The prediction was that, following the U.S. Supreme Court’s Chevron/Loper Bright decision, the California Coastal Commission’s scope and authority would be ‘peeled back’ and ‘dialed down’ over the ensuing years.

In June 2024, the Supreme Court decided Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, expressly overruling Chevron and ending the federal doctrine of automatic judicial deference to agency interpretations of ambiguous statutes, reinforcing a broader anti‑regulatory legal environment. (mayerbrown.com) Although that ruling formally concerns federal, not state, agencies, the prediction was about downstream political and regulatory effects on the California Coastal Commission.

Since the podcast (October 2024), there have in fact been concrete legal and regulatory moves that reduce the Commission’s authority in important contexts. In January 2025, Governor Gavin Newsom declared a wildfire state of emergency and issued Executive Order N‑4‑25, using his emergency powers under Government Code section 8571 to suspend CEQA and all California Coastal Act permitting requirements for rebuilding structures destroyed or damaged by the Los Angeles and Ventura County fires. (ceqadevelopments.com) This order temporarily removes the Commission’s permitting jurisdiction over a large set of coastal rebuild projects.

When the Commission issued guidance attempting to continue applying statutory Coastal Act exemption criteria to those projects, Newsom responded with Executive Order N‑14‑25 (January 27, 2025), explicitly clarifying that all Coastal Act requirements, including those exemption provisions, were suspended and directing the Commission not to issue guidance or take any action suggesting that Coastal Act permitting procedures still applied to covered rebuilds. (dailyjournal.com) Environmental and legal analyses summarize that this series of executive orders (N‑2‑25, N‑4‑25, N‑9‑25, N‑14‑25, later N‑20‑25) effectively removes state coastal permitting requirements for wildfire rebuilding in the affected coastal areas, with Commission staff acknowledging that the Coastal Act will not impede those rebuilds. (la.surfrider.org) This is a clear, formal dialing‑down of the Commission’s authority in a substantial portion of the coastal zone, implemented through regulatory and executive changes after Loper Bright.

Parallel political efforts have also targeted the Commission. Representative Kevin Kiley introduced the Coastal Commission Accountability Act, which would require California to automatically comply with federal coastal decisions, stripping the Commission of much of its autonomous regulatory power under the Coastal Zone Management Act; while this federal bill has not (yet) been enacted, it illustrates ongoing, post‑Chevron attacks on the Commission’s authority. (sfgate.com) At the same time, some litigation has upheld the Commission’s powers (for example, a 2025 tentative ruling in Sable Offshore’s Santa Ynez pipeline dispute that sustained the Commission’s cease‑and‑desist order and rejected the company’s challenge to the agency’s authority), showing that its core legal framework remains intact. (reuters.com)

Netting this out, however, the prediction was not that the Commission would be abolished, but that its scope and authority would be reduced in the years following the Chevron/Loper Bright decision. The post‑2024 emergency executive orders suspending Coastal Act permitting and ordering the Commission to stand down in large wildfire‑affected coastal areas are significant, real‑world examples of its authority being ‘peeled back’ and ‘dialed down’ via legal and regulatory action in that period. Although the changes are targeted and partly temporary, they align with the substance and timing of the forecast. On balance, the prediction is best classified as right, with the caveat that the long‑term, statewide extent of any structural weakening is still evolving.