Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo

(Slip Opinion) OCTOBER TERM, 2023 1

Syllabus

NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is

being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued.

The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been

prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader.

See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

Syllabus

LOPER BRIGHT ENTERPRISES ET AL. v. RAIMONDO,

SECRETARY OF COMMERCE, ET AL.

CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR

THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

No. 22–451. Argued January 17, 2024—Decided June 28, 2024*

The Court granted certiorari in these cases limited to the question

whether Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council,

Inc., 467 U. S. 837, should be overruled or clarified. Under the Chev-

ron doctrine, courts have sometimes been required to defer to “permis-

sible” agency interpretations of the statutes those agencies adminis-

ter—even when a reviewing court reads the statute differently. Id., at

843. In each case below, the reviewing courts applied Chevron’s frame-

work to resolve in favor of the Government challenges by petitioners

to a rule promulgated by the National Marine Fisheries Service pur-

suant to the Magnuson-Stevens Act, 16 U. S. C. §1801 et seq., which

incorporates the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), 5 U. S. C. §551

et seq.

Held: The Administrative Procedure Act requires courts to exercise their

independent judgment in deciding whether an agency has acted within

its statutory authority, and courts may not defer to an agency inter-

pretation of the law simply because a statute is ambiguous; Chevron is

overruled. Pp. 7–35.

(a) Article III of the Constitution assigns to the Federal Judiciary

the responsibility and power to adjudicate “Cases” and “Controver-

sies”—concrete disputes with consequences for the parties involved.

The Framers appreciated that the laws judges would necessarily apply

in resolving those disputes would not always be clear, but envisioned

——————

*Together with No. 22–1219, Relentless, Inc., et al. v. Department of

Commerce, et al., on certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for

the First Circuit.

2 LOPER BRIGHT ENTERPRISES v. RAIMONDO

Syllabus

that the final “interpretation of the laws” would be “the proper and

peculiar province of the courts.” The Federalist No. 78, p. 525 (A. Ham-

ilton). As Chief Justice Marshall declared in the foundational decision

of Marbury v. Madison, “[i]t is emphatically the province and duty of

the judicial department to say what the law is.” 1 Cranch 137, 177. In

the decades following Marbury, when the meaning of a statute was at

issue, the judicial role was to “interpret the act of Congress, in order to

ascertain the rights of the parties.” Decatur v. Paulding, 14 Pet. 497,

515.

The Court recognized from the outset, though, that exercising inde-

pendent judgment often included according due respect to Executive

Branch interpretations of federal statutes. Such respect was thought

especially warranted when an Executive Branch interpretation was is-

sued roughly contemporaneously with enactment of the statute and

remained consistent over time. The Court also gave “the most respect-

ful consideration” to Executive Branch interpretations simply because

“[t]he officers concerned [were] usually able men, and masters of the

subject,” who may well have drafted the laws at issue. United States

v. Moore, 95 U. S. 760, 763. “Respect,” though, was just that. The

views of the Executive Branch could inform the judgment of the Judi-

ciary, but did not supersede it. “[I]n cases where [a court’s] own judg-

ment . . . differ[ed] from that of other high functionaries,” the court was

“not at liberty to surrender, or to waive it.” United States v. Dickson,

15 Pet. 141, 162.

During the “rapid expansion of the administrative process” that took

place during the New Deal era, United States v. Morton Salt Co., 338

U. S. 632, 644, the Court often treated agency determinations of fact

as binding on the courts, provided that there was “evidence to support

the findings,” St. Joseph Stock Yards Co. v. United States, 298 U. S.

38, 51. But the Court did not extend similar deference to agency reso-

lutions of questions of law. “The interpretation of the meaning of stat-

utes, as applied to justiciable controversies,” remained “exclusively a

judicial function.” United States v. American Trucking Assns., Inc.,

310 U. S. 534, 544. The Court also continued to note that the informed

judgment of the Executive Branch could be entitled to “great weight.”

Id., at 549. “The weight of such a judgment in a particular case,” the

Court observed, would “depend upon the thoroughness evident in its

consideration, the validity of its reasoning, its consistency with earlier

and later pronouncements, and all those factors which give it power to

persuade, if lacking power to control.” Skidmore v. Swift & Co., 323

U. S. 134, 140.

Occasionally during this period, the Court applied deferential re-

view after concluding that a particular statute empowered an agency

to decide how a broad statutory term applied to specific facts found by

Cite as: 603 U. S. ____ (2024) 3

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the agency. See Gray v. Powell, 314 U. S. 402; NLRB v. Hearst Publi-

cations, Inc., 322 U. S. 111. But such deferential review, which the

Court was far from consistent in applying, was cabined to factbound

determinations. And the Court did not purport to refashion the

longstanding judicial approach to questions of law. It instead pro-

claimed that “[u]ndoubtedly questions of statutory interpretation . . .

are for the courts to resolve, giving appropriate weight to the judgment

of those whose special duty is to administer the questioned statute.”

Id., at 130–131. Nothing in the New Deal era or before it thus resem-

bled the deference rule the Court would begin applying decades later

to all varieties of agency interpretations of statutes under Chevron.

Pp. 7–13.

(b) Congress in 1946 enacted the APA “as a check upon administra-

tors whose zeal might otherwise have carried them to excesses not con-

templated in legislation creating their offices.” Morton Salt, 338 U. S.,

at 644. The APA prescribes procedures for agency action and deline-

ates the basic contours of judicial review of such action. And it codifies

for agency cases the unremarkable, yet elemental proposition reflected

by judicial practice dating back to Marbury: that courts decide legal

questions by applying their own judgment. As relevant here, the APA

specifies that courts, not agencies, will decide “all relevant questions

of law” arising on review of agency action, 5 U. S. C. §706 (emphasis

added)—even those involving ambiguous laws. It prescribes no defer-

ential standard for courts to employ in answering those legal ques-

tions, despite mandating deferential judicial review of agency policy-

making and factfinding. See §§706(2)(A), (E). And by directing courts

to “interpret constitutional and statutory provisions” without differen-

tiating between the two, §706, it makes clear that agency interpreta-

tions of statutes—like agency interpretations of the Constitution—are

not entitled to deference. The APA’s history and the contemporaneous

views of various respected commentators underscore the plain mean-

ing of its text.

Courts exercising independent judgment in determining the mean-

ing of statutory provisions, consistent with the APA, may—as they

have from the start—seek aid from the interpretations of those respon-

sible for implementing particular statutes. See Skidmore, 323 U. S.,

at 140. And when the best reading of a statute is that it delegates

discretionary authority to an agency, the role of the reviewing court

under the APA is, as always, to independently interpret the statute

and effectuate the will of Congress subject to constitutional limits. The

court fulfills that role by recognizing constitutional delegations, fixing

the boundaries of the delegated authority, and ensuring the agency

has engaged in “ ‘reasoned decisionmaking’ ” within those boundaries.

Michigan v. EPA, 576 U. S. 743, 750 (quoting Allentown Mack Sales &

4 LOPER BRIGHT ENTERPRISES v. RAIMONDO

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Service, Inc. v. NLRB, 522 U. S. 359, 374). By doing so, a court upholds

the traditional conception of the judicial function that the APA adopts.

Pp. 13–18.

(c) The deference that Chevron requires of courts reviewing agency

action cannot be squared with the APA. Pp. 18–29.

(1) Chevron, decided in 1984 by a bare quorum of six Justices, trig-

gered a marked departure from the traditional judicial approach of in-

dependently examining each statute to determine its meaning. The

question in the case was whether an Environmental Protection Agency

(EPA) regulation was consistent with the term “stationary source” as

used in the Clean Air Act. 467 U. S., at 840. To answer that question,

the Court articulated and employed a now familiar two-step approach

broadly applicable to review of agency action. The first step was to

discern “whether Congress ha[d] directly spoken to the precise ques-

tion at issue.” Id., at 842. The Court explained that “[i]f the intent of

Congress is clear, that is the end of the matter,” ibid., and courts were

therefore to “reject administrative constructions which are contrary to

clear congressional intent,” id., at 843, n. 9. But in a case in which “the

statute [was] silent or ambiguous with respect to the specific issue” at

hand, a reviewing court could not “simply impose its own construction

on the statute, as would be necessary in the absence of an administra-

tive interpretation.” Id., at 843 (footnote omitted). Instead, at Chev-

ron’s second step, a court had to defer to the agency if it had offered “a

permissible construction of the statute,” ibid., even if not “the reading

the court would have reached if the question initially had arisen in a

judicial proceeding,” ibid., n. 11. Employing this new test, the Court

concluded that Congress had not addressed the question at issue with

the necessary “level of specificity” and that EPA’s interpretation was

“entitled to deference.” Id., at 865.

Although the Court did not at first treat Chevron as the watershed

decision it was fated to become, the Court and the courts of appeals

were soon routinely invoking its framework as the governing standard

in cases involving statutory questions of agency authority. The Court

eventually decided that Chevron rested on “a presumption that Con-

gress, when it left ambiguity in a statute meant for implementation by

an agency, understood that the ambiguity would be resolved, first and

foremost, by the agency, and desired the agency (rather than the

courts) to possess whatever degree of discretion the ambiguity allows.”

Smiley v. Citibank (South Dakota), N. A., 517 U. S. 735, 740–741. Pp.

18–20.

(2) Neither Chevron nor any subsequent decision of the Court at-

tempted to reconcile its framework with the APA. Chevron defies the

command of the APA that “the reviewing court”—not the agency whose

Cite as: 603 U. S. ____ (2024) 5

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action it reviews—is to “decide all relevant questions of law” and “in-

terpret . . . statutory provisions.” §706 (emphasis added). It requires

a court to ignore, not follow, “the reading the court would have

reached” had it exercised its independent judgment as required by the

APA. Chevron, 467 U. S., at 843, n. 11. Chevron insists on more than

the “respect” historically given to Executive Branch interpretations; it

demands that courts mechanically afford binding deference to agency

interpretations, including those that have been inconsistent over time,

see id., at 863, and even when a pre-existing judicial precedent holds

that an ambiguous statute means something else, National Cable &

Telecommunications Assn. v. Brand X Internet Services, 545 U. S. 967,

982. That regime is the antithesis of the time honored approach the

APA prescribes.

Chevron cannot be reconciled with the APA by presuming that stat-

utory ambiguities are implicit delegations to agencies. That presump-

tion does not approximate reality. A statutory ambiguity does not nec-

essarily reflect a congressional intent that an agency, as opposed to a

court, resolve the resulting interpretive question. Many or perhaps

most statutory ambiguities may be unintentional. And when courts

confront statutory ambiguities in cases that do not involve agency in-

terpretations or delegations of authority, they are not somehow re-

lieved of their obligation to independently interpret the statutes. In-

stead of declaring a particular party’s reading “permissible” in such a

case, courts use every tool at their disposal to determine the best read-

ing of the statute and resolve the ambiguity. But in an agency case as

in any other, there is a best reading all the same—“the reading the

court would have reached” if no agency were involved. Chevron, 467

U. S., at 843, n. 11. It therefore makes no sense to speak of a “permis-

sible” interpretation that is not the one the court, after applying all

relevant interpretive tools, concludes is best.

Perhaps most fundamentally, Chevron’s presumption is misguided

because agencies have no special competence in resolving statutory

ambiguities. Courts do. The Framers anticipated that courts would

often confront statutory ambiguities and expected that courts would

resolve them by exercising independent legal judgment. Chevron

gravely erred in concluding that the inquiry is fundamentally different

just because an administrative interpretation is in play. The very

point of the traditional tools of statutory construction is to resolve stat-

utory ambiguities. That is no less true when the ambiguity is about

the scope of an agency’s own power—perhaps the occasion on which

abdication in favor of the agency is least appropriate. Pp. 21–23.

(3) The Government responds that Congress must generally in-

tend for agencies to resolve statutory ambiguities because agencies

have subject matter expertise regarding the statutes they administer;

6 LOPER BRIGHT ENTERPRISES v. RAIMONDO

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because deferring to agencies purportedly promotes the uniform con-

struction of federal law; and because resolving statutory ambiguities

can involve policymaking best left to political actors, rather than

courts. See Brief for Respondents in No. 22–1219, pp. 16–19. But none

of these considerations justifies Chevron’s sweeping presumption of

congressional intent.

As the Court recently noted, interpretive issues arising in connec-

tion with a regulatory scheme “may fall more naturally into a judge’s

bailiwick” than an agency’s. Kisor v. Wilkie, 588 U. S. 558, 578. Under

Chevron’s broad rule of deference, though, ambiguities of all stripes

trigger deference, even in cases having little to do with an agency’s

technical subject matter expertise. And even when an ambiguity hap-

pens to implicate a technical matter, it does not follow that Congress

has taken the power to authoritatively interpret the statute from the

courts and given it to the agency. Congress expects courts to handle

technical statutory questions, and courts did so without issue in

agency cases before Chevron. After all, in an agency case in particular,

the reviewing court will go about its task with the agency’s “body of

experience and informed judgment,” among other information, at its

disposal. Skidmore, 323 U. S., at 140. An agency’s interpretation of a

statute “cannot bind a court,” but may be especially informative “to the

extent it rests on factual premises within [the agency’s] expertise.” Bu-

reau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms v. FLRA, 464 U. S. 89, 98, n. 8.

Delegating ultimate interpretive authority to agencies is simply not

necessary to ensure that the resolution of statutory ambiguities is well

informed by subject matter expertise.

Nor does a desire for the uniform construction of federal law justify

Chevron. It is unclear how much the Chevron doctrine as a whole ac-

tually promotes such uniformity, and in any event, we see no reason to

presume that Congress prefers uniformity for uniformity’s sake over

the correct interpretation of the laws it enacts.

Finally, the view that interpretation of ambiguous statutory provi-

sions amounts to policymaking suited for political actors rather than

courts is especially mistaken because it rests on a profound misconcep-

tion of the judicial role. Resolution of statutory ambiguities involves

legal interpretation, and that task does not suddenly become policy-

making just because a court has an “agency to fall back on.” Kisor, 588

U. S., at 575. Courts interpret statutes, no matter the context, based

on the traditional tools of statutory construction, not individual policy

preferences. To stay out of discretionary policymaking left to the po-

litical branches, judges need only fulfill their obligations under the

APA to independently identify and respect such delegations of author-

ity, police the outer statutory boundaries of those delegations, and en-

sure that agencies exercise their discretion consistent with the APA.

Cite as: 603 U. S. ____ (2024) 7

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By forcing courts to instead pretend that ambiguities are necessarily

delegations, Chevron prevents judges from judging. Pp. 23–26.

(4) Because Chevron’s justifying presumption is, as Members of

the Court have often recognized, a fiction, the Court has spent the bet-

ter part of four decades imposing one limitation on Chevron after an-

other. Confronted with the byzantine set of preconditions and excep-

tions that has resulted, some courts have simply bypassed Chevron or

failed to heed its various steps and nuances. The Court, for its part,

has not deferred to an agency interpretation under Chevron since

2016. But because Chevron remains on the books, litigants must con-

tinue to wrestle with it, and lower courts—bound by even the Court’s

crumbling precedents—understandably continue to apply it. At best,

Chevron has been a distraction from the question that matters: Does

the statute authorize the challenged agency action? And at worst, it

has required courts to violate the APA by yielding to an agency the

express responsibility, vested in “the reviewing court,” to “decide all

relevant questions of law” and “interpret . . . statutory provisions.”

§706 (emphasis added). Pp. 26–29.

(d) Stare decisis, the doctrine governing judicial adherence to prece-

dent, does not require the Court to persist in the Chevron project. The

stare decisis considerations most relevant here—“the quality of [the

precedent’s] reasoning, the workability of the rule it established, . . .

and reliance on the decision,” Knick v. Township of Scott, 588 U. S.

180, 203 (quoting Janus v. State, County, and Municipal Employees,

585 U. S. 878, 917)—all weigh in favor of letting Chevron go.

Chevron has proved to be fundamentally misguided. It reshaped ju-

dicial review of agency action without grappling with the APA, the

statute that lays out how such review works. And its flaws were ap-

parent from the start, prompting the Court to revise its foundations

and continually limit its application.

Experience has also shown that Chevron is unworkable. The defin-

ing feature of its framework is the identification of statutory ambigu-

ity, but the concept of ambiguity has always evaded meaningful defi-

nition. Such an impressionistic and malleable concept “cannot stand

as an every-day test for allocating” interpretive authority between

courts and agencies. Swift & Co. v. Wickham, 382 U. S. 111, 125. The

Court has also been forced to clarify the doctrine again and again, only

adding to Chevron’s unworkability, and the doctrine continues to

spawn difficult threshold questions that promise to further complicate

the inquiry should Chevron be retained. And its continuing import is

far from clear, as courts have often declined to engage with the doc-

trine, saying it makes no difference.

Nor has Chevron fostered meaningful reliance. Given the Court’s

constant tinkering with and eventual turn away from Chevron, it is

8 LOPER BRIGHT ENTERPRISES v. RAIMONDO

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hard to see how anyone could reasonably expect a court to rely on Chev-

ron in any particular case or expect it to produce readily foreseeable

outcomes. And rather than safeguarding reliance interests, Chevron

affirmatively destroys them by allowing agencies to change course

even when Congress has given them no power to do so.

The only way to “ensure that the law will not merely change errati-

cally, but will develop in a principled and intelligible fashion,” Vasquez

v. Hillery, 474 U. S. 254, 265, is for the Court to leave Chevron behind.

By overruling Chevron, though, the Court does not call into question

prior cases that relied on the Chevron framework. The holdings of

those cases that specific agency actions are lawful—including the

Clean Air Act holding of Chevron itself—are still subject to statutory

stare decisis despite the Court’s change in interpretive methodology.

