OCTOBER TERM, 2000
Syllabus
UNITED STATES
v. MEAD CORP.
CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FEDERAL
CIRCUIT
No. 99-1434. Argued November 8, 2000-Decided June 18,2001
The Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States authorizes
the United States Customs Service to classify and fix the rate of
duty on imports, under rules and regulations issued by the
Secretary of the Treasury. As relevant here, the Secretary provides
for tariff rulings before the entry of goods by regulations
authorizing "ruling letters" setting tariff classifications for
particular imports. Any of the 46 portof-entry Customs offices and
the Customs Headquarters Office may issue such letters. Respondent
imports "day planners," three-ring binders with pages for daily
schedules, phone numbers and addresses, a calendar, and suchlike.
After classifying the planners as duty free for several years,
Customs Headquarters issued a ruling letter classifying them as
bound diaries subject to tariff. Mead filed suit in the Court of
International Trade, which granted the Government summary judgment.
In reversing, the Federal Circuit found that ruling letters should
not be treated like Customs regulations, which receive the highest
level of deference under
Chevron US. A. Inc. v.
Natural
Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837, because
they are not preceded by notice and comment as under the
Administrative Procedure Act (APA), do not carry the force of law,
and are not intended to clarify importers's rights and obligations
beyond the specific case. The court gave no deference at all to the
ruling letter at issue.
Held: Administrative implementation of a particular
statutory provision qualifies for
Chevron deference when it
appears that Congress delegated authority to the agency generally
to make rules carrying the force of law, and that the agency
interpretation claiming deference was promulgated in the exercise
of such authority. Such delegation may be shown in a variety of
ways, as by an agency's power to engage in adjudication or
notice-and-comment rulemaking, or by some other indication of
comparable congressional intent. A Customs ruling letter has no
claim to
Chevron deference, but, under
Skidmore v.
Swift &
Co., 323 U. S. 134, it is eligible to
claim respect according to its persuasiveness. Pp. 227-239.
(a) When Congress has explicitly left a gap for an agency to
fill, there has been an express delegation of authority to the
agency to elucidate a
219
specific statutory prOVISIon by regulation, and any ensuing
regulation is binding unless procedurally defective, arbitrary or
capricious in substance, or manifestly contrary to the statute.
Even in the absence of an express delegation of authority on a
particular question, agencies charged with applying a statute
necessarily make all sorts of interpretive choices, and while not
all of those choices bind judges to follow them, they may influence
courts facing questions the agencies have already answered. The
weight accorded to an administrative judgment "will 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, supra, at 140. In
Chevron, this Court identified a category of interpretive
choices distinguished by an additional reason for judicial
deference, recognizing that Congress engages not only in express,
but also in implicit, delegation of specific interpretive
authority. It can be apparent from the agency's generally conferred
authority and other statutory circumstances that Congress would
expect the agency to be able to speak with the force of law when
addressing ambiguity in the statute or fills in a space in the
enacted law, even one about which Congress did not have intent as
to a particular result. When circumstances implying such an
expectation exist, a reviewing court must accept the agency's
position if Congress has not previously spoken to the point at
issue and the agency's interpretation is reasonable. A very good
indicator of delegation meriting
Chevron treatment is
express congressional authorizations to engage in the rulemaking or
adjudication process that produces the regulations or rulings for
which deference is claimed. Thus, the overwhelming number of cases
applying
Chevron deference have reviewed the fruits of
notice-and-comment rulemaking or formal adjudication. Although the
fact that the tariff classification at issue was not a product of
such formal process does not alone bar
Chevron's
application, cf.,
e. g., NationsBank of N. c.,
N. A.
v.
Variable Annuity Life Ins. Co., 513 U. S. 251, 256-257,
263, there are ample reasons to deny
Chevron deference here.
Pp. 227-231.
(b) There is no indication on the statute's face that Congress
meant to delegate authority to Customs to issue classification
rulings with the force of law. Also, it is difficult to see in
agency practice any indication that Customs set out with a
lawmaking pretense in mind, for it does not generally engage in
notice-and-comment practice and a letter's binding character as a
ruling stops short of third parties. Indeed, any suggestion that
rulings intended to have the force of law are being churned out at
a rate of 10,000 a year at 46 offices is self-refuting. Nor
220
Syllabus
do statutory amendments effective after this case arose reveal a
new congressional objective of treating classification decisions
generally as rulemaking with force of law or suggest any intent to
create a
Chevron patchwork of classification rules, some
with force of law, some without. In sum, classification rulings are
best treated like "interpretations contained in policy statements,
agency manuals, and enforcement guidelines,"
Christensen v.
Harris County, 529 U. S. 576, 587, and
thus beyond the
Chevron pale. Pp.231-234.
(c) This does not mean, however, that the letters are due no
deference.
