that we made a difference to my employees and our surrounding community.
When you don't have to pay for something it is easy to ask for more, and an agency led by a partisan could easily do so. Having the ability to challenge this allows us to push back in a structured way.
And it's also a responsibility you take on in starting a company with a byproduct that (I'm assuming) is toxic.
At the time this chemical was introduced, the hazards were not known to science. Over the decades, scientists began outlining the effects of this chemical on humans and the environment.
Once industry was able to study those findings and convince ourselves that this was a real problem, we adapted our operations to mitigate those harms.
Most industries in the US work pretty hard to keep our employees and environments safe, for self preservation, if for nothing else. I breathe the same air as my employees do, after all.
Most regulatory agencies are aware that dangerous chemicals have legitimate uses. The problem statement is how to balance those uses against the known hazards. They (mostly) find a sensible balance, but sometimes, they get taken over by leaders who push it too far in one direction or another. Overturning Chevron allows adjudication to reset the balance and that should be seen as a good thing.
…if we’re going along with the logic this court has been working with here.
Theoretically, but in reality there's corruption and partisan gridlock and nothing gets done
The idea that Congress could and pass regulations in a timely manner is a nice one. Unfortunately, Congress is almost completely dysfunctional, so there's a near-zero chance of that happening.
Many of the recent Supreme Court rulings seem to hinge on this idea that Congress can and should fulfill its role. And while that would be great, it completely ignores the reality of modern Congress. I fear we're going to suffer some extreme effects because the court is ruling based on how they think things ought to be, rather than what things are.
1: https://hbr.org/2023/02/banning-noncompetes-is-good-for-inno...