See CBOCS West, Inc. v. Humphries, 553 U. S. 442, 457. Mere reliance

on Chevron cannot constitute a “ ‘special justification’ ” for overruling

such a holding. Halliburton Co. v. Erica P. John Fund, Inc., 573 U. S.

258, 266 (quoting Dickerson v. United States, 530 U. S. 428, 443). Pp.

29–35.

No. 22–451, 45 F. 4th 359 & No. 22–1219, 62 F. 4th 621, vacated and

remanded.

ROBERTS, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which THOMAS,

ALITO, GORSUCH, KAVANAUGH, and BARRETT, JJ., joined. THOMAS, J., and

GORSUCH, J., filed concurring opinions. KAGAN, J., filed a dissenting

opinion, in which SOTOMAYOR, J., joined, and in which JACKSON, J., joined

as it applies to No. 22–1219. JACKSON, J., took no part in the considera-

tion or decision of the case in No. 22–451.

Cite as: 603 U. S. ____ (2024) 1

Opinion of the Court

NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the

United States Reports. Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of

Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Washington, D. C. 20543,

pio@supremecourt.gov, of any typographical or other formal errors.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

_________________

Nos. 22–451 and 22–1219

_________________

LOPER BRIGHT ENTERPRISES, ET AL.,

PETITIONERS

22–451 v.

GINA RAIMONDO, SECRETARY OF

COMMERCE, ET AL.

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF

APPEALS FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

RELENTLESS, INC., ET AL., PETITIONERS

22–1219 v.

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE, ET AL.

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF

APPEALS FOR THE FIRST CIRCUIT

[June 28, 2024]

CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS delivered the opinion of the

Court.

Since our decision in Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Re-

sources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837 (1984), we have

sometimes required courts to defer to “permissible” agency

interpretations of the statutes those agencies administer—

even when a reviewing court reads the statute differently.

In these cases we consider whether that doctrine should be

overruled.

I

Our Chevron doctrine requires courts to use a two-step

2 LOPER BRIGHT ENTERPRISES v. RAIMONDO

Opinion of the Court

framework to interpret statutes administered by federal

agencies. After determining that a case satisfies the vari-

ous preconditions we have set for Chevron to apply, a re-

viewing court must first assess “whether Congress has di-

rectly spoken to the precise question at issue.” Id., at 842.

If, and only if, congressional intent is “clear,” that is the end

of the inquiry. Ibid. But if the court determines that “the

statute is silent or ambiguous with respect to the specific

issue” at hand, the court must, at Chevron’s second step,

defer to the agency’s interpretation if it “is based on a per-

missible construction of the statute.” Id., at 843. The re-

viewing courts in each of the cases before us applied Chev-

ron’s framework to resolve in favor of the Government

challenges to the same agency rule.

A

Before 1976, unregulated foreign vessels dominated fish-

ing in the international waters off the U. S. coast, which be-

gan just 12 nautical miles offshore. See, e.g., S. Rep.

No. 94–459, pp. 2–3 (1975). Recognizing the resultant over-

fishing and the need for sound management of fishery re-

sources, Congress enacted the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery

Conservation and Management Act (MSA). See 90 Stat.

331 (codified as amended at 16 U. S. C. §1801 et seq.). The

MSA and subsequent amendments extended the jurisdic-

tion of the United States to 200 nautical miles beyond the

U. S. territorial sea and claimed “exclusive fishery manage-

ment authority over all fish” within that area, known as the

“exclusive economic zone.” §1811(a); see Presidential Proc-

lamation No. 5030, 3 CFR 22 (1983 Comp.); §§101, 102, 90

Stat. 336. The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS)

administers the MSA under a delegation from the Secretary

of Commerce.

The MSA established eight regional fishery management

councils composed of representatives from the coastal

States, fishery stakeholders, and NMFS. See 16 U. S. C.

Cite as: 603 U. S. ____ (2024) 3

Opinion of the Court

§§1852(a), (b). The councils develop fishery management

plans, which NMFS approves and promulgates as final reg-

ulations. See §§1852(h), 1854(a). In service of the statute’s

fishery conservation and management goals, see §1851(a),

the MSA requires that certain provisions—such as “a mech-

anism for specifying annual catch limits . . . at a level such

that overfishing does not occur,” §1853(a)(15)—be included

in these plans, see §1853(a). The plans may also include

additional discretionary provisions. See §1853(b). For ex-

ample, plans may “prohibit, limit, condition, or require the

use of specified types and quantities of fishing gear, fishing

vessels, or equipment,” §1853(b)(4); “reserve a portion of the

allowable biological catch of the fishery for use in scientific

research,” §1853(b)(11); and “prescribe such other

measures, requirements, or conditions and restrictions as

are determined to be necessary and appropriate for the con-

servation and management of the fishery,” §1853(b)(14).

Relevant here, a plan may also require that “one or more

observers be carried on board” domestic vessels “for the pur-

pose of collecting data necessary for the conservation and

management of the fishery.” §1853(b)(8). The MSA speci-

fies three groups that must cover costs associated with ob-

servers: (1) foreign fishing vessels operating within the ex-

clusive economic zone (which must carry observers), see

§§1821(h)(1)(A), (h)(4), (h)(6); (2) vessels participating in

certain limited access privilege programs, which impose

quotas permitting fishermen to harvest only specific quan-

tities of a fishery’s total allowable catch, see §§1802(26),

1853a(c)(1)(H), (e)(2), 1854(d)(2); and (3) vessels within the

jurisdiction of the North Pacific Council, where many of the

largest and most successful commercial fishing enterprises

in the Nation operate, see §1862(a). In the latter two cases,

the MSA expressly caps the relevant fees at two or three

percent of the value of fish harvested on the vessels. See

§§1854(d)(2)(B), 1862(b)(2)(E). And in general, it author-

4 LOPER BRIGHT ENTERPRISES v. RAIMONDO

Opinion of the Court

izes the Secretary to impose “sanctions” when “any pay-

ment required for observer services provided to or con-

tracted by an owner or operator . . . has not been paid.”

§1858(g)(1)(D).

The MSA does not contain similar terms addressing

whether Atlantic herring fishermen may be required to

bear costs associated with any observers a plan may man-

date. And at one point, NMFS fully funded the observer

coverage the New England Fishery Management Council

required in its plan for the Atlantic herring fishery. See 79

Fed. Reg. 8792 (2014). In 2013, however, the council pro-

posed amending its fishery management plans to empower

it to require fishermen to pay for observers if federal fund-

ing became unavailable. Several years later, NMFS prom-

ulgated a rule approving the amendment. See 85 Fed. Reg.

7414 (2020).

With respect to the Atlantic herring fishery, the Rule cre-

ated an industry funded program that aims to ensure ob-

server coverage on 50 percent of trips undertaken by vessels

with certain types of permits. Under that program, vessel

representatives must “declare into” a fishery before begin-

ning a trip by notifying NMFS of the trip and announcing

the species the vessel intends to harvest. If NMFS deter-

mines that an observer is required, but declines to assign a

Government-paid one, the vessel must contract with and

pay for a Government-certified third-party observer.

NMFS estimated that the cost of such an observer would be

up to $710 per day, reducing annual returns to the vessel

owner by up to 20 percent. See id., at 7417–7418.

B

Petitioners Loper Bright Enterprises, Inc., H&L Axels-

son, Inc., Lund Marr Trawlers LLC, and Scombrus One

LLC are family businesses that operate in the Atlantic her-

ring fishery. In February 2020, they challenged the Rule

under the MSA, 16 U. S. C. §1855(f ), which incorporates

Cite as: 603 U. S. ____ (2024) 5

Opinion of the Court

the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), 5 U. S. C. §551

et seq. In relevant part, they argued that the MSA does not

authorize NMFS to mandate that they pay for observers re-

quired by a fishery management plan. The District Court

granted summary judgment to the Government. It con-

cluded that the MSA authorized the Rule, but noted that

even if these petitioners’ “arguments were enough to raise

an ambiguity in the statutory text,” deference to the

agency’s interpretation would be warranted under Chevron.

544 F. Supp. 3d 82, 107 (DC 2021); see id., at 103–107.

A divided panel of the D. C. Circuit affirmed. See 45

F. 4th 359 (2022). The majority addressed various provi-

sions of the MSA and concluded that it was not “wholly un-

ambiguous” whether NMFS may require Atlantic herring

fishermen to pay for observers. Id., at 366. Because there

remained “some question” as to Congress’s intent, id., at

369, the court proceeded to Chevron’s second step and de-

ferred to the agency’s interpretation as a “reasonable” con-

struction of the MSA, 45 F. 4th, at 370. In dissent, Judge

Walker concluded that Congress’s silence on industry

funded observers for the Atlantic herring fishery—coupled

with the express provision for such observers in other fish-

eries and on foreign vessels—unambiguously indicated that

NMFS lacked the authority to “require [Atlantic herring]

fishermen to pay the wages of at-sea monitors.” Id., at 375.

C

Petitioners Relentless Inc., Huntress Inc., and Seafreeze

Fleet LLC own two vessels that operate in the Atlantic her-

ring fishery: the F/V Relentless and the F/V Persistence.1

These vessels use small-mesh bottom-trawl gear and can

freeze fish at sea, so they can catch more species of fish and

take longer trips than other vessels (about 10 to 14 days, as

——————

1 For any landlubbers, “F/V” is simply the designation for a fishing ves-

sel.

6 LOPER BRIGHT ENTERPRISES v. RAIMONDO

Opinion of the Court

opposed to the more typical 2 to 4). As a result, they gener-

ally declare into multiple fisheries per trip so they can catch

whatever the ocean offers up. If the vessels declare into the

Atlantic herring fishery for a particular trip, they must

carry an observer for that trip if NMFS selects the trip for

coverage, even if they end up harvesting fewer herring than

other vessels—or no herring at all.

This set of petitioners, like those in the D. C. Circuit case,

filed a suit challenging the Rule as unauthorized by the

MSA. The District Court, like the D. C. Circuit, deferred to

NMFS’s contrary interpretation under Chevron and thus

granted summary judgment to the Government. See 561

F. Supp. 3d 226, 234–238 (RI 2021).

The First Circuit affirmed. See 62 F. 4th 621 (2023). It

relied on a “default norm” that regulated entities must bear

compliance costs, as well as the MSA’s sanctions provision,

Section 1858(g)(1)(D). See id., at 629–631. And it rejected

petitioners’ argument that the express statutory authoriza-

tion of three industry funding programs demonstrated that

NMFS lacked the broad implicit authority it asserted to im-

pose such a program for the Atlantic herring fishery. See

id., at 631–633. The court ultimately concluded that the

“[a]gency’s interpretation of its authority to require at-sea

monitors who are paid for by owners of regulated vessels

does not ‘exceed[ ] the bounds of the permissible.’ ” Id., at

633–634 (quoting Barnhart v. Walton, 535 U. S. 212, 218

(2002); alteration in original). In reaching that conclusion,

the First Circuit stated that it was applying Chevron’s two-

step framework. 62 F. 4th, at 628. But it did not explain

which aspects of its analysis were relevant to which of

Chevron’s two steps. Similarly, it declined to decide

whether the result was “a product of Chevron step one or

step two.” Id., at 634.

We granted certiorari in both cases, limited to the ques-

tion whether Chevron should be overruled or clarified. See

Cite as: 603 U. S. ____ (2024) 7

Opinion of the Court

601 U. S. ___ (2023); 598 U. S. ___ (2023).2

II

A

Article III of the Constitution assigns to the Federal Ju-

diciary the responsibility and power to adjudicate “Cases”

and “Controversies”—concrete disputes with consequences

for the parties involved. The Framers appreciated that the

laws judges would necessarily apply in resolving those dis-

putes would not always be clear. Cognizant of the limits of

human language and foresight, they anticipated that “[a]ll

new laws, though penned with the greatest technical skill,

and passed on the fullest and most mature deliberation,”

would be “more or less obscure and equivocal, until their

meaning” was settled “by a series of particular discussions

and adjudications.” The Federalist No. 37, p. 236 (J. Cooke

ed. 1961) (J. Madison).

The Framers also envisioned that the final “interpreta-

tion of the laws” would be “the proper and peculiar province

of the courts.” Id., No. 78, at 525 (A. Hamilton). Unlike the

political branches, the courts would by design exercise “nei-

ther Force nor Will, but merely judgment.” Id., at 523. To

ensure the “steady, upright and impartial administration of

the laws,” the Framers structured the Constitution to allow

judges to exercise that judgment independent of influence

from the political branches. Id., at 522; see id., at 522–524;

Stern v. Marshall, 564 U. S. 462, 484 (2011).

This Court embraced the Framers’ understanding of the

judicial function early on. In the foundational decision of

Marbury v. Madison, Chief Justice Marshall famously de-

clared that “[i]t is emphatically the province and duty of the

judicial department to say what the law is.” 1 Cranch 137,

——————

2 Both petitions also presented questions regarding the consistency of

the Rule with the MSA. See Pet. for Cert. in No. 22–451, p. i; Pet. for

Cert. in No. 22–1219, p. ii. We did not grant certiorari with respect to

those questions and thus do not reach them.

8 LOPER BRIGHT ENTERPRISES v. RAIMONDO

Opinion of the Court

177 (1803). And in the following decades, the Court under-

stood “interpret[ing] the laws, in the last resort,” to be a

“solemn duty” of the Judiciary. United States v. Dickson,

15 Pet. 141, 162 (1841) (Story, J., for the Court). When the

meaning of a statute was at issue, the judicial role was to

“interpret the act of Congress, in order to ascertain the

rights of the parties.” Decatur v. Paulding, 14 Pet. 497, 515

(1840).

The Court also recognized from the outset, though, that

exercising independent judgment often included according

due respect to Executive Branch interpretations of federal

statutes. For example, in Edwards’ Lessee v. Darby, 12

Wheat. 206 (1827), the Court explained that “[i]n the con-

struction of a doubtful and ambiguous law, the contempo-

raneous construction of those who were called upon to act

under the law, and were appointed to carry its provisions

into effect, is entitled to very great respect.” Id., at 210; see

also United States v. Vowell, 5 Cranch 368, 372 (1809) (Mar-

shall, C. J., for the Court).

Such respect was thought especially warranted when an

Executive Branch interpretation was issued roughly con-

temporaneously with enactment of the statute and re-

mained consistent over time. See Dickson, 15 Pet., at 161;

United States v. Alabama Great Southern R. Co., 142 U. S.

615, 621 (1892); National Lead Co. v. United States, 252

U. S. 140, 145–146 (1920). That is because “the longstand-

ing ‘practice of the government’ ”—like any other interpre-

tive aid—“can inform [a court’s] determination of ‘what the

law is.’ ” NLRB v. Noel Canning, 573 U. S. 513, 525 (2014)

(first quoting McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316, 401

(1819); then quoting Marbury, 1 Cranch, at 177). The Court

also gave “the most respectful consideration” to Executive

Branch interpretations simply because “[t]he officers con-

cerned [were] usually able men, and masters of the subject,”

who were “[n]ot unfrequently . . . the draftsmen of the laws

they [were] afterwards called upon to interpret.” United

Cite as: 603 U. S. ____ (2024) 9

Opinion of the Court

States v. Moore, 95 U. S. 760, 763 (1878); see also Jacobs v.

Prichard, 223 U. S. 200, 214 (1912).

“Respect,” though, was just that. The views of the Exec-

utive Branch could inform the judgment of the Judiciary,

but did not supersede it. Whatever respect an Executive

Branch interpretation was due, a judge “certainly would not

be bound to adopt the construction given by the head of a

department.” Decatur, 14 Pet., at 515; see also Burnet v.

Chicago Portrait Co., 285 U. S. 1, 16 (1932). Otherwise, ju-

dicial judgment would not be independent at all. As Justice

Story put it, “in cases where [a court’s] own judgment . . .

differ[ed] from that of other high functionaries,” the court

was “not at liberty to surrender, or to waive it.” Dickson,

15 Pet., at 162.

B

The New Deal ushered in a “rapid expansion of the ad-

ministrative process.” United States v. Morton Salt Co., 338

U. S. 632, 644 (1950). But as new agencies with new powers

proliferated, the Court continued to adhere to the tradi-

tional understanding that questions of law were for courts

to decide, exercising independent judgment.

During this period, the Court often treated agency deter-

minations of fact as binding on the courts, provided that

there was “evidence to support the findings.” St. Joseph

Stock Yards Co. v. United States, 298 U. S. 38, 51 (1936).

“When the legislature itself acts within the broad field of

legislative discretion,” the Court reasoned, “its determina-

tions are conclusive.” Ibid. Congress could therefore “ap-

point[ ] an agent to act within that sphere of legislative au-

thority” and “endow the agent with power to make findings

of fact which are conclusive, provided the requirements of

due process which are specially applicable to such an

agency are met, as in according a fair hearing and acting

upon evidence and not arbitrarily.” Ibid. (emphasis added).

But the Court did not extend similar deference to agency

10 LOPER BRIGHT ENTERPRISES v. RAIMONDO

Opinion of the Court

resolutions of questions of law. It instead made clear, re-

peatedly, that “[t]he interpretation of the meaning of stat-

utes, as applied to justiciable controversies,” was “exclu-

sively a judicial function.” United States v. American

Trucking Assns., Inc., 310 U. S. 534, 544 (1940); see also

Social Security Bd. v. Nierotko, 327 U. S. 358, 369 (1946);

Medo Photo Supply Corp. v. NLRB, 321 U. S. 678, 681–682,

n. 1 (1944). The Court understood, in the words of Justice

Brandeis, that “[t]he supremacy of law demands that there

shall be opportunity to have some court decide whether an

erroneous rule of law was applied.” St. Joseph Stock Yards,

298 U. S., at 84 (concurring opinion). It also continued to

note, as it long had, that the informed judgment of the Ex-

ecutive Branch—especially in the form of an interpretation

issued contemporaneously with the enactment of the stat-

ute—could be entitled to “great weight.” American Truck-

ing Assns., 310 U. S., at 549.

Perhaps most notably along those lines, in Skidmore v.

Swift & Co., 323 U. S. 134 (1944), the Court explained that

the “interpretations and opinions” of the relevant agency,

“made in pursuance of official duty” and “based upon . . .

specialized experience,” “constitute[d] a body of experience

and informed judgment to which courts and litigants [could]

properly resort for guidance,” even on legal questions. Id.,

at 139–140. “The weight of such a judgment in a particular

case,” the Court observed, would “depend upon the thor-

oughness evident in its consideration, the validity of its rea-

soning, its consistency with earlier and later pronounce-

ments, and all those factors which give it power to

persuade, if lacking power to control.” Id., at 140.

On occasion, to be sure, the Court applied deferential re-

view upon concluding that a particular statute empowered

an agency to decide how a broad statutory term applied to

specific facts found by the agency. For example, in Gray v.

Powell, 314 U. S. 402 (1941), the Court deferred to an ad-

ministrative conclusion that a coal-burning railroad that

Cite as: 603 U. S. ____ (2024) 11

Opinion of the Court

had arrangements with several coal mines was not a coal

“producer” under the Bituminous Coal Act of 1937. Con-

gress had “specifically” granted the agency the authority to

make that determination. Id., at 411. The Court thus rea-

soned that “[w]here, as here, a determination has been left

to an administrative body, this delegation will be respected

and the administrative conclusion left untouched” so long

as the agency’s decision constituted “a sensible exercise of

judgment.” Id., at 412–413. Similarly, in NLRB v. Hearst

Publications, Inc., 322 U. S. 111 (1944), the Court deferred

to the determination of the National Labor Relations Board

that newsboys were “employee[s]” within the meaning of

the National Labor Relations Act. The Act had, in the

Court’s judgment, “assigned primarily” to the Board the

task of marking a “definitive limitation around the term

‘employee.’ ” Id., at 130. The Court accordingly viewed its

own role as “limited” to assessing whether the Board’s de-

termination had a “ ‘warrant in the record’ and a reasonable

basis in law.” Id., at 131.

Such deferential review, though, was cabined to fact-

bound determinations like those at issue in Gray and

Hearst. Neither Gray nor Hearst purported to refashion the

longstanding judicial approach to questions of law. In

Gray, after deferring to the agency’s determination that a

particular entity was not a “producer” of coal, the Court

went on to discern, based on its own reading of the text,

whether another statutory term—“other disposal” of coal—

encompassed a transaction lacking a transfer of title. See

314 U. S., at 416–417. The Court evidently perceived no

basis for deference to the agency with respect to that pure

legal question. And in Hearst, the Court proclaimed that

“[u]ndoubtedly questions of statutory interpretation . . . are

for the courts to resolve, giving appropriate weight to the

judgment of those whose special duty is to administer the

questioned statute.” 322 U. S., at 130–131. At least with

12 LOPER BRIGHT ENTERPRISES v. RAIMONDO

Opinion of the Court

respect to questions it regarded as involving “statutory in-

terpretation,” the Court thus did not disturb the traditional

rule. It merely thought that a different approach should

apply where application of a statutory term was sufficiently

intertwined with the agency’s factfinding.

In any event, the Court was far from consistent in review-

ing deferentially even such factbound statutory determina-

tions. Often the Court simply interpreted and applied the

statute before it. See K. Davis, Administrative Law §248,

p. 893 (1951) (“The one statement that can be made with

confidence about applicability of the doctrine of Gray v.

Powell is that sometimes the Supreme Court applies it and

sometimes it does not.”); B. Schwartz, Gray vs. Powell and

the Scope of Review, 54 Mich. L. Rev. 1, 68 (1955) (noting

an “embarrassingly large number of Supreme Court deci-

sions that do not adhere to the doctrine of Gray v. Powell”).

In one illustrative example, the Court rejected the U. S.

Price Administrator’s determination that a particular

warehouse was a “public utility” entitled to an exemption

from the Administrator’s General Maximum Price Regula-

tion. Despite the striking resemblance of that administra-

tive determination to those that triggered deference in Gray

and Hearst, the Court declined to “accept the Administra-

tor’s view in deference to administrative construction.” Da-

vies Warehouse Co. v. Bowles, 321 U. S. 144, 156 (1944).

The Administrator’s view, the Court explained, had “hardly

seasoned or broadened into a settled administrative prac-

tice,” and thus did not “overweigh the considerations” the

Court had “set forth as to the proper construction of the

statute.” Ibid.

Nothing in the New Deal era or before it thus resembled

the deference rule the Court would begin applying decades

later to all varieties of agency interpretations of statutes.

Instead, just five years after Gray and two after Hearst,

Congress codified the opposite rule: the traditional under-

standing that courts must “decide all relevant questions of

Cite as: 603 U. S. ____ (2024) 13

Opinion of the Court

law.” 5 U. S. C. §706.3

C

Congress in 1946 enacted the APA “as a check upon ad-

ministrators whose zeal might otherwise have carried them

to excesses not contemplated in legislation creating their

offices.” Morton Salt, 338 U. S., at 644. It was the culmi-

nation of a “comprehensive rethinking of the place of ad-

ministrative agencies in a regime of separate and divided

powers.” Bowen v. Michigan Academy of Family Physi-

cians, 476 U. S. 667, 670–671 (1986).

In addition to prescribing procedures for agency action,

the APA delineates the basic contours of judicial review of

such action. As relevant here, Section 706 directs that “[t]o

——————

3 The dissent plucks out Gray, Hearst, and—to “gild the lily,” in its tell-

ing—three more 1940s decisions, claiming they reflect the relevant his-

torical tradition of judicial review. Post, at 21–22, and n. 6 (opinion of

KAGAN, J.). But it has no substantial response to the fact that Gray and

Hearst themselves endorsed, implicitly in one case and explicitly in the

next, the traditional rule that “questions of statutory interpretation . . .

are for the courts to resolve, giving appropriate weight”—not outright

deference—“to the judgment of those whose special duty is to administer

the questioned statute.” Hearst, 322 U. S., at 130–131. And it fails to

recognize the deep roots that this rule has in our Nation’s judicial tradi-

tion, to the limited extent it engages with that tradition at all. See post,

at 20–21, n. 5. Instead, like the Government, it strains to equate the

“respect” or “weight” traditionally afforded to Executive Branch interpre-

tations with binding deference. See ibid.; Brief for Respondents in No.

22–1219, pp. 21–24. That supposed equivalence is a fiction. The dis-

sent’s cases establish that a “contemporaneous construction” shared by

“not only . . . the courts” but also “the departments” could be “control-

ling,” Schell’s Executors v. Fauché, 138 U. S. 562, 572 (1891) (emphasis

added), and that courts might “lean in favor” of a “contemporaneous” and

“continued” construction of the Executive Branch as strong evidence of a

statute’s meaning, United States v. Alabama Great Southern R. Co., 142

U. S. 615, 621 (1892). They do not establish that Executive Branch in-

terpretations of ambiguous statutes—no matter how inconsistent, late

breaking, or flawed—always bound the courts. In reality, a judge was

never “bound to adopt the construction given by the head of a depart-

ment.” Decatur v. Paulding, 14 Pet. 497, 515 (1840).

14 LOPER BRIGHT ENTERPRISES v. RAIMONDO

Opinion of the Court

the extent necessary to decision and when presented, the

reviewing court shall decide all relevant questions of law,

interpret constitutional and statutory provisions, and de-

termine the meaning or applicability of the terms of an

agency action.” 5 U. S. C. §706. It further requires courts

to “hold unlawful and set aside agency action, findings, and

conclusions found to be . . . not in accordance with law.”

§706(2)(A).

The APA thus codifies for agency cases the unremarka-

ble, yet elemental proposition reflected by judicial practice

dating back to Marbury: that courts decide legal questions

by applying their own judgment. It specifies that courts,

not agencies, will decide “all relevant questions of law” aris-

ing on review of agency action, §706 (emphasis added)—

even those involving ambiguous laws—and set aside any

such action inconsistent with the law as they interpret it.

And it prescribes no deferential standard for courts to em-

ploy in answering those legal questions. That omission is

telling, because Section 706 does mandate that judicial re-

view of agency policymaking and factfinding be deferential.

See §706(2)(A) (agency action to be set aside if “arbitrary,

capricious, [or] an abuse of discretion”); §706(2)(E) (agency

factfinding in formal proceedings to be set aside if “unsup-

ported by substantial evidence”).

In a statute designed to “serve as the fundamental char-

ter of the administrative state,” Kisor v. Wilkie, 588 U. S.

558, 580 (2019) (plurality opinion) (internal quotation

marks omitted), Congress surely would have articulated a

similarly deferential standard applicable to questions of

law had it intended to depart from the settled pre-APA un-

derstanding that deciding such questions was “exclusively

a judicial function,” American Trucking Assns., 310 U. S.,

at 544. But nothing in the APA hints at such a dramatic

departure. On the contrary, by directing courts to “inter-

pret constitutional and statutory provisions” without differ-

entiating between the two, Section 706 makes clear that

Cite as: 603 U. S. ____ (2024) 15

Opinion of the Court

agency interpretations of statutes—like agency interpreta-

tions of the Constitution—are not entitled to deference. Un-

der the APA, it thus “remains the responsibility of the court

to decide whether the law means what the agency says.”

Perez v. Mortgage Bankers Assn., 575 U. S. 92, 109 (2015)

(Scalia, J., concurring in judgment).4

The text of the APA means what it says. And a look at

its history if anything only underscores that plain meaning.

According to both the House and Senate Reports on the leg-

islation, Section 706 “provide[d] that questions of law are

for courts rather than agencies to decide in the last analy-

sis.” H. R. Rep. No. 1980, 79th Cong., 2d Sess., 44 (1946)

(emphasis added); accord, S. Rep. No. 752, 79th Cong., 1st

Sess., 28 (1945). Some of the legislation’s most prominent

supporters articulated the same view. See 92 Cong. Rec.

5654 (1946) (statement of Rep. Walter); P. McCarran, Im-

proving “Administrative Justice”: Hearings and Evidence;

Scope of Judicial Review, 32 A. B. A. J. 827, 831 (1946).

Even the Department of Justice—an agency with every in-

centive to endorse a view of the APA favorable to the Exec-

utive Branch—opined after its enactment that Section 706

merely “restate[d] the present law as to the scope of judicial

review.” Dept. of Justice, Attorney General’s Manual on the

——————

4 The dissent observes that Section 706 does not say expressly that

courts are to decide legal questions using “a de novo standard of review.”

Post, at 16. That much is true. But statutes can be sensibly understood

only “by reviewing text in context.” Pulsifer v. United States, 601 U. S.

124, 133 (2024). Since the start of our Republic, courts have “decide[d]

. . . questions of law” and “interpret[ed] constitutional and statutory pro-

visions” by applying their own legal judgment. §706. Setting aside its

misplaced reliance on Gray and Hearst, the dissent does not and could

not deny that tradition. But it nonetheless insists that to codify that

tradition, Congress needed to expressly reject a sort of deference the

courts had never before applied—and would not apply for several dec-

ades to come. It did not. “The notion that some things ‘go without saying’

applies to legislation just as it does to everyday life.” Bond v. United

States, 572 U. S. 844, 857 (2014).

16 LOPER BRIGHT ENTERPRISES v. RAIMONDO

Opinion of the Court

Administrative Procedure Act 108 (1947); see also Kisor,

588 U. S., at 582 (plurality opinion) (same). That “present

law,” as we have described, adhered to the traditional con-

ception of the judicial function. See supra, at 9–13.

Various respected commentators contemporaneously

maintained that the APA required reviewing courts to ex-

ercise independent judgment on questions of law. Professor

John Dickinson, for example, read the APA to “impose a

clear mandate that all [questions of law] shall be decided by

the reviewing Court itself, and in the exercise of its own in-

dependent judgment.” Administrative Procedure Act:

Scope and Grounds of Broadened Judicial Review, 33

A. B. A. J. 434, 516 (1947). Professor Bernard Schwartz

noted that §706 “would seem . . . to be merely a legislative

restatement of the familiar review principle that questions

of law are for the reviewing court, at the same time leaving

to the courts the task of determining in each case what are

questions of law.” Mixed Questions of Law and Fact and

the Administrative Procedure Act, 19 Ford. L. Rev. 73, 84–

85 (1950). And Professor Louis Jaffe, who had served in

several agencies at the advent of the New Deal, thought

that §706 leaves it up to the reviewing “court” to “decide as

a ‘question of law’ whether there is ‘discretion’ in the prem-

ises”—that is, whether the statute at issue delegates par-

ticular discretionary authority to an agency. Judicial Con-

trol of Administrative Action 570 (1965).

The APA, in short, incorporates the traditional under-

standing of the judicial function, under which courts must

exercise independent judgment in determining the mean-

ing of statutory provisions. In exercising such judgment,

though, courts may—as they have from the start—seek aid

from the interpretations of those responsible for imple-

menting particular statutes. Such interpretations “consti-

tute a body of experience and informed judgment to which

courts and litigants may properly resort for guidance” con-

sistent with the APA. Skidmore, 323 U. S., at 140. And

Cite as: 603 U. S. ____ (2024) 17

Opinion of the Court

interpretations issued contemporaneously with the statute

at issue, and which have remained consistent over time,

may be especially useful in determining the statute’s mean-

ing. See ibid.; American Trucking Assns., 310 U. S., at 549.

In a case involving an agency, of course, the statute’s

meaning may well be that the agency is authorized to exer-

cise a degree of discretion. Congress has often enacted such

statutes. For example, some statutes “expressly delegate[ ]”

to an agency the authority to give meaning to a particular

statutory term. Batterton v. Francis, 432 U. S. 416, 425

(1977) (emphasis deleted).5 Others empower an agency to

prescribe rules to “fill up the details” of a statutory scheme,

Wayman v. Southard, 10 Wheat. 1, 43 (1825), or to regulate

subject to the limits imposed by a term or phrase that

“leaves agencies with flexibility,” Michigan v. EPA, 576

U. S. 743, 752 (2015), such as “appropriate” or “reasona-

ble.”6

When the best reading of a statute is that it delegates

——————

5 See, e.g., 29 U. S. C. §213(a)(15) (exempting from provisions of the

Fair Labor Standards Act “any employee employed on a casual basis in

domestic service employment to provide companionship services for in-

dividuals who (because of age or infirmity) are unable to care for them-

selves (as such terms are defined and delimited by regulations of the Sec-

retary)” (emphasis added)); 42 U. S. C. §5846(a)(2) (requiring notification

to Nuclear Regulatory Commission when a facility or activity licensed or

regulated pursuant to the Atomic Energy Act “contains a defect which

could create a substantial safety hazard, as defined by regulations which

the Commission shall promulgate” (emphasis added)).

6 See, e.g., 33 U. S. C. §1312(a) (requiring establishment of effluent lim-

itations “[w]henever, in the judgment of the [Environmental Protection

Agency (EPA)] Administrator . . . , discharges of pollutants from a point

source or group of point sources . . . would interfere with the attainment

or maintenance of that water quality . . . which shall assure” various out-

comes, such as the “protection of public health” and “public water sup-

plies”); 42 U. S. C. §7412(n)(1)(A) (directing EPA to regulate power

plants “if the Administrator finds such regulation is appropriate and nec-

essary”).

18 LOPER BRIGHT ENTERPRISES v. RAIMONDO

Opinion of the Court

discretionary authority to an agency, the role of the review-

ing court under the APA is, as always, to independently in-

terpret the statute and effectuate the will of Congress sub-

ject to constitutional limits. The court fulfills that role by

recognizing constitutional delegations, “fix[ing] the bound-

aries of [the] delegated authority,” H. Monaghan, Marbury

and the Administrative State, 83 Colum. L. Rev. 1, 27

(1983), and ensuring the agency has engaged in “ ‘reasoned

decisionmaking’ ” within those boundaries, Michigan, 576

U. S., at 750 (quoting Allentown Mack Sales & Service, Inc.

v. NLRB, 522 U. S. 359, 374 (1998)); see also Motor Vehicle

Mfrs. Assn. of United States, Inc. v. State Farm Mut. Auto-

mobile Ins. Co., 463 U. S. 29 (1983). By doing so, a court

upholds the traditional conception of the judicial function

that the APA adopts.

III

The deference that Chevron requires of courts reviewing

agency action cannot be squared with the APA.

A

In the decades between the enactment of the APA and

this Court’s decision in Chevron, courts generally continued

to review agency interpretations of the statutes they admin-

ister by independently examining each statute to determine

its meaning. Cf. T. Merrill, Judicial Deference to Executive

Precedent, 101 Yale L. J. 969, 972–975 (1992). As an early

proponent (and later critic) of Chevron recounted, courts

during this period thus identified delegations of discretion-

ary authority to agencies on a “statute-by-statute basis.” A.

Scalia, Judicial Deference to Administrative Interpreta-

tions of Law, 1989 Duke L. J. 511, 516.

Chevron, decided in 1984 by a bare quorum of six Jus-

tices, triggered a marked departure from the traditional ap-

proach. The question in the case was whether an EPA reg-

ulation “allow[ing] States to treat all of the pollution-

Cite as: 603 U. S. ____ (2024) 19

Opinion of the Court

emitting devices within the same industrial grouping as

though they were encased within a single ‘bubble’ ” was con-

sistent with the term “stationary source” as used in the

Clean Air Act. 467 U. S., at 840. To answer that question

of statutory interpretation, the Court articulated and em-

ployed a now familiar two-step approach broadly applicable

to review of agency action.