Chevron did not eliminate
Skidmore's
holding that an agency's interpretation may merit some deference
whatever its form, given the "specialized experience and broader
investigations and information" available to the agency, 323 U. S.,
at 139, and given the value of uniformity in its administrative and
judicial understandings of what a national law requires,
id., at 140. There is room at least to raise a
Skidmore claim here, where the regulatory scheme is highly
detailed, and Customs can bring the benefit of specialized
experience to bear on this case's questions. The classification
ruling may at least seek a respect proportional to its "power to
persuade,"
ibid., and may claim the merit of its writer's
thoroughness, logic and expertness, its fit with prior
interpretations, and any other sources of weight. Underlying this
Court's position is a choice about the best way to deal with the
great variety of ways in which the laws invest the Government's
administrative arms with discretion, and with procedures for
exercising it, in giving meaning to Acts of Congress. The Court
said nothing in
Chevron to eliminate
Skidmore's
recognition of various justifications for deference depending on
statutory circumstances and agency action. Judicial responses to
such action must continue to differentiate between the two cases.
Any
Skidmore assessment here ought to be made in the first
instance by the lower courts. Pp. 234-239.
185 F.3d
1304, vacated and remanded.
SOUTER, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which
REHNQUIST, C. J., and STEVENS, O'CONNOR, KENNEDY, THOMAS, GINSBURG,
and BREYER, JJ., joined. SCALIA, J., filed a dissenting opinion,
post, p. 239.
Kent L. Jones argued the cause for the United States.
With him on the briefs were Solicitor General Waxman, Acting
Assistant Attorney General Ogden, Deputy Solicitor
221
General Wallace, William Kanter, Bruce G. Forrest, and Neal S.
Wolin.
J.
Peter Coll, Jr., argued the cause for respondent. With
him on the brief were
Kristen Bancroft and
Sidney H.
Kuflik.*
JUSTICE SOUTER delivered the opinion of the Court.
The question is whether a tariff classification ruling by the
United States Customs Service deserves judicial deference. The
Federal Circuit rejected Customs's invocation of
Chevron U.
S.
A. Inc. v.
Natural Resources Defense Council,
Inc., 467 U. S.
837 (1984), in support of such a ruling, to which it gave no
deference. We agree that a tariff classification has no claim to
judicial deference under
Chevron, there being no indication
that Congress intended such a ruling to carry the force of law, but
we hold that under
Skidmore v.
Swift &
Co., 323 U. S.
134 (1944), the ruling is eligible to claim respect according
to its persuasiveness.
I A
Imports are taxed under the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the
United States (HTSUS), 19 U. S. C. § 1202. Title 19 U. S. C. §
1500(b) provides that Customs "shall, under rules
*Briefs of
amici curiae urging affirmance were filed for
the American Association of Exporters and Importers by
Peter
Buck Feller, Daniel G.
Jarcho, and
Michael J.
Haungs; for Cargill, Inc., et al. by
John M. Peterson,
Michael K. Tomenga, George W Thompson, and
Curtis W
Knauss; for the Customs and International Trade Bar Association
by
Sidney N. Weiss and
David Serko; for Filofax Inc.
by
Charles H. Bayar; for the Joint Industry Group et al. by
William D. Outman II and
Bruce N. Shulman; and for
the Tax Executives Institute, Inc., by
Timothy J.
McCormally and
Mary L. Fahey.
Briefs of
amici curiae were filed for the United States
Association of Importers of Textiles and Apparel et al. by
Walter E. Dellinger and
Ronald W Gerdes; and for
Professor Thomas W. Merrill,
pro se.
222
and regulations prescribed by the Secretary [of the Treasury,]
... fix the final classification and rate of duty applicable to ...
merchandise" under the HTSDS. Section 1502(a) provides that
"[t]he Secretary of the Treasury shall establish and promulgate
such rules and regulations not inconsistent with the law (including
regulations establishing procedures for the issuance of binding
rulings prior to the entry of the merchandise concerned), and may
disseminate such information as may be necessary to secure a just,
impartial, and uniform appraisement of imported merchandise and the
classification and assessment of duties thereon at the various
ports of entry." 1
See also § 1624 (general delegation to Secretary to issue rules
and regulations for the admission of goods).
The Secretary provides for tariff rulings before the entry of
goods by regulations authorizing "ruling letters" setting tariff
classifications for particular imports. 19 CFR § 177.8 (2000). A
ruling letter
"represents the official position of the Customs Service with
respect to the particular transaction or issue described therein
and is binding on all Customs Service personnel in accordance with
the provisions of this section until modified or revoked. In the
absence of a change of practice or other modification or revocation
which affects the principle of the ruling set forth in the ruling
letter, that principle may be cited as authority in the disposition
of transactions involving the same circumstances." § 177.9(a).
1 The statutory term "ruling" is defined by regulation as "a
written statement ... that interprets and applies the provisions of
the Customs and related laws to a specific set of facts." 19 CFR §
177.1(d)(1) (2000).
223
After the transaction that gives it birth, a ruling letter is to
"be applied only with respect to transactions involving articles
identical to the sample submitted with the ruling request or to
articles whose description is identical to the description set
forth in the ruling letter." § 177.9(b)(2). As a general matter,
such a letter is "subject to modification or revocation without
notice to any person, except the person to whom the letter was
addressed," § 177.9(c), and the regulations consequently provide
that "no other person should rely on the ruling letter or assume
that the principles of that ruling will be applied in connection
with any transaction other than the one described in the letter,"
ibid. Since ruling letters respond to transactions of the moment,
they are not subject to notice and comment before being issued, may
be published but need only be made "available for public
inspection," 19 U. S. C. § 1625(a), and, at the time this action
arose, could be modified without notice and comment under most
circumstances, 19 CFR § 177.10(c) (2000).2 A broader
notice-and-comment requirement for modification of prior rulings
was added by statute in 1993, Pub. L. 103-182, § 623, 107 Stat.
2186, codified at 19 U. S. C. § 1625(c), and took effect after this
case arose.3
2The opinion of the Federal Circuit in this case noted that §
177.10(c) provides some notice-and-comment procedures for rulings
that have the "'effect of changing a practice.'''
185 F.3d
1304, 1307, n. 1 (1999). The appeals court noted that this case
does not involve such a ruling, and specifically excluded such
rulings from the reach of its holding.
Ibid.
3 As amended by legislation effective after Customs modified its
classification ruling in this case, 19 U. S. C. § 1625(c) provides
that a ruling or decision that would "modify ... or revoke a prior
interpretive ruling or decision which has been in effect for at
least 60 days" or would "have the effect of modifying the treatment
previously accorded by the Customs Service to substantially
identical transactions" shall be "published in the Customs
Bulletin. The Secretary shall give interested parties an
opportunity to submit, during not less than the 30-day period after
the date of such publication, comments on the correctness of the
proposed ruling or
224
Any of the 464 port-of-entry 5 Customs offices may issue ruling
letters, and so may the Customs Headquarters Office, in providing
"[a]dvice or guidance as to the interpretation or proper
application of the Customs and related laws with respect to a
specific Customs transaction [which] may be requested by Customs
Service field offices ... at any time, whether the transaction is
prospective, current, or completed," 19 CFR § 177.11(a) (2000).
Most ruling letters contain little or no reasoning, but simply
describe goods and state the appropriate category and tariff. A few
letters, like the Headquarters ruling at issue here, set out a
rationale in some detail.
B
Respondent, the Mead Corporation, imports "day planners,"
three-ring binders with pages having room for notes of daily
schedules and phone numbers and addresses, together with a calendar
and suchlike. The tariff schedule on point falls under the HTSUS
heading for "[r]egisters, account books, notebooks, order books,
receipt books, letter pads, memorandum pads, diaries and similar
articles," HTSUS subheading 4820.10, which comprises two
subcategories. Items in the first, "[d]iaries, notebooks and
address books, bound; memorandum pads, letter pads and similar
articles," were subject to a tariff of 4.0% at the time in
controversy.
185 F.3d
1304, 1305 (CA Fed. 1999) (citing subheading 4820.10.20); see
also App. to Pet. for Cert. 46a. Objects in the second, covering
"[o]ther" items, were free
decision. After consideration of any comments received, the
Secretary shall publish a final ruling or decision in the Customs
Bulletin within 30 days after the closing of the comment period.
The final ruling or decision shall become effective 60 days after
the date of its publication."
4 Brief for Customs and International Trade Bar Association as
Amicus Curiae 5 (CITBA Brief).
5 I. e., "a Customs location having a full range of cargo
processing functions, including inspections, entry, collections,
and verification." 19 CFR § lOLl (2000).
225
of duty. HTSUS subheading 4820.10.40; see also App. to Pet. for
Cert. 46a.
Between 1989 and 1993, Customs repeatedly treated day planners
under the "other" HTSUS subheading. In January 1993, however,
Customs changed its position, and issued a Headquarters ruling
letter classifying Mead's day planners as "Diaries ... , bound"
subject to tariff under subheading 4820.10.20. That letter was
short on explanation, App. to Brief in Opposition 4a-6a, but after
Mead's protest, Customs Headquarters issued a new letter, carefully
reasoned but never published, reaching the same conclusion, App. to
Pet. for Cert. 28a-47a. This letter considered two definitions of
"diary" from the Oxford English Dictionary, the first covering a
daily journal of the past day's events, the second a book
including" 'printed dates for daily memoranda and jottings; also
... calendars .... '"
Id., at 33a-34a (quoting Oxford
English Dictionary 321 (Compact ed. 1982)). Customs concluded that
"diary" was not confined to the first, in part because the broader
definition reflects commercial usage and hence the "commercial
identity of these items in the marketplace." App. to Pet. for Cert.