The first step was to discern “whether Congress ha[d] di-

rectly spoken to the precise question at issue.” Id., at 842.

The Court explained that “[i]f the intent of Congress is

clear, that is the end of the matter,” ibid., and courts were

therefore to “reject administrative constructions which are

contrary to clear congressional intent,” id., at 843, n. 9. To

discern such intent, the Court noted, a reviewing court was

to “employ[ ] traditional tools of statutory construction.”

Ibid.

Without mentioning the APA, or acknowledging any doc-

trinal shift, the Court articulated a second step applicable

when “Congress ha[d] not directly addressed the precise

question at issue.” Id., at 843. In such a case—that is, a

case in which “the statute [was] silent or ambiguous with

respect to the specific issue” at hand—a reviewing court

could not “simply impose its own construction on the stat-

ute, as would be necessary in the absence of an administra-

tive interpretation.” Ibid. (footnote omitted). A court in-

stead had to set aside the traditional interpretive tools and

defer to the agency if it had offered “a permissible construc-

tion of the statute,” ibid., even if not “the reading the court

would have reached if the question initially had arisen in a

judicial proceeding,” ibid., n. 11. That directive was justi-

fied, according to the Court, by the understanding that ad-

ministering statutes “requires the formulation of policy” to

fill statutory “gap[s]”; by the long judicial tradition of ac-

cording “considerable weight” to Executive Branch inter-

pretations; and by a host of other considerations, including

the complexity of the regulatory scheme, EPA’s “detailed

20 LOPER BRIGHT ENTERPRISES v. RAIMONDO

Opinion of the Court

and reasoned” consideration, the policy-laden nature of the

judgment supposedly required, and the agency’s indirect ac-

countability to the people through the President. Id., at

843, 844, and n. 14, 865.

Employing this new test, the Court concluded that Con-

gress had not addressed the question at issue with the nec-

essary “level of specificity” and that EPA’s interpretation

was “entitled to deference.” Id., at 865. It did not matter

why Congress, as the Court saw it, had not squarely ad-

dressed the question, see ibid., or that “the agency ha[d]

from time to time changed its interpretation,” id., at 863.

The latest EPA interpretation was a permissible reading of

the Clean Air Act, so under the Court’s new rule, that read-

ing controlled.

Initially, Chevron “seemed destined to obscurity.” T.

Merrill, The Story of Chevron: The Making of an Accidental

Landmark, 66 Admin. L. Rev. 253, 276 (2014). The Court

did not at first treat it as the watershed decision it was

fated to become; it was hardly cited in cases involving stat-

utory questions of agency authority. See ibid. But within

a few years, both this Court and the courts of appeals were

routinely invoking its two-step framework as the governing

standard in such cases. See id., at 276–277. As the Court

did so, it revisited the doctrine’s justifications. Eventually,

the Court decided that Chevron rested on “a presumption

that Congress, when it left ambiguity in a statute meant for

implementation by an agency, understood that the ambigu-

ity would be resolved, first and foremost, by the agency, and

desired the agency (rather than the courts) to possess what-

ever degree of discretion the ambiguity allows.” Smiley v.

Citibank (South Dakota), N. A., 517 U. S. 735, 740–741

(1996); see also, e.g., Cuozzo Speed Technologies, LLC v.

Lee, 579 U. S. 261, 276–277 (2016); Utility Air Regulatory

Group v. EPA, 573 U. S. 302, 315 (2014); National Cable &

Telecommunications Assn. v. Brand X Internet Services, 545

U. S. 967, 982 (2005).

Cite as: 603 U. S. ____ (2024) 21

Opinion of the Court

B

Neither Chevron nor any subsequent decision of this

Court attempted to reconcile its framework with the APA.

The “law of deference” that this Court has built on the foun-

dation laid in Chevron has instead been “[h]eedless of the

original design” of the APA. Perez, 575 U. S., at 109 (Scalia,

J., concurring in judgment).

1

Chevron defies the command of the APA that “the review-

ing court”—not the agency whose action it reviews—is to

“decide all relevant questions of law” and “interpret . . .

statutory provisions.” §706 (emphasis added). It requires

a court to ignore, not follow, “the reading the court would

have reached” had it exercised its independent judgment as

required by the APA. Chevron, 467 U. S., at 843, n. 11. And

although exercising independent judgment is consistent

with the “respect” historically given to Executive Branch in-

terpretations, see, e.g., Edwards’ Lessee, 12 Wheat., at 210;

Skidmore, 323 U. S., at 140, Chevron insists on much more.

It demands that courts mechanically afford binding defer-

ence to agency interpretations, including those that have

been inconsistent over time. See 467 U. S., at 863. Still

worse, it forces courts to do so even when a pre-existing ju-

dicial precedent holds that the statute means something

else—unless the prior court happened to also say that the

statute is “unambiguous.” Brand X, 545 U. S., at 982. That

regime is the antithesis of the time honored approach the

APA prescribes. In fretting over the prospect of “allow[ing]”

a judicial interpretation of a statute “to override an

agency’s” in a dispute before a court, ibid., Chevron turns

the statutory scheme for judicial review of agency action up-

side down.

Chevron cannot be reconciled with the APA, as the Gov-

ernment and the dissent contend, by presuming that statu-

tory ambiguities are implicit delegations to agencies. See

22 LOPER BRIGHT ENTERPRISES v. RAIMONDO

Opinion of the Court

Brief for Respondents in No. 22–1219, pp. 13, 37–38; post,

at 4–15 (opinion of KAGAN, J.). Presumptions have their

place in statutory interpretation, but only to the extent that

they approximate reality. Chevron’s presumption does not,

because “[a]n ambiguity is simply not a delegation of law-

interpreting power. Chevron confuses the two.” C. Sun-

stein, Interpreting Statutes in the Regulatory State, 103

Harv. L. Rev. 405, 445 (1989). As Chevron itself noted, am-

biguities may result from an inability on the part of Con-

gress to squarely answer the question at hand, or from a

failure to even “consider the question” with the requisite

precision. 467 U. S., at 865. In neither case does an ambi-

guity necessarily reflect a congressional intent that an

agency, as opposed to a court, resolve the resulting inter-

pretive question. And many or perhaps most statutory am-

biguities may be unintentional. As the Framers recognized,

ambiguities will inevitably follow from “the complexity of

objects, . . . the imperfection of the human faculties,” and

the simple fact that “no language is so copious as to supply

words and phrases for every complex idea.” The Federalist

No. 37, at 236.

Courts, after all, routinely confront statutory ambiguities

in cases having nothing to do with Chevron—cases that do

not involve agency interpretations or delegations of author-

ity. Of course, when faced with a statutory ambiguity in

such a case, the ambiguity is not a delegation to anybody,

and a court is not somehow relieved of its obligation to in-

dependently interpret the statute. Courts in that situation

do not throw up their hands because “Congress’s instruc-

tions have” supposedly “run out,” leaving a statutory “gap.”

Post, at 2 (opinion of KAGAN, J.). Courts instead under-

stand that such statutes, no matter how impenetrable, do—

in fact, must—have a single, best meaning. That is the

whole point of having written statutes; “every statute’s

meaning is fixed at the time of enactment.” Wisconsin Cen-

Cite as: 603 U. S. ____ (2024) 23

Opinion of the Court

tral Ltd. v. United States, 585 U. S. 274, 284 (2018) (empha-

sis deleted). So instead of declaring a particular party’s

reading “permissible” in such a case, courts use every tool

at their disposal to determine the best reading of the stat-

ute and resolve the ambiguity.

In an agency case as in any other, though, even if some

judges might (or might not) consider the statute ambiguous,

there is a best reading all the same—“the reading the court

would have reached” if no agency were involved. Chevron,

467 U. S., at 843, n. 11. It therefore makes no sense to

speak of a “permissible” interpretation that is not the one

the court, after applying all relevant interpretive tools, con-

cludes is best. In the business of statutory interpretation,

if it is not the best, it is not permissible.

Perhaps most fundamentally, Chevron’s presumption is

misguided because agencies have no special competence in

resolving statutory ambiguities. Courts do. The Framers,

as noted, anticipated that courts would often confront stat-

utory ambiguities and expected that courts would resolve

them by exercising independent legal judgment. And even

Chevron itself reaffirmed that “[t]he judiciary is the final

authority on issues of statutory construction” and recog-

nized that “in the absence of an administrative interpreta-

tion,” it is “necessary” for a court to “impose its own con-

struction on the statute.” Id., at 843, and n. 9. Chevron

gravely erred, though, in concluding that the inquiry is fun-

damentally different just because an administrative inter-

pretation is in play. The very point of the traditional tools

of statutory construction—the tools courts use every day—

is to resolve statutory ambiguities. That is no less true

when the ambiguity is about the scope of an agency’s own

power—perhaps the occasion on which abdication in favor

of the agency is least appropriate.

2

The Government responds that Congress must generally

24 LOPER BRIGHT ENTERPRISES v. RAIMONDO

Opinion of the Court

intend for agencies to resolve statutory ambiguities because

agencies have subject matter expertise regarding the stat-

utes they administer; because deferring to agencies pur-

portedly promotes the uniform construction of federal law;

and because resolving statutory ambiguities can involve

policymaking best left to political actors, rather than courts.

See Brief for Respondents in No. 22–1219, pp. 16–19. The

dissent offers more of the same. See post, at 9–14. But none

of these considerations justifies Chevron’s sweeping pre-

sumption of congressional intent.

Beginning with expertise, we recently noted that inter-

pretive issues arising in connection with a regulatory

scheme often “may fall more naturally into a judge’s baili-

wick” than an agency’s. Kisor, 588 U. S., at 578 (opinion of

the Court). We thus observed that “[w]hen the agency has

no comparative expertise in resolving a regulatory ambigu-

ity, Congress presumably would not grant it that author-

ity.” Ibid. Chevron’s broad rule of deference, though, de-

mands that courts presume just the opposite. Under that

rule, ambiguities of all stripes trigger deference. Indeed,

the Government and, seemingly, the dissent continue to de-

fend the proposition that Chevron applies even in cases hav-

ing little to do with an agency’s technical subject matter ex-

pertise. See Brief for Respondents in No. 22–1219, p. 17;

post, at 10.

But even when an ambiguity happens to implicate a tech-

nical matter, it does not follow that Congress has taken the

power to authoritatively interpret the statute from the

courts and given it to the agency. Congress expects courts

to handle technical statutory questions. “[M]any statutory

cases” call upon “courts [to] interpret the mass of technical

detail that is the ordinary diet of the law,” Egelhoff v.

Egelhoff, 532 U. S. 141, 161 (2001) (Breyer, J., dissenting),

and courts did so without issue in agency cases before Chev-

ron, see post, at 30 (GORSUCH, J., concurring). Courts, after

all, do not decide such questions blindly. The parties and

Cite as: 603 U. S. ____ (2024) 25

Opinion of the Court

amici in such cases are steeped in the subject matter, and

reviewing courts have the benefit of their perspectives. In

an agency case in particular, the court will go about its task

with the agency’s “body of experience and informed judg-

ment,” among other information, at its disposal. Skidmore,

323 U. S., at 140. And although an agency’s interpretation

of a statute “cannot bind a court,” it may be especially in-

formative “to the extent it rests on factual premises within

[the agency’s] expertise.” Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and

Firearms v. FLRA, 464 U. S. 89, 98, n. 8 (1983). Such ex-

pertise has always been one of the factors which may give

an Executive Branch interpretation particular “power to

persuade, if lacking power to control.” Skidmore, 323 U. S.,

at 140; see, e.g., County of Maui v. Hawaii Wildlife Fund,

590 U. S. 165, 180 (2020); Moore, 95 U. S., at 763.

For those reasons, delegating ultimate interpretive au-

thority to agencies is simply not necessary to ensure that

the resolution of statutory ambiguities is well informed by

subject matter expertise. The better presumption is there-

fore that Congress expects courts to do their ordinary job of

interpreting statutes, with due respect for the views of the

Executive Branch. And to the extent that Congress and the

Executive Branch may disagree with how the courts have

performed that job in a particular case, they are of course

always free to act by revising the statute.

Nor does a desire for the uniform construction of federal

law justify Chevron. Given inconsistencies in how judges

apply Chevron, see infra, at 30–33, it is unclear how much

the doctrine as a whole (as opposed to its highly deferential

second step) actually promotes such uniformity. In any

event, there is little value in imposing a uniform interpre-

tation of a statute if that interpretation is wrong. We see

no reason to presume that Congress prefers uniformity for

uniformity’s sake over the correct interpretation of the laws

it enacts.

26 LOPER BRIGHT ENTERPRISES v. RAIMONDO

Opinion of the Court

The view that interpretation of ambiguous statutory pro-

visions amounts to policymaking suited for political actors

rather than courts is especially mistaken, for it rests on a

profound misconception of the judicial role. It is reasonable

to assume that Congress intends to leave policymaking to

political actors. But resolution of statutory ambiguities in-

volves legal interpretation. That task does not suddenly be-

come policymaking just because a court has an “agency to

fall back on.” Kisor, 588 U. S., at 575 (opinion of the Court).

Courts interpret statutes, no matter the context, based on

the traditional tools of statutory construction, not individ-

ual policy preferences. Indeed, the Framers crafted the

Constitution to ensure that federal judges could exercise

judgment free from the influence of the political branches.

See The Federalist, No. 78, at 522–525. They were to con-

strue the law with “[c]lear heads . . . and honest hearts,” not

with an eye to policy preferences that had not made it into

the statute. 1 Works of James Wilson 363 (J. Andrews ed.

1896).

That is not to say that Congress cannot or does not confer

discretionary authority on agencies. Congress may do so,

subject to constitutional limits, and it often has. But to stay

out of discretionary policymaking left to the political

branches, judges need only fulfill their obligations under

the APA to independently identify and respect such delega-

tions of authority, police the outer statutory boundaries of

those delegations, and ensure that agencies exercise their

discretion consistent with the APA. By forcing courts to in-

stead pretend that ambiguities are necessarily delegations,

Chevron does not prevent judges from making policy. It

prevents them from judging.

3

In truth, Chevron’s justifying presumption is, as Mem-

bers of this Court have often recognized, a fiction. See Buff-

ington v. McDonough, 598 U. S. ___, ___ (2022) (GORSUCH,

Cite as: 603 U. S. ____ (2024) 27

Opinion of the Court

J., dissenting from denial of certiorari) (slip op., at 11);

Cuozzo, 579 U. S., at 286 (THOMAS, J., concurring); Scalia,

1989 Duke L. J., at 517; see also post, at 15 (opinion of

KAGAN, J.). So we have spent the better part of four decades

imposing one limitation on Chevron after another, pruning

its presumption on the understanding that “where it is in

doubt that Congress actually intended to delegate particu-

lar interpretive authority to an agency, Chevron is ‘inappli-

cable.’ ” United States v. Mead Corp., 533 U. S. 218, 230

(2001) (quoting Christensen v. Harris County, 529 U. S. 576,

597 (2000) (Breyer, J., dissenting)); see also Adams Fruit

Co. v. Barrett, 494 U. S. 638, 649 (1990).

Consider the many refinements we have made in an ef-

fort to match Chevron’s presumption to reality. We have

said that Chevron applies only “when it appears that Con-

gress delegated authority to the agency generally to make

rules carrying the force of law, and that the agency inter-

pretation claiming deference was promulgated in the exer-

cise of that authority.” Mead, 533 U. S., at 226–227. In

practice, that threshold requirement—sometimes called

Chevron “step zero”—largely limits Chevron to “the fruits of

notice-and-comment rulemaking or formal adjudication.”

533 U. S., at 230. But even when those processes are used,

deference is still not warranted “where the regulation is

‘procedurally defective’—that is, where the agency errs by

failing to follow the correct procedures in issuing the regu-

lation.” Encino Motorcars, LLC v. Navarro, 579 U. S. 211,

220 (2016) (quoting Mead, 533 U. S., at 227).

Even where those procedural hurdles are cleared, sub-

stantive ones remain. Most notably, Chevron does not ap-

ply if the question at issue is one of “deep ‘economic and

political significance.’ ” King v. Burwell, 576 U. S. 473, 486

(2015). We have instead expected Congress to delegate

such authority “expressly” if at all, ibid., for “[e]xtraordi-

nary grants of regulatory authority are rarely accomplished

through ‘modest words,’ ‘vague terms,’ or ‘subtle device[s],’ ”

28 LOPER BRIGHT ENTERPRISES v. RAIMONDO

Opinion of the Court

West Virginia v. EPA, 597 U. S. 697, 723 (2022) (quoting

Whitman v. American Trucking Assns., Inc., 531 U. S. 457,

468 (2001); alteration in original). Nor have we applied

Chevron to agency interpretations of judicial review provi-

sions, see Adams Fruit Co., 494 U. S., at 649–650, or to stat-

utory schemes not administered by the agency seeking def-

erence, see Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis, 584 U. S. 497, 519–

520 (2018). And we have sent mixed signals on whether

Chevron applies when a statute has criminal applications.

Compare Abramski v. United States, 573 U. S. 169, 191

(2014), with Babbitt v. Sweet Home Chapter, Communities

for Great Ore., 515 U. S. 687, 704, n. 18 (1995).

Confronted with this byzantine set of preconditions and

exceptions, some courts have simply bypassed Chevron,

saying it makes no difference for one reason or another.7

And even when they do invoke Chevron, courts do not al-

ways heed the various steps and nuances of that evolving

doctrine. In one of the cases before us today, for example,

the First Circuit both skipped “step zero,” see 62 F. 4th, at

628, and refused to “classify [its] conclusion as a product of

Chevron step one or step two”—though it ultimately ap-

pears to have deferred under step two, id., at 634.

——————

7 See, e.g., Guedes v. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explo-

sives, 45 F. 4th 306, 313–314 (CADC 2022), abrogated by Garland v. Car-

gill, 602 U. S. ___ (2024); County of Amador v. United States Dept. of

Interior, 872 F. 3d 1012, 1021–1022 (CA9 2017); Estrada-Rodriguez v.

Lynch, 825 F. 3d 397, 403–404 (CA8 2016); Nielsen v. AECOM Tech.

Corp., 762 F. 3d 214, 220 (CA2 2014); Alaska Stock, LLC v. Houghton

Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Co., 747 F. 3d 673, 685, n. 52 (CA9 2014);

Jurado-Delgado v. Attorney Gen. of U. S., 498 Fed. Appx. 107, 117 (CA3

2009); see also D. Brookins, Confusion in the Circuit Courts: How the

Circuit Courts Are Solving the Mead-Puzzle by Avoiding It Altogether,

85 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 1484, 1496–1499 (2017) (documenting Chevron

avoidance by the lower courts); A. Vermeule, Our Schmittian Adminis-

trative Law, 122 Harv. L. Rev. 1095, 1127–1129 (2009) (same); L. Bress-

man, How Mead Has Muddled Judicial Review of Agency Action, 58

Vand. L. Rev. 1443, 1464–1466 (2005) (same).

Cite as: 603 U. S. ____ (2024) 29

Opinion of the Court

This Court, for its part, has not deferred to an agency in-

terpretation under Chevron since 2016. See Cuozzo, 579

U. S., at 280 (most recent occasion). But Chevron remains

on the books. So litigants must continue to wrestle with it,

and lower courts—bound by even our crumbling prece-

dents, see Agostini v. Felton, 521 U. S. 203, 238 (1997)—

understandably continue to apply it.

The experience of the last 40 years has thus done little to

rehabilitate Chevron. It has only made clear that Chevron’s

fictional presumption of congressional intent was always

unmoored from the APA’s demand that courts exercise in-

dependent judgment in construing statutes administered

by agencies. At best, our intricate Chevron doctrine has

been nothing more than a distraction from the question

that matters: Does the statute authorize the challenged

agency action? And at worst, it has required courts to vio-

late the APA by yielding to an agency the express responsi-

bility, vested in “the reviewing court,” to “decide all relevant

questions of law” and “interpret . . . statutory provisions.”

§706 (emphasis added).

IV

The only question left is whether stare decisis, the doc-

trine governing judicial adherence to precedent, requires us

to persist in the Chevron project. It does not. Stare decisis

is not an “inexorable command,” Payne v. Tennessee, 501

U. S. 808, 828 (1991), and the stare decisis considerations

most relevant here—“the quality of [the precedent’s] rea-

soning, the workability of the rule it established, . . . and

reliance on the decision,” Knick v. Township of Scott, 588

U. S. 180, 203 (2019) (quoting Janus v. State, County, and

Municipal Employees, 585 U. S. 878, 917 (2018))—all weigh

in favor of letting Chevron go.

Chevron has proved to be fundamentally misguided. De-

spite reshaping judicial review of agency action, neither it

nor any case of ours applying it grappled with the APA—

30 LOPER BRIGHT ENTERPRISES v. RAIMONDO

Opinion of the Court

the statute that lays out how such review works. Its flaws

were nonetheless apparent from the start, prompting this

Court to revise its foundations and continually limit its ap-

plication. It has launched and sustained a cottage industry

of scholars attempting to decipher its basis and meaning.

And Members of this Court have long questioned its prem-

ises. See, e.g., Pereira v. Sessions, 585 U. S. 198, 219–221

(2018) (Kennedy, J., concurring); Michigan, 576 U. S., at

760–764 (THOMAS, J., concurring); Buffington, 598 U. S.

___ (opinion of GORSUCH, J.); B. Kavanaugh, Fixing Statu-

tory Interpretation, 129 Harv. L. Rev. 2118, 2150–2154

(2016). Even Justice Scalia, an early champion of Chevron,

came to seriously doubt whether it could be reconciled with

the APA. See Perez, 575 U. S., at 109–110 (opinion concur-

ring in judgment). For its entire existence, Chevron has

been a “rule in search of a justification,” Knick, 588 U. S.,

at 204, if it was ever coherent enough to be called a rule at

all.

Experience has also shown that Chevron is unworkable.

The defining feature of its framework is the identification

of statutory ambiguity, which requires deference at the doc-

trine’s second step. But the concept of ambiguity has al-

ways evaded meaningful definition. As Justice Scalia put

the dilemma just five years after Chevron was decided:

“How clear is clear?” 1989 Duke L. J., at 521.

We are no closer to an answer to that question than we

were four decades ago. “ ‘[A]mbiguity’ is a term that may

have different meanings for different judges.” Exxon Mobil

Corp. v. Allapattah Services, Inc., 545 U. S. 546, 572 (2005)

(Stevens, J., dissenting). One judge might see ambiguity

everywhere; another might never encounter it. Compare L.

Silberman, Chevron—The Intersection of Law & Policy, 58

Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 821, 822 (1990), with R. Kethledge, Am-

biguities and Agency Cases: Reflections After (Almost) Ten

Years on the Bench, 70 Vand. L. Rev. En Banc 315, 323

(2017). A rule of law that is so wholly “in the eye of the

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Opinion of the Court

beholder,” Exxon Mobil Corp., 545 U. S., at 572 (Stevens, J.,

dissenting), invites different results in like cases and is

therefore “arbitrary in practice,” Gulfstream Aerospace

Corp. v. Mayacamas Corp., 485 U. S. 271, 283 (1988). Such

an impressionistic and malleable concept “cannot stand as

an every-day test for allocating” interpretive authority be-

tween courts and agencies. Swift & Co. v. Wickham, 382

U. S. 111, 125 (1965).

The dissent proves the point. It tells us that a court

should reach Chevron’s second step when it finds, “at the

end of its interpretive work,” that “Congress has left an am-

biguity or gap.” Post, at 1–2. (The Government offers a

similar test. See Brief for Respondents in No. 22–1219,

pp. 7, 10, 14; Tr. of Oral Arg. 113–114, 116.) That is no

guide at all. Once more, the basic nature and meaning of a

statute does not change when an agency happens to be in-

volved. Nor does it change just because the agency has hap-

pened to offer its interpretation through the sort of proce-

dures necessary to obtain deference, or because the other

preconditions for Chevron happen to be satisfied. The stat-

ute still has a best meaning, necessarily discernible by a

court deploying its full interpretive toolkit. So for the dis-

sent’s test to have any meaning, it must think that in an

agency case (unlike in any other), a court should give up on

its “interpretive work” before it has identified that best

meaning. But how does a court know when to do so? On

that point, the dissent leaves a gap of its own. It protests

only that some other interpretive tools—all with pedigrees

more robust than Chevron’s, and all designed to help courts

identify the meaning of a text rather than allow the Execu-

tive Branch to displace it—also apply to ambiguous texts.

See post, at 27. That this is all the dissent can come up

with, after four decades of judicial experience attempting to

identify ambiguity under Chevron, reveals the futility of the

32 LOPER BRIGHT ENTERPRISES v. RAIMONDO

Opinion of the Court

exercise.8

Because Chevron in its original, two-step form was so in-

determinate and sweeping, we have instead been forced to

clarify the doctrine again and again. Our attempts to do so

have only added to Chevron’s unworkability, transforming

the original two-step into a dizzying breakdance. See Ad-

ams Fruit Co., 494 U. S., at 649–650; Mead, 533 U. S., at

226–227; King, 576 U. S., at 486; Encino Motorcars, 579

U. S., at 220; Epic Systems, 584 U. S., at 519–520; on and

on. And the doctrine continues to spawn difficult threshold

questions that promise to further complicate the inquiry

should Chevron be retained. See, e.g., Cargill v. Garland,

57 F. 4th 447, 465–468 (CA5 2023) (plurality opinion) (May

the Government waive reliance on Chevron? Does Chevron

apply to agency interpretations of statutes imposing crimi-

nal penalties? Does Chevron displace the rule of lenity?),

aff ’d, 602 U. S. ___ (2024).

Four decades after its inception, Chevron has thus be-

come an impediment, rather than an aid, to accomplishing

the basic judicial task of “say[ing] what the law is.” Mar-

bury, 1 Cranch, at 177. And its continuing import is far

from clear. Courts have often declined to engage with the

doctrine, saying it makes no difference. See n. 7, supra.

And as noted, we have avoided deferring under Chevron

since 2016. That trend is nothing new; for decades, we have

often declined to invoke Chevron even in those cases where

it might appear to be applicable. See W. Eskridge & L.

Baer, The Continuum of Deference: Supreme Court Treat-

ment of Agency Statutory Interpretations From Chevron to

Hamdan, 96 Geo. L. J. 1083, 1125 (2008). At this point, all

——————

8 Citing an empirical study, the dissent adds that Chevron “fosters

agreement among judges.” Post, at 28. It is hardly surprising that a

study might find as much; Chevron’s second step is supposed to be hos-

pitable to agency interpretations. So when judges get there, they tend to

agree that the agency wins. That proves nothing about the supposed

ease or predictability of identifying ambiguity in the first place.

Cite as: 603 U. S. ____ (2024) 33

Opinion of the Court

that remains of Chevron is a decaying husk with bold pre-

tensions.

Nor has Chevron been the sort of “ ‘stable background’

rule” that fosters meaningful reliance. Post, at 8, n. 1 (opin-

ion of KAGAN, J.) (quoting Morrison v. National Australia

Bank Ltd., 561 U. S. 247, 261 (2010)). Given our constant

tinkering with and eventual turn away from Chevron, and

its inconsistent application by the lower courts, it instead is

hard to see how anyone—Congress included—could reason-

ably expect a court to rely on Chevron in any particular

case. And even if it were possible to predict accurately

when courts will apply Chevron, the doctrine “does not pro-

vide ‘a clear or easily applicable standard, so arguments for

reliance based on its clarity are misplaced.’ ” Janus, 585

U. S., at 927 (quoting South Dakota v. Wayfair, Inc., 585

U. S. 162, 186 (2018)). To plan on Chevron yielding a par-

ticular result is to gamble not only that the doctrine will be

invoked, but also that it will produce readily foreseeable

outcomes and the stability that comes with them. History

has proved neither bet to be a winning proposition.

Rather than safeguarding reliance interests, Chevron af-

firmatively destroys them. Under Chevron, a statutory am-

biguity, no matter why it is there, becomes a license author-

izing an agency to change positions as much as it likes, with

“[u]nexplained inconsistency” being “at most . . . a reason

for holding an interpretation to be . . . arbitrary and capri-

cious.” Brand X, 545 U. S., at 981. But statutory ambigu-

ity, as we have explained, is not a reliable indicator of ac-

tual delegation of discretionary authority to agencies.

Chevron thus allows agencies to change course even when

Congress has given them no power to do so. By its sheer

breadth, Chevron fosters unwarranted instability in the

law, leaving those attempting to plan around agency action

in an eternal fog of uncertainty.

Chevron accordingly has undermined the very “rule of

law” values that stare decisis exists to secure. Michigan v.

34 LOPER BRIGHT ENTERPRISES v. RAIMONDO

Opinion of the Court

Bay Mills Indian Community, 572 U. S. 782, 798 (2014).

And it cannot be constrained by admonishing courts to be

extra careful, or by tacking on a new batch of conditions.

We would need to once again “revis[e] its theoretical basis

. . . in order to cure its practical deficiencies.” Montejo v.

Louisiana, 556 U. S. 778, 792 (2009). Stare decisis does not

require us to do so, especially because any refinements we

might make would only point courts back to their duties un-

der the APA to “decide all relevant questions of law” and

“interpret . . . statutory provisions.” §706. Nor is there any

reason to wait helplessly for Congress to correct our mis-

take. The Court has jettisoned many precedents that Con-

gress likewise could have legislatively overruled. See, e.g.,

Patterson v. McLean Credit Union, 485 U. S. 617, 618

(1988) (per curiam) (collecting cases). And part of “judicial

humility,” post, at 3, 25 (opinion of KAGAN, J.,), is admitting

and in certain cases correcting our own mistakes, especially

when those mistakes are serious, see post, at 8–9 (opinion

of GORSUCH, J.).

This is one of those cases. Chevron was a judicial inven-

tion that required judges to disregard their statutory du-

ties. And the only way to “ensure that the law will not

merely change erratically, but will develop in a principled

and intelligible fashion,” Vasquez v. Hillery, 474 U. S. 254,

265 (1986), is for us to leave Chevron behind.

By doing so, however, we do not call into question prior

cases that relied on the Chevron framework. The holdings

of those cases that specific agency actions are lawful—in-

cluding the Clean Air Act holding of Chevron itself—are

still subject to statutory stare decisis despite our change in

interpretive methodology. See CBOCS West, Inc. v. Hum-

phries, 553 U. S. 442, 457 (2008). Mere reliance on Chevron

cannot constitute a “ ‘special justification’ ” for overruling

such a holding, because to say a precedent relied on Chev-

ron is, at best, “just an argument that the precedent was

wrongly decided.” Halliburton Co. v. Erica P. John Fund,

Cite as: 603 U. S. ____ (2024) 35

Opinion of the Court

Inc., 573 U. S. 258, 266 (2014) (quoting Dickerson v. United

States, 530 U. S. 428, 443 (2000)). That is not enough to

justify overruling a statutory precedent.

* * *

The dissent ends by quoting Chevron: “ ‘Judges are not

experts in the field.’ ” Post, at 31 (quoting 467 U. S., at 865).

That depends, of course, on what the “field” is. If it is legal

interpretation, that has been, “emphatically,” “the province

and duty of the judicial department” for at least 221 years.

Marbury, 1 Cranch, at 177. The rest of the dissent’s se-

lected epigraph is that judges “ ‘are not part of either politi-

cal branch.’ ” Post, at 31 (quoting Chevron, 467 U. S., at

865). Indeed. Judges have always been expected to apply

their “judgment” independent of the political branches

when interpreting the laws those branches enact. The Fed-

eralist No. 78, at 523. And one of those laws, the APA, bars

judges from disregarding that responsibility just because

an Executive Branch agency views a statute differently.

Chevron is overruled. Courts must exercise their inde-

pendent judgment in deciding whether an agency has acted

within its statutory authority, as the APA requires. Careful

attention to the judgment of the Executive Branch may help

inform that inquiry. And when a particular statute dele-

gates authority to an agency consistent with constitutional

limits, courts must respect the delegation, while ensuring

that the agency acts within it. But courts need not and un-

der the APA may not defer to an agency interpretation of

the law simply because a statute is ambiguous.

Because the D. C. and First Circuits relied on Chevron in

deciding whether to uphold the Rule, their judgments are

vacated, and the cases are remanded for further proceed-

ings consistent with this opinion.

It is so ordered.

Cite as: 603 U. S. ____ (2024) 1

THOMAS, J., concurring

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

_________________

Nos. 22–451 and 22–1219

_________________

LOPER BRIGHT ENTERPRISES, ET AL.,

PETITIONERS

22–451 v.

GINA RAIMONDO, SECRETARY OF

COMMERCE, ET AL.

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF

APPEALS FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

RELENTLESS, INC., ET AL., PETITIONERS

22–1219 v.

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE, ET AL.

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF

APPEALS FOR THE FIRST CIRCUIT

[June 28, 2024]

JUSTICE THOMAS, concurring.

I join the Court’s opinion in full because it correctly con-

cludes that Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources De-

fense Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837 (1984), must finally be

overruled. Under Chevron, a judge was required to adopt

an agency’s interpretation of an ambiguous statute, so long

as the agency had a “permissible construction of the stat-

ute.” See id., at 843. As the Court explains, that deference

does not comport with the Administrative Procedure Act,

which requires judges to decide “all relevant questions of

law” and “interpret constitutional and statutory provisions”

when reviewing an agency action. 5 U. S. C. §706; see also

ante, at 18–23; Baldwin v. United States, 589 U. S. ___, ___–

___ (2020) (THOMAS, J., dissenting from denial of certiorari)

(slip op., at 4–5).

2 LOPER BRIGHT ENTERPRISES v. RAIMONDO

THOMAS, J., concurring

I write separately to underscore a more fundamental

problem: Chevron deference also violates our Constitution’s

separation of powers, as I have previously explained at

length. See Baldwin, 589 U. S., at ___–___ (dissenting opin-

ion) (slip op., at 2–4); Michigan v. EPA, 576 U. S. 743, 761–

763 (2015) (concurring opinion); see also Perez v. Mortgage

Bankers Assn., 575 U. S. 92, 115–118 (2015) (opinion con-

curring in judgment). And, I agree with JUSTICE GORSUCH

that we should not overlook Chevron’s constitutional de-

fects in overruling it.* Post, at 15–20 (concurring opinion).

To provide “practical and real protections for individual lib-

erty,” the Framers drafted a Constitution that divides the

legislative, executive, and judicial powers between three

branches of Government. Perez, 575 U. S., at 118 (opinion

of THOMAS, J.). Chevron deference compromises this sepa-

ration of powers in two ways. It curbs the judicial power

afforded to courts, and simultaneously expands agencies’

executive power beyond constitutional limits.

Chevron compels judges to abdicate their Article III “ju-

dicial Power.” §1. “[T]he judicial power, as originally un-

derstood, requires a court to exercise its independent judg-

ment in interpreting and expounding upon the laws.”

Perez, 575 U. S., at 119 (opinion of THOMAS, J.); accord, post,

at 17–18 (opinion of GORSUCH, J.). The Framers under-

stood that “legal texts . . . often contain ambiguities,” and

that the judicial power included “the power to resolve these

ambiguities over time.” Perez, 575 U. S., at 119 (opinion of

THOMAS, J.); accord, ante, at 7–9. But, under Chevron, a

judge must accept an agency’s interpretation of an ambigu-

ous law, even if he thinks another interpretation is correct.

Ante, at 19. Chevron deference thus prevents judges from

——————

*There is much to be commended in JUSTICE GORSUCH’s careful consid-

eration from first principles of the weight we should afford to our prece-

dent. I agree with the lion’s share of his concurrence. See generally

Gamble v. United States, 587 U. S. 678, 710 (2019) (THOMAS, J., concur-

ring).

Cite as: 603 U. S. ____ (2024) 3

THOMAS, J., concurring

exercising their independent judgment to resolve ambigui-

ties. Baldwin, 589 U. S., at ___ (opinion of THOMAS, J.) (slip

op., at 3); see also Michigan, 576 U. S., at 761 (opinion of

THOMAS, J.); see also Perez, 575 U. S., at 123 (opinion of

THOMAS, J.). By tying a judge’s hands, Chevron prevents

the Judiciary from serving as a constitutional check on the

Executive. It allows “the Executive . . . to dictate the out-

come of cases through erroneous interpretations.” Bald-

win, 589 U. S., at ___ (opinion of THOMAS, J.) (slip op., at 4);

Michigan, 576 U. S., at 763, n. 1 (opinion of THOMAS, J.);

see also Perez, 575 U. S., at 124 (opinion of THOMAS, J.). Be-

cause the judicial power requires judges to exercise their

independent judgment, the deference that Chevron re-

quires contravenes Article III’s mandate.

Chevron deference also permits the Executive Branch to

exercise powers not given to it. “When the Government is

called upon to perform a function that requires an exercise

of legislative, executive, or judicial power, only the vested

recipient of that power can perform it.” Department of

Transportation v. Association of American Railroads, 575

U. S. 43, 68 (2015) (THOMAS, J., concurring in judgment).

Because the Constitution gives the Executive Branch only

“[t]he executive Power,” executive agencies may constitu-

tionally exercise only that power. Art. II, §1, cl. 1. But,

Chevron gives agencies license to exercise judicial power.

By allowing agencies to definitively interpret laws so long

as they are ambiguous, Chevron “transfer[s]” the Judici-

ary’s “interpretive judgment to the agency.” Perez, 575

U. S., at 124 (opinion of THOMAS, J.); see also Baldwin, 589

U. S., at ___ (opinion of THOMAS, J.) (slip op., at 4); Michi-

gan, 576 U. S., at 761–762 (opinion of THOMAS, J.); post, at

18 (GORSUCH, J., concurring).

Chevron deference “cannot be salvaged” by recasting it as

deference to an agency’s “formulation of policy.” Baldwin,

589 U. S., at ___ (opinion of THOMAS, J.) (internal quotation

marks omitted) (slip op., at 3). If that were true, Chevron

4 LOPER BRIGHT ENTERPRISES v. RAIMONDO

THOMAS, J., concurring

would mean that “agencies are unconstitutionally exercis-

ing ‘legislative Powers’ vested in Congress.” Baldwin, 589

U. S., at ___ (opinion of THOMAS, J.) (slip op., at 3) (quoting

Art. I, §1). By “giv[ing] the force of law to agency pro-

nouncements on matters of private conduct as to which

Congress did not actually have an intent,” Chevron “per-

mit[s] a body other than Congress to perform a function

that requires an exercise of legislative power.” Michigan,

576 U. S., at 762 (opinion of THOMAS, J.) (internal quotation

marks omitted). No matter the gloss put on it, Chevron ex-

pands agencies’ power beyond the bounds of Article II by

permitting them to exercise powers reserved to another

branch of Government.

Chevron deference was “not a harmless transfer of

power.” Baldwin, 589 U. S., at ___ (opinion of THOMAS, J.)

(slip op., at 3). “The Constitution carefully imposes struc-

tural constraints on all three branches, and the exercise of

power free of those accompanying restraints subverts the

design of the Constitution’s ratifiers.” Ibid. In particular,

the Founders envisioned that “the courts [would] check the

Executive by applying the correct interpretation of the law.”

Id., at ___ (slip op., at 4). Chevron was thus a fundamental

disruption of our separation of powers. It improperly strips

courts of judicial power by simultaneously increasing the

power of executive agencies. By overruling Chevron, we re-

store this aspect of our separation of powers. To safeguard

individual liberty, “[s]tructure is everything.” A. Scalia,

Foreword: The Importance of Structure in Constitutional

Interpretation, 83 Notre Dame L. Rev. 1417, 1418 (2008).

Although the Court finally ends our 40-year misadventure

with Chevron deference, its more profound problems should

not be overlooked. Regardless of what a statute says, the

type of deference required by Chevron violates the Consti-

tution.

Cite as: 603 U. S. ____ (2024) 1

GORSUCH, J., concurring

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

_________________

Nos. 22–451 and 22–1219

_________________

LOPER BRIGHT ENTERPRISES, ET AL.,

PETITIONERS

22–451 v.

GINA RAIMONDO, SECRETARY OF

COMMERCE, ET AL.

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF

APPEALS FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

RELENTLESS, INC., ET AL., PETITIONERS

22–1219 v.

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE, ET AL.

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF

APPEALS FOR THE FIRST CIRCUIT

[June 28, 2024]

JUSTICE GORSUCH, concurring.

In disputes between individuals and the government

about the meaning of a federal law, federal courts have tra-

ditionally sought to offer independent judgments about

“what the law is” without favor to either side. Marbury v.

Madison, 1 Cranch 137, 177 (1803). Beginning in the mid-

1980s, however, this Court experimented with a radically

different approach. Applying Chevron deference, judges be-

gan deferring to the views of executive agency officials

about the meaning of federal statutes. See Chevron U. S. A.

Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S.

837 (1984). With time, the error of this approach became

widely appreciated. So much so that this Court has refused

to apply Chevron deference since 2016. Today, the Court

places a tombstone on Chevron no one can miss. In doing

2 LOPER BRIGHT ENTERPRISES v. RAIMONDO

GORSUCH, J., concurring

so, the Court returns judges to interpretive rules that have

guided federal courts since the Nation’s founding. I write

separately to address why the proper application of the doc-

trine of stare decisis supports that course.

I

A

Today, the phrase “common law judge” may call to mind

a judicial titan of the past who brilliantly devised new legal

rules on his own. The phrase “stare decisis” might conjure

up a sense that judges who come later in time are strictly

bound to follow the work of their predecessors. But neither

of those intuitions fairly describes the traditional common-

law understanding of the judge’s role or the doctrine of stare

decisis.

At common law, a judge’s charge to decide cases was not

usually understood as a license to make new law. For much

of England’s early history, different rulers and different le-

gal systems prevailed in different regions. As England con-

solidated into a single kingdom governed by a single legal

system, the judge’s task was to examine those pre-existing

legal traditions and apply in the disputes that came to him

those legal rules that were “common to the whole land and

to all Englishmen.” F. Maitland, Equity, Also the Forms of

Action at Common Law 2 (1929). That was “common law”

judging.

This view of the judge’s role had consequences for the au-

thority due judicial decisions. Because a judge’s job was to

find and apply the law, not make it, the “opinion of the

judge” and “the law” were not considered “one and the same

thing.” 1 W. Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of

England 71 (1765) (Blackstone) (emphasis deleted). A

judge’s decision might bind the parties to the case at hand.

M. Hale, The History and Analysis of the Common Law of

England 68 (1713) (Hale). But none of that meant the judge

had the power to “make a Law properly so called” for society

Cite as: 603 U. S. ____ (2024) 3

GORSUCH, J., concurring

at large, “for that only the King and Parliament can do.”

Ibid.

Other consequences followed for the role precedent

played in future judicial proceedings. Because past deci-

sions represented something “less than a Law,” they did not

bind future judges. Ibid. At the same time, as Matthew

Hale put it, a future judge could give a past decision

“Weight” as “Evidence” of the law. Ibid. Expressing the

same idea, William Blackstone conceived of judicial prece-

dents as “evidence” of “the common law.” 1 Blackstone 69,

71. And much like other forms of evidence, precedents at

common law were thought to vary in the weight due them.

Some past decisions might supply future courts with con-

siderable guidance. But others might be entitled to lesser

weight, not least because judges are no less prone to error

than anyone else and they may sometimes “mistake” what

the law demands. Id., at 71 (emphasis deleted). In cases

like that, both men thought, a future judge should not

rotely repeat a past mistake but instead “vindicate” the law

“from misrepresentation.” Id., at 70.

When examining past decisions as evidence of the law,

common law judges did not, broadly speaking, afford over-

whelming weight to any “single precedent.” J. Baker, An

Introduction to English Legal History 209–210 (5th ed.

2019). Instead, a prior decision’s persuasive force depended

in large measure on its “Consonancy and Congruity with

Resolutions and Decisions of former Times.” Hale 68. An

individual decision might reflect the views of one court at

one moment in time, but a consistent line of decisions rep-

resenting the wisdom of many minds across many genera-

tions was generally considered stronger evidence of the

law’s meaning. Ibid.

With this conception of precedent in mind, Lord Mans-

field cautioned against elevating “particular cases” above

the “general principles” that “run through the cases, and

govern the decision of them.” Rust v. Cooper, 2 Cowp. 629,

4 LOPER BRIGHT ENTERPRISES v. RAIMONDO

GORSUCH, J., concurring

632, 98 Eng. Rep. 1277, 1279 (K. B. 1777). By discarding

aberrational rulings and pursuing instead the mainstream

of past decisions, he observed, the common law tended over

time to “wor[k] itself pure.” Omychund v. Barker, 1 Atk. 22,

33, 26 Eng. Rep. 15, 23 (Ch. 1744) (emphasis deleted). Re-

flecting similar thinking, Edmund Burke offered five prin-

ciples for the evaluation of past judicial decisions: “They

ought to be shewn; first, to be numerous and not scattered

here and there;—secondly, concurrent and not contradic-

tory and mutually destructive;—thirdly, to be made in good

and constitutional times;—fourthly, not to be made to serve

an occasion;—and fifthly, to be agreeable to the general

tenor of legal principles.” Speech of Dec. 23, 1790, in 3 The

Speeches of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke 513

(1816).

Not only did different decisions carry different weight, so

did different language within a decision. An opinion’s hold-

ing and the reasoning essential to it (the ratio decidendi)

merited careful attention. Dicta, stray remarks, and di-

gressions warranted less weight. See N. Duxbury, The In-

tricacies of Dicta and Dissent 19–24 (2021) (Duxbury).

These were no more than “the vapours and fumes of law.”

F. Bacon, The Lord Keeper’s Speech in the Exchequer

(1617), in 2 The Works of Francis Bacon 478 (B. Montagu

ed. 1887) (Bacon).

That is not to say those “vapours” were worthless. Often

dicta might provide the parties to a particular dispute a

“fuller understanding of the court’s decisional path or re-

lated areas of concern.” B. Garner et al., The Law of Judi-

cial Precedent 65 (2016) (Precedent). Dicta might also pro-

vide future courts with a source of “thoughtful advice.”

Ibid. But future courts had to be careful not to treat every

“hasty expression . . . as a serious and deliberate opinion.”

Steel v. Houghton, 1 Bl. H. 51, 53, 126 Eng. Rep. 32, 33

(C. P. 1788). To do so would work an “injustice to [the]

memory” of their predecessors who could not expect judicial

Cite as: 603 U. S. ____ (2024) 5

GORSUCH, J., concurring

remarks issued in one context to apply perfectly in others,

perhaps especially ones they could not foresee. Ibid. Also,

the limits of the adversarial process, a distinctive feature of

English law, had to be borne in mind. When a single judge

or a small panel reached a decision in a case, they did so

based on the factual record and legal arguments the parties

at hand have chosen to develop. Attuned to those con-

straints, future judges had to proceed with an open mind to

the possibility that different facts and different legal argu-

ments might dictate different outcomes in later disputes.

See Duxbury 19–24.

B

Necessarily, this represents just a quick sketch of tradi-

tional common-law understandings of the judge’s role and

the place of precedent in it. It focuses, too, on the horizon-

tal, not vertical, force of judicial precedents. But there are

good reasons to think that the common law’s understand-

ings of judges and precedent outlined above crossed the At-

lantic and informed the nature of the “judicial Power” the

Constitution vests in federal courts. Art. III, §1.

Not only was the Constitution adopted against the back-

drop of these understandings and, in light of that alone,

they may provide evidence of what the framers meant when

they spoke of the “judicial Power.” Many other, more spe-

cific provisions in the Constitution reflect much the same

distinction between lawmaking and lawfinding functions

the common law did. The Constitution provides that its

terms may be amended only through certain prescribed

democratic processes. Art. V. It vests the power to enact

federal legislation exclusively in the people’s elected repre-

sentatives in Congress. Art. I, §1. Meanwhile, the Consti-

tution describes the judicial power as the power to resolve

cases and controversies. Art. III, §2, cl. 1. As well, it dele-

gates that authority to life-tenured judges, see §1, an as-

signment that would have made little sense if judges could

6 LOPER BRIGHT ENTERPRISES v. RAIMONDO

GORSUCH, J., concurring

usurp lawmaking powers vested in periodically elected rep-

resentatives. But one that makes perfect sense if what is

sought is a neutral party “to interpret and apply” the law

without fear or favor in a dispute between others. 2 The

Works of James Wilson 161 (J. Andrews ed. 1896) (Wilson);

see Osborn v. Bank of United States, 9 Wheat. 738, 866

(1824).

The constrained view of the judicial power that runs

through our Constitution carries with it familiar implica-

tions, ones the framers readily acknowledged. James Mad-

ison, for example, proclaimed that it would be a “fallacy” to

suggest that judges or their precedents could “repeal or al-

ter” the Constitution or the laws of the United States. Let-

ter to N. Trist (Dec. 1831), in 9 The Writings of James Mad-

ison 477 (G. Hunt ed. 1910). A court’s opinion, James

Wilson added, may be thought of as “effective la[w]” “[a]s to

the parties.” Wilson 160–161. But as in England, Wilson

said, a prior judicial decision could serve in a future dispute

only as “evidence” of the law’s proper construction. Id., at

160; accord, 1 J. Kent, Commentaries on American Law

442–443 (1826).

The framers also recognized that the judicial power de-

scribed in our Constitution implies, as the judicial power

did in England, a power (and duty) of discrimination when

it comes to assessing the “evidence” embodied in past deci-

sions. So, for example, Madison observed that judicial rul-

ings “repeatedly confirmed ” may supply better evidence of

the law’s meaning than isolated or aberrant ones. Letter to

C. Ingersoll (June 1831), in 4 Letters and Other Writings of

James Madison 184 (1867) (emphasis added). Extending

the thought, Thomas Jefferson believed it would often take

“numerous decisions” for the meaning of new statutes to be-

come truly “settled.” Letter to S. Jones (July 1809), in 12

The Writings of Thomas Jefferson 299 (A. Bergh ed. 1907).

From the start, too, American courts recognized that not

everything found in a prior decision was entitled to equal

Cite as: 603 U. S. ____ (2024) 7

GORSUCH, J., concurring

weight. As Chief Justice Marshall warned, “It is a maxim

not to be disregarded, that general expressions, in every

opinion, are to be taken in connection with the case in which

those expressions are used.” Cohens v. Virginia, 6 Wheat.

264, 399 (1821). To the extent a past court offered views

“beyond the case,” those expressions “may be respected” in

a later case “but ought not to control the judgment.” Ibid.

One “obvious” reason for this, Marshall continued, had to

do with the limits of the adversarial process we inherited

from England: Only “[t]he question actually before the

Court is investigated with care, and considered in its full

extent. Other principles which may serve to illustrate it,

are considered in their relation to the case decided, but

their possible bearing on all other cases is seldom com-

pletely investigated.” Id., at 399–400.

Abraham Lincoln championed these traditional under-

standings in his debates with Stephen Douglas. Douglas

took the view that a single decision of this Court—no mat-

ter how flawed—could definitively resolve a contested issue

for everyone and all time. Those who thought otherwise, he

said, “aim[ed] a deadly blow to our whole Republican sys-

tem of government.” Speech at Springfield, Ill. (June 26,

1857), in 2 The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln 401 (R.

Basler ed. 1953) (Lincoln Speech). But Lincoln knew better.

While accepting that judicial decisions “absolutely deter-

mine” the rights of the parties to a court’s judgment, he re-

fused to accept that any single judicial decision could “fully

settl[e]” an issue, particularly when that decision departs

from the Constitution. Id., at 400–401. In cases such as

these, Lincoln explained, “it is not resistance, it is not fac-

tious, it is not even disrespectful, to treat [the decision] as

not having yet quite established a settled doctrine for the

country.” Id., at 401.

After the Civil War, the Court echoed some of these same

points. It stressed that every statement in a judicial opin-

8 LOPER BRIGHT ENTERPRISES v. RAIMONDO

GORSUCH, J., concurring

ion “must be taken in connection with its immediate con-

text,” In re Ayers, 123 U. S. 443, 488 (1887), and stray “re-

marks” must not be elevated above the written law, see The

Belfast, 7 Wall. 624, 641 (1869); see also, e.g., Trebilcock v.

Wilson, 12 Wall. 687, 692–693 (1872); Mason v. Eldred, 6

Wall. 231, 236–238 (1868). During Chief Justice Chase’s

tenure, it seems a Justice writing the Court’s majority opin-

ion would generally work alone and present his work orally

and in summary form to his colleagues at conference, which

meant that other Justices often did not even review the

opinion prior to publication. 6 C. Fairman, History of the

Supreme Court of the United States 69–70 (1971). The

Court could proceed in this way because it understood that

a single judicial opinion may resolve a “case or controversy,”

and in so doing it may make “effective law” for the parties,

but it does not legislate for the whole of the country and is

not to be confused with laws that do.

C

From all this, I see at least three lessons about the doc-

trine of stare decisis relevant to the decision before us today.

Each concerns a form of judicial humility.

First, a past decision may bind the parties to a dispute,

but it provides this Court no authority in future cases to

depart from what the Constitution or laws of the United

States ordain. Instead, the Constitution promises, the

American people are sovereign and they alone may,

through democratically responsive processes, amend our

foundational charter or revise federal legislation. Une-

lected judges enjoy no such power. Part I–B, supra.

Recognizing as much, this Court has often said that stare

decisis is not an “ ‘inexorable command.’ ” State Oil Co. v.

Khan, 522 U. S. 3, 20 (1997). And from time to time it has

found it necessary to correct its past mistakes. When it

comes to correcting errors of constitutional interpretation,

the Court has stressed the importance of doing so, for they

Cite as: 603 U. S. ____ (2024) 9

GORSUCH, J., concurring

can be corrected otherwise only through the amendment

process. See, e.g., Franchise Tax Bd. of Cal. v. Hyatt, 587

U. S. 230, 248 (2019). When it comes to fixing errors of stat-

utory interpretation, the Court has proceeded perhaps more

circumspectly. But in that field, too, it has overruled even

longstanding but “flawed” decisions. See, e.g., Leegin Crea-

tive Leather Products, Inc. v. PSKS, Inc., 551 U. S. 877, 904,

907 (2007).

Recent history illustrates all this. During the tenures of

Chief Justices Warren and Burger, it seems this Court over-

ruled an average of around three cases per Term, including

roughly 50 statutory precedents between the 1960s and

1980s alone. See W. Eskridge, Overruling Statutory Prec-

edents, 76 Geo. L. J. 1361, 1427–1434 (1988) (collecting

cases). Many of these decisions came in settings no less

consequential than today’s. In recent years, we have not

approached the pace set by our predecessors, overruling an

average of just one or two prior decisions each Term.1 But

the point remains: Judicial decisions inconsistent with the

written law do not inexorably control.

Second, another lesson tempers the first. While judicial

decisions may not supersede or revise the Constitution or

federal statutory law, they merit our “respect as embodying

the considered views of those who have come before.” Ra-

mos v. Louisiana, 590 U. S. 83, 105 (2020). As a matter of

professional responsibility, a judge must not only avoid con-

fusing his writings with the law. When a case comes before

him, he must also weigh his view of what the law demands

against the thoughtful views of his predecessors. After all,

“[p]recedent is a way of accumulating and passing down the

learning of past generations, a font of established wisdom

——————

1 For relevant databases of decisions, see Congressional Research Ser-

vice, Table of Supreme Court Decisions Overruled by Subsequent Deci-

sions, Constitution Annotated, https://constitution.congress.gov/resources/

decisions-overruled/; see also H. Spaeth et al., 2023 Supreme Court Da-

tabase, http://supremecourtdatabase.org.

10 LOPER BRIGHT ENTERPRISES v. RAIMONDO

GORSUCH, J., concurring

richer than what can be found in any single judge or panel

of judges.” Precedent 9.

Doubtless, past judicial decisions may, as they always

have, command “greater or less authority as precedents, ac-

cording to circumstances.” Lincoln Speech 401. But, like

English judges before us, we have long turned to familiar

considerations to guide our assessment of the weight due a

past decision. So, for example, as this Court has put it, the

weight due a precedent may depend on the quality of its

reasoning, its consistency with related decisions, its worka-

bility, and reliance interests that have formed around it.

See Ramos, 590 U. S., at 106. The first factor recognizes

that the primary power of any precedent lies in its power to

persuade—and poorly reasoned decisions may not provide

reliable evidence of the law’s meaning. The second factor

reflects the fact that a precedent is more likely to be correct

and worthy of respect when it reflects the time-tested wis-

dom of generations than when it sits “unmoored” from sur-

rounding law. Ibid. The remaining factors, like workability

and reliance, do not often supply reason enough on their

own to abide a flawed decision, for almost any past decision

is likely to benefit some group eager to keep things as they

are and content with how things work. See, e.g., id., at 108.

But these factors can sometimes serve functions similar to

the others, by pointing to clues that may suggest a past de-

cision is right in ways not immediately obvious to the indi-

vidual judge.

When asking whether to follow or depart from a prece-

dent, some judges deploy adverbs. They speak of whether

or not a precedent qualifies as “demonstrably erroneous,”

Gamble v. United States, 587 U. S. 678, 711 (2019)

(THOMAS, J., concurring), or “egregiously wrong,” Ramos,

590 U. S., at 121 (KAVANAUGH, J., concurring in part). But

the emphasis the adverb imparts is not meant for dramatic

effect. It seeks to serve instead as a reminder of a more

substantive lesson. The lesson that, in assessing the weight

Cite as: 603 U. S. ____ (2024) 11

GORSUCH, J., concurring

due a past decision, a judge is not to be guided by his own

impression alone, but must self-consciously test his views

against those who have come before, open to the possibility

that a precedent might be correct in ways not initially ap-

parent to him.

Third, it would be a mistake to read judicial opinions like

statutes. Adopted through a robust and democratic process,

statutes often apply in all their particulars to all persons.

By contrast, when judges reach a decision in our adversar-

ial system, they render a judgment based only on the fac-

tual record and legal arguments the parties at hand have

chosen to develop. A later court assessing a past decision

must therefore appreciate the possibility that different

facts and different legal arguments may dictate a different

outcome. They must appreciate, too, that, like anyone else,

judges are “innately digressive,” and their opinions may

sometimes offer stray asides about a wider topic that may

sound nearly like legislative commands. Duxbury 4. Often,

enterprising counsel seek to exploit such statements to

maximum effect. See id., at 25. But while these digressions

may sometimes contain valuable counsel, they remain “va-

pours and fumes of law,” Bacon 478, and cannot “control the

judgment in a subsequent suit,” Cohens, 6 Wheat., at 399.

These principles, too, have long guided this Court and

others. As Judge Easterbrook has put it, an “opinion is not

a comprehensive code; it is just an explanation for the

Court’s disposition. Judicial opinions must not be confused

with statutes, and general expressions must be read in light

of the subject under consideration.” United States v.

Skoien, 614 F. 3d 638, 640 (CA7 2010) (en banc); see also

Reiter v. Sonotone Corp., 442 U. S. 330, 341 (1979) (stress-

ing that an opinion is not “a statute,” and its language

should not “be parsed” as if it were); Nevada v. Hicks, 533

U. S. 353, 372 (2001) (same). If stare decisis counsels re-

spect for the thinking of those who have come before, it also

counsels against doing an “injustice to [their] memory” by

12 LOPER BRIGHT ENTERPRISES v. RAIMONDO

GORSUCH, J., concurring

overreliance on their every word. Steel, 1 Bl. H., at 53, 126

Eng. Rep., at 33. As judges, “[w]e neither expect nor hope

that our successors will comb” through our opinions,

searching for delphic answers to matters we never fully ex-

plored. Brown v. Davenport, 596 U. S. 118, 141 (2022). To

proceed otherwise risks “turn[ing] stare decisis from a tool

of judicial humility into one of judicial hubris.” Ibid.

II

Turning now directly to the question what stare decisis

effect Chevron deference warrants, each of these lessons

seem to me to weigh firmly in favor of the course the Court

charts today: Lesson 1, because Chevron deference contra-

venes the law Congress prescribed in the Administrative

Procedure Act. Lesson 2, because Chevron deference runs

against mainstream currents in our law regarding the sep-

aration of powers, due process, and centuries-old interpre-

tive rules that fortify those constitutional commitments.

And Lesson 3, because to hold otherwise would effectively

require us to endow stray statements in Chevron with the

authority of statutory language, all while ignoring more

considered language in that same decision and the teach-

ings of experience.

A

Start with Lesson 1. The Administrative Procedure Act

of 1946 (APA) directs a “reviewing court” to “decide all rel-

evant questions of law” and “interpret” relevant “constitu-

tional and statutory provisions.” 5 U. S. C. §706. When ap-

plying Chevron deference, reviewing courts do not interpret

all relevant statutory provisions and decide all relevant

questions of law. Instead, judges abdicate a large measure

of that responsibility in favor of agency officials. Their in-

terpretations of “ambiguous” laws control even when those

interpretations are at odds with the fairest reading of the

law an independent “reviewing court” can muster. Agency

Cite as: 603 U. S. ____ (2024) 13

GORSUCH, J., concurring

officials, too, may change their minds about the law’s mean-

ing at any time, even when Congress has not amended the

relevant statutory language in any way. National Cable &

Telecommunications Assn. v. Brand X Internet Services, 545

U. S. 967, 982–983 (2005). And those officials may even dis-

agree with and effectively overrule not only their own past

interpretations of a law but a court’s past interpretation as

well. Ibid. None of that is consistent with the APA’s clear

mandate.

The hard fact is Chevron “did not even bother to cite” the

APA, let alone seek to apply its terms. United States v.

Mead Corp., 533 U. S. 218, 241 (2001) (Scalia, J., dissent-

ing). Instead, as even its most ardent defenders have con-

ceded, Chevron deference rests upon a “fictionalized state-

ment of legislative desire,” namely, a judicial supposition

that Congress implicitly wishes judges to defer to executive

agencies’ interpretations of the law even when it has said

nothing of the kind. D. Barron & E. Kagan, Chevron’s Non-

delegation Doctrine, 2001 S. Ct. Rev. 201, 212 (Kagan) (em-

phasis added). As proponents see it, that fiction represents

a “policy judgmen[t] about what . . . make[s] for good gov-

ernment.” Ibid.2 But in our democracy unelected judges

possess no authority to elevate their own fictions over the

laws adopted by the Nation’s elected representatives. Some

might think the legal directive Congress provided in the

APA unwise; some might think a different arrangement

preferable. See, e.g., post, at 9–11 (KAGAN, J., dissenting).

But it is Congress’s view of “good government,” not ours,

that controls.

——————

2 See also A. Scalia, Judicial Deference to Administrative Interpreta-

tions of Law, 1989 Duke L. J. 511, 516–517 (1989) (describing Chevron’s

theory that Congress “delegat[ed]” interpretive authority to agencies as

“fictional”); S. Breyer, Judicial Review of Questions of Law and Policy,

38 Admin. L. Rev. 363, 370 (1986) (describing the notion that there exists

a “ ‘legislative intent to delegate the law-interpreting function’ as a kind

of legal fiction”).

14 LOPER BRIGHT ENTERPRISES v. RAIMONDO

GORSUCH, J., concurring

Much more could be said about Chevron’s inconsistency

with the APA. But I have said it in the past. See Buffington

v. McDonough, 598 U. S. ___, ___–___ (2022) (opinion dis-

senting from denial of certiorari) (slip op., at 5–6);

Gutierrez-Brizuela v. Lynch, 834 F. 3d 1142, 1151–1153

(CA10 2016) (concurring opinion). And the Court makes

many of the same points at length today. See ante, at 18–

22. For present purposes, the short of it is that continuing

to abide Chevron deference would require us to transgress

the first lesson of stare decisis—the humility required of

judges to recognize that our decisions must yield to the laws

adopted by the people’s elected representatives.3

B

Lesson 2 cannot rescue Chevron deference. If stare deci-

sis calls for judicial humility in the face of the written law,

it also cautions us to test our present conclusions carefully

against the work of our predecessors. At the same time and

as we have seen, this second form of humility counsels us to

remember that precedents that have won the endorsement

of judges across many generations, demonstrated coherence

with our broader law, and weathered the tests of time and

experience are entitled to greater consideration than those

that have not. See Part I, supra. Viewed by each of these

lights, the case for Chevron deference only grows weaker

still.

——————

3 The dissent suggests that we need not take the APA’s directions quite

so seriously because the “finest administrative law scholars” from Har-

vard claim to see in them some wiggle room. Post, at 18 (opinion of

KAGAN, J.). But nothing in the APA commands deference to the views of

professors any more than it does the government. Nor is the dissent’s

list of Harvard’s finest administrative law scholars entirely complete.

See S. Breyer et al., Administrative Law and Regulatory Policy 288 (7th

ed. 2011) (acknowledging that Chevron deference “seems in conflict with

. . . the apparently contrary language of 706”); Kagan 212 (likewise ac-

knowledging Chevron deference rests upon a “fictionalized statement of

legislative desire”).

Cite as: 603 U. S. ____ (2024) 15

GORSUCH, J., concurring

1

Start with a look to how our predecessors traditionally

understood the judicial role in disputes over a law’s mean-

ing. From the Nation’s founding, they considered “[t]he in-

terpretation of the laws” in cases and controversies “the

proper and peculiar province of the courts.” The Federalist

No. 78, p. 467 (C. Rossiter ed. 1961) (A. Hamilton). Perhaps

the Court’s most famous early decision reflected exactly

that view. There, Chief Justice Marshall declared it “em-

phatically the province and duty of the judicial department

to say what the law is.” Marbury, 1 Cranch, at 177. For

judges “have neither FORCE nor WILL but merely judg-

ment”—and an obligation to exercise that judgment inde-

pendently. The Federalist No. 78, at 465. No matter how

“disagreeable that duty may be,” this Court has said, a

judge “is not at liberty to surrender, or to waive it.” United

States v. Dickson, 15 Pet. 141, 162 (1841) (Story, J.). This

duty of independent judgment is perhaps “the defining

characteristi[c] of Article III judges.” Stern v. Marshall, 564

U. S. 462, 483 (2011).

To be sure, this Court has also long extended “great re-

spect” to the “contemporaneous” and consistent views of the

coordinate branches about the meaning of a statute’s terms.

Edwards’ Lessee v. Darby, 12 Wheat. 206, 210 (1827); see

also McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316, 401 (1819); Stu-

art v. Laird, 1 Cranch 299, 309 (1803).4 But traditionally,

that did not mean a court had to “defer” to any “reasonable”

——————

4 Accord, National Lead Co. v. United States, 252 U. S. 140, 145–146

(1920) (affording “great weight” to a “contemporaneous construction” by

the executive that had “been long continued”); Jacobs v. Prichard, 223

U. S. 200, 214 (1912) (“find[ing] no ambiguity in the act” but also finding

“strength” for the Court’s interpretation in the executive’s “immediate

and continued construction of the act”); Schell’s Executors v. Fauché, 138

U. S. 562, 572 (1891) (treating as “controlling” a “contemporaneous con-

struction” of a law endorsed “not only [by] the courts but [also by] the

departments”).

16 LOPER BRIGHT ENTERPRISES v. RAIMONDO

GORSUCH, J., concurring

construction of an “ambiguous” law that an executive

agency might offer. It did not mean that the government

could propound a “reasonable” view of the law’s meaning

one day, a different one the next, and bind the judiciary al-

ways to its latest word. Nor did it mean the executive could

displace a pre-existing judicial construction of a statute’s

terms, replace it with its own, and effectively overrule a ju-

dicial precedent in the process. Put simply, this Court was

“not bound” by any and all reasonable “administrative con-

struction[s]” of ambiguous statutes when resolving cases

and controversies. Burnet v. Chicago Portrait Co., 285 U. S.

1, 16 (1932). While the executive’s consistent and contem-

poraneous views warranted respect, they “by no means con-

trol[led] the action or the opinion of this court in expound-

ing the law with reference to the rights of parties litigant

before them.” Irvine v. Marshall, 20 How. 558, 567 (1858);

see also A. Bamzai, The Origins of Judicial Deference to Ex-

ecutive Interpretation, 126 Yale L. J. 908, 987 (2017).

Sensing how jarringly inconsistent Chevron is with this

Court’s many longstanding precedents discussing the na-

ture of the judicial role in disputes over the law’s meaning,

the government and dissent struggle for a response. The

best they can muster is a handful of cases from the early

1940s in which, they say, this Court first “put [deference]

principles into action.” Post, at 21 (KAGAN, J., dissenting).

And, admittedly, for a period this Court toyed with a form

of deference akin to Chevron, at least for so-called mixed

questions of law and fact. See, e.g., Gray v. Powell, 314

U. S. 402, 411–412 (1941); NLRB v. Hearst Publications,

Inc., 322 U. S. 111, 131 (1944). But, as the Court details,

even that limited experiment did not last. See ante, at 10–

12. Justice Roberts, in his Gray dissent, decried these de-

cisions for “abdicat[ing our] function as a court of review”

and “complete[ly] revers[ing] . . . the normal and usual

method of construing a statute.” 314 U. S., at 420–421.

And just a few years later, in Skidmore v. Swift & Co., 323

Cite as: 603 U. S. ____ (2024) 17

GORSUCH, J., concurring

U. S. 134 (1944), the Court returned to its time-worn path.

Echoing themes that had run throughout our law from its

start, Justice Robert H. Jackson wrote for the Court in

Skidmore. There, he said, courts may extend respectful

consideration to another branch’s interpretation of the law,

but the weight due those interpretations must always “de-

pend upon the[ir] thoroughness . . . , the validity of [their]

reasoning, [their] consistency with earlier and later pro-

nouncements, and all those factors which give [them] power

to persuade.” Id., at 140. In another case the same year,

and again writing for the Court, Justice Jackson expressly

rejected a call for a judge-made doctrine of deference much

like Chevron, offering that, “[i]f Congress had deemed it

necessary or even appropriate” for courts to “defe[r] to ad-

ministrative construction[,] . . . it would not have been at a

loss for words to say so.” Davies Warehouse Co. v. Bowles,

321 U. S. 144, 156 (1944).

To the extent proper respect for precedent demands, as it

always has, special respect for longstanding and main-

stream decisions, Chevron scores badly. It represented not

a continuation of a long line of decisions but a break from

them. Worse, it did not merely depart from our precedents.

More nearly, Chevron defied them.

2

Consider next how uneasily Chevron deference sits along-

side so many other settled aspects of our law. Having wit-

nessed first-hand King George’s efforts to gain influence

and control over colonial judges, see Declaration of Inde-

pendence ¶ 11, the framers made a considered judgment to

build judicial independence into the Constitution’s design.

They vested the judicial power in decisionmakers with life

tenure. Art. III, §1. They placed the judicial salary beyond

political control during a judge’s tenure. Ibid. And they

rejected any proposal that would subject judicial decisions

to review by political actors. The Federalist No. 81, at 482;

18 LOPER BRIGHT ENTERPRISES v. RAIMONDO

GORSUCH, J., concurring

United States v. Hansen, 599 U. S. 762, 786–791 (2023)

(THOMAS, J., concurring). All of this served to ensure the

same thing: “A fair trial in a fair tribunal.” In re Murchi-

son, 349 U. S. 133, 136 (1955). One in which impartial

judges, not those currently wielding power in the political

branches, would “say what the law is” in cases coming to

court. Marbury, 1 Cranch, at 177.

Chevron deference undermines all that. It precludes

courts from exercising the judicial power vested in them by

Article III to say what the law is. It forces judges to aban-

don the best reading of the law in favor of views of those

presently holding the reins of the Executive Branch. It re-

quires judges to change, and change again, their interpre-

tations of the law as and when the government demands.

And that transfer of power has exactly the sort of conse-

quences one might expect. Rather than insulate adjudica-

tion from power and politics to ensure a fair hearing “with-

out respect to persons” as the federal judicial oath demands,

28 U. S. C. §453, Chevron deference requires courts to

“place a finger on the scales of justice in favor of the most

powerful of litigants, the federal government.” Buffington,

598 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 9). Along the way, Chevron

deference guarantees “systematic bias” in favor of which-

ever political party currently holds the levers of executive

power. P. Hamburger, Chevron Bias, 84 Geo. Wash. L. Rev.

1187, 1212 (2016).

Chevron deference undermines other aspects of our set-

tled law, too. In this country, we often boast that the Con-

stitution’s promise of due process of law, see Amdts. 5, 14,

means that “ ‘no man can be a judge in his own case.’ ” Wil-

liams v. Pennsylvania, 579 U. S. 1, 8–9 (2016); Calder v.

Bull, 3 Dall. 386, 388 (1798) (opinion of Chase, J.). That

principle, of course, has even deeper roots, tracing far back

into the common law where it was known by the Latin

maxim nemo iudex in causa sua. See 1 E. Coke, Institutes

Cite as: 603 U. S. ____ (2024) 19

GORSUCH, J., concurring

of the Laws of England §212, *141a. Yet, under the Chev-

ron regime, all that means little, for executive agencies may

effectively judge the scope of their own lawful powers. See,

e.g., Arlington v. FCC, 569 U. S. 290, 296–297 (2013).

Traditionally, as well, courts have sought to construe

statutes as a reasonable reader would “when the law was

made.” Blackstone 59; see United States v. Fisher, 2 Cranch

358, 386 (1805). Today, some call this “textualism.” But

really it’s a very old idea, one that constrains judges to a

lawfinding rather than lawmaking role by focusing their

work on the statutory text, its linguistic context, and vari-

ous canons of construction. In that way, textualism serves

as an essential guardian of the due process promise of fair

notice. If a judge could discard an old meaning and assign

a new one to a law’s terms, all without any legislative revi-

sion, how could people ever be sure of the rules that bind

them? New Prime Inc. v. Oliveira, 586 U. S. 105, 113

(2019). Were the rules otherwise, Blackstone warned, the

people would be rendered “slaves to their magistrates.”

4 Blackstone 371.

Yet, replace “magistrates” with “bureaucrats,” and Black-

stone’s fear becomes reality when courts employ Chevron

deference. Whenever we confront an ambiguity in the law,

judges do not seek to resolve it impartially according to the

best evidence of the law’s original meaning. Instead, we re-

sort to a far cruder heuristic: “The reasonable bureaucrat

always wins.” And because the reasonable bureaucrat may

change his mind year-to-year and election-to-election, the

people can never know with certainty what new “interpre-

tations” might be used against them. This “fluid” approach

to statutory interpretation is “as much a trap for the inno-

cent as the ancient laws of Caligula,” which were posted so

high up on the walls and in print so small that ordinary

people could never be sure what they required. United

States v. Cardiff, 344 U. S. 174, 176 (1952).

20 LOPER BRIGHT ENTERPRISES v. RAIMONDO

GORSUCH, J., concurring

The ancient rule of lenity is still another of Chevron’s vic-

tims. Since the founding, American courts have construed

ambiguities in penal laws against the government and with

lenity toward affected persons. Wooden v. United States,

595 U. S. 360, 388–390 (2022) (GORSUCH, J., concurring in

judgment). That principle upholds due process by safe-

guarding individual liberty in the face of ambiguous laws.

Ibid. And it fortifies the separation of powers by keeping

the power of punishment firmly “ ‘in the legislative, not in

the judicial department.’ ” Id., at 391 (quoting United

States v. Wiltberger, 5 Wheat. 76, 95 (1820)). But power

begets power. And pressing Chevron deference as far as it

can go, the government has sometimes managed to leverage

“ambiguities” in the written law to penalize conduct Con-

gress never clearly proscribed. Compare Guedes v. ATF,

920 F. 3d 1, 27–28, 31 (CADC 2019), with Garland v. Car-

gill, 602 U. S. 604 (2024).

In all these ways, Chevron’s fiction has led us to a strange

place. One where authorities long thought reserved for Ar-

ticle III are transferred to Article II, where the scales of jus-

tice are tilted systematically in favor of the most powerful,

where legal demands can change with every election even

though the laws do not, and where the people are left to

guess about their legal rights and responsibilities. So much

tension with so many foundational features of our legal or-

der is surely one more sign that we have “taken a wrong

turn along the way.” Kisor v. Wilkie, 588 U. S. 558, 607

(2019) (GORSUCH, J., concurring in judgment).5

——————

5 The dissent suggests that Chevron deference bears at least something

in common with surrounding law because it resembles a presumption or

traditional canon of construction, and both “are common.” Post, at 8, n. 1,

28–29 (opinion of KAGAN, J.). But even that thin reed wavers at a glance.

Many of the presumptions and interpretive canons the dissent cites—

including lenity, contra proferentem, and others besides—“ ‘embod[y] . . .

legal doctrine[s] centuries older than our Republic.’ ” Opati v. Republic

of Sudan, 590 U. S. 418, 425 (2020). Chevron deference can make no

such boast. Many of the presumptions and canons the dissent cites also

Cite as: 603 U. S. ____ (2024) 21

GORSUCH, J., concurring

3

Finally, consider workability and reliance. If, as I have

sought to suggest, these factors may sometimes serve as

useful proxies for the question whether a precedent com-

ports with the historic tide of judicial practice or represents

an aberrational mistake, see Part I–C, supra, they certainly

do here.

Take Chevron’s “workability.” Throughout its short life,

this Court has been forced to supplement and revise Chev-

ron so many times that no one can agree on how many

“steps” it requires, nor even what each of those “steps” en-

tails. Some suggest that the analysis begins with “step

zero” (perhaps itself a tell), an innovation that traces to

United States v. Mead Corp., 533 U. S. 218. Mead held that,

before even considering whether Chevron applies, a court

must determine whether Congress meant to delegate to the

agency authority to interpret the law in a given field. 533

U. S., at 226–227. But that exercise faces an immediate

challenge: Because Chevron depends on a judicially im-

plied, rather than a legislatively expressed, delegation of

interpretive authority to an executive agency, Part II–A, su-

pra, when should the fiction apply and when not? Mead

fashioned a multifactor test for judges to use. 533 U. S., at

——————

serve the Constitution, protecting the lines of authority it draws. Take

just two examples: The federalism canon tells courts to presume federal

statutes do not preempt state laws because of the sovereignty States en-

joy under the Constitution. Bond v. United States, 572 U. S. 844, 858

(2014). The presumption against retroactivity serves as guardian of the

Constitution’s promise of due process and its ban on ex post facto laws,

Landgraf v. USI Film Products, 511 U. S. 244, 265 (1994). Once more,

however, Chevron deference can make no similar claim. Rather than

serve the Constitution’s usual rule that litigants are entitled to have an

independent judge interpret disputed legal terms, Chevron deference

works to undermine that promise. As explored above, too, Chevron def-

erence sits in tension with many traditional legal presumptions and in-

terpretive principles, representing nearly the inverse of the rules of len-

ity, nemo iudex, and contra proferentem.

22 LOPER BRIGHT ENTERPRISES v. RAIMONDO

GORSUCH, J., concurring

229–231. But that test has proved as indeterminate in ap-

plication as it was contrived in origin. Perhaps for these

reasons, perhaps for others, this Court has sometimes ap-

plied Mead and often ignored it. See Brand X, 545 U. S., at

1014, n. 8 (Scalia, J., dissenting).

Things do not improve as we move up the Chevron ladder.

At “step one,” a judge must defer to an executive official’s

interpretation when the statute at hand is “ambiguous.”

But even today, Chevron’s principal beneficiary—the fed-

eral government—still cannot say when a statute is suffi-

ciently ambiguous to trigger deference. See, e.g., Tr. of Oral

Arg. in American Hospital Assn. v. Becerra, O. T. 2021,

No. 20–1114, pp. 71–72. Perhaps thanks to this particular

confusion, the search for ambiguity has devolved into a sort

of Snark hunt: Some judges claim to spot it almost every-

where, while other equally fine judges claim never to have

seen it. Compare L. Silberman, Chevron—The Intersection

of Law & Policy, 58 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 821, 826 (1990), with

R. Kethledge, Ambiguities and Agency Cases: Reflections

After (Almost) Ten Years on the Bench, 70 Vand. L. Rev. En

Banc 315, 323 (2017).

Nor do courts agree when it comes to “step two.” There,

a judge must assess whether an executive agency’s inter-

pretation of an ambiguous statute is “reasonable.” But

what does that inquiry demand? Some courts engage in a

comparatively searching review; others almost reflexively

defer to an agency’s views. Here again, courts have pursued

“wildly different” approaches and reached wildly different

conclusions in similar cases. See B. Kavanaugh, Fixing

Statutory Interpretation, 129 Harv. L. Rev. 2118, 2152

(2016) (Kavanaugh).

Today’s cases exemplify some of these problems. We have

before us two circuit decisions, three opinions, and at least

as many interpretive options on the Chevron menu. On the

one hand, we have the D. C. Circuit majority, which deemed

the Magnuson-Stevens Act “ambiguous” and upheld the

Cite as: 603 U. S. ____ (2024) 23

GORSUCH, J., concurring

agency’s regulation as “ ‘permissible.’ ” 45 F. 4th 359, 365

(2022). On the other hand, we have the D. C. Circuit dis-

sent, which argues the statute is “unambiguou[s]” and that

it plainly forecloses the agency’s new rule. Id., at 372 (opin-

ion of Walker, J.). And on yet a third hand, we have the

First Circuit, which claimed to have identified “clear tex-

tual support” for the regulation, yet refused to say whether

it would “classify [its] conclusion as a product of Chevron

step one or step two.” 62 F. 4th 621, 631, 634 (2023). As

these cases illustrate, Chevron has turned statutory inter-

pretation into a game of bingo under blindfold, with parties

guessing at how many boxes there are and which one their

case might ultimately fall in.

Turn now from workability to reliance. Far from engen-

dering reliance interests, the whole point of Chevron defer-

ence is to upset them. Under Chevron, executive officials

can replace one “reasonable” interpretation with another at

any time, all without any change in the law itself. The re-

sult: Affected individuals “can never be sure of their legal

rights and duties.” Buffington, 598 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at

12).

How bad is the problem? Take just one example. Brand

X concerned a law regulating broadband internet services.

There, the Court upheld an agency rule adopted by the ad-

ministration of President George W. Bush because it was

premised on a “reasonable” interpretation of the statute.

Later, President Barack Obama’s administration rescinded

the rule and replaced it with another. Later still, during

President Donald J. Trump’s administration, officials re-

placed that rule with a different one, all before President

Joseph R. Biden, Jr.’s administration declared its intention

to reverse course for yet a fourth time. See Safeguarding

and Securing the Open Internet, 88 Fed. Reg. 76048 (2023);

Brand X, 545 U. S., at 981–982. Each time, the government

claimed its new rule was just as “reasonable” as the last.

Rather than promoting reliance by fixing the meaning of

24 LOPER BRIGHT ENTERPRISES v. RAIMONDO

GORSUCH, J., concurring

the law, Chevron deference engenders constant uncertainty

and convulsive change even when the statute at issue itself

remains unchanged.

Nor are these antireliance harms distributed equally. So-

phisticated entities and their lawyers may be able to keep

pace with rule changes affecting their rights and responsi-

bilities. They may be able to lobby for new “ ‘reasonable’ ”

agency interpretations and even capture the agencies that

issue them. Buffington, 598 U. S., at ___, ___ (slip op., at 8,

13). But ordinary people can do none of those things. They

are the ones who suffer the worst kind of regulatory whip-

lash Chevron invites.

Consider a couple of examples. Thomas Buffington, a vet-

eran of the U. S. Air Force, was injured in the line of duty.

For a time after he left the Air Force, the Department of

Veterans Affairs (VA) paid disability benefits due him by

law. But later the government called on Mr. Buffington to

reenter active service. During that period, everyone agreed,

the VA could (as it did) suspend his disability payments.

After he left active service for a second time, however, the

VA turned his patriotism against him. By law, Congress

permitted the VA to suspend disability pay only “for any

period for which [a servicemember] receives active service

pay.” 38 U. S. C. §5304(c). But the VA had adopted a self-

serving regulation requiring veterans to file a form asking

for the resumption of their disability pay after a second (or

subsequent) stint in active service. 38 CFR §3.654(b)(2)

(2021). Unaware of the regulation, Mr. Buffington failed to

reapply immediately. When he finally figured out what had

happened and reapplied, the VA agreed to resume pay-

ments going forward but refused to give Mr. Buffington all

of the past disability payments it had withheld. Buffington,

598 U. S., at ___–___ (slip op., at 1–4).

Mr. Buffington challenged the agency’s action as incon-

sistent with Congress’s direction that the VA may suspend

disability payments only for those periods when a veteran

Cite as: 603 U. S. ____ (2024) 25

GORSUCH, J., concurring

returns to active service. But armed with Chevron, the

agency defeated Mr. Buffington’s claim. Maybe the self-

serving regulation the VA cited as justification for its action

was not premised on the best reading of the law, courts said,

but it represented a “ ‘permissible’ ” one. 598 U. S., at ___

(slip op., at 7). In that way, the Executive Branch was able

to evade Congress’s promises to someone who took the field

repeatedly in the Nation’s defense.

In another case, one which I heard as a court of appeals

judge, De Niz Robles v. Lynch, 803 F. 3d 1165 (CA10 2015),

the Board of Immigration Appeals invoked Chevron to over-

rule a judicial precedent on which many immigrants had

relied, see In re Briones, 24 I. & N. Dec. 355, 370 (BIA 2007)

(purporting to overrule Padilla–Caldera v. Gonzales, 426

F. 3d 1294 (CA10 2005)). The agency then sought to apply

its new interpretation retroactively to punish those immi-

grants—including Alfonzo De Niz Robles, who had relied on

that judicial precedent as authority to remain in this coun-

try with his U. S. wife and four children. See 803 F. 3d, at

1168–1169. Our court ruled that this retrospective applica-

tion of the BIA’s new interpretation of the law violated Mr.

De Niz Robles’s due process rights. Id., at 1172. But as a

lower court, we could treat only the symptom, not the dis-

ease. So Chevron permitted the agency going forward to

overrule a judicial decision about the best reading of the law

with its own different “reasonable” one and in that way

deny relief to countless future immigrants.

Those are just two stories among so many that federal

judges could tell (and have told) about what Chevron defer-

ence has meant for ordinary people interacting with the fed-

eral government. See, e.g., Lambert v. Saul, 980 F. 3d 1266,

1268–1276 (CA9 2020); Valent v. Commissioner of Social

Security, 918 F. 3d 516, 525–527 (CA6 2019) (Kethledge, J.,

dissenting); Gonzalez v. United States Atty. Gen., 820 F. 3d

399, 402–405 (CA11 2016) (per curiam).

What does the federal government have to say about this?

26 LOPER BRIGHT ENTERPRISES v. RAIMONDO

GORSUCH, J., concurring

It acknowledges that Chevron sits as a heavy weight on the

scale in favor of the government, “oppositional” to many

“categories of individuals.” Tr. of Oral Arg. in No. 22–1219,

p. 133 (Relentless Tr.). But, according to the government,

Chevron deference is too important an innovation to undo.

In its brief reign, the government says, it has become a “fun-

damenta[l] . . . ground rul[e] for how all three branches of

the government are operating together.” Relentless Tr.

102. But, in truth, the Constitution, the APA, and our

longstanding precedents set those ground rules some time

ago. And under them, agencies cannot invoke a judge-made

fiction to uns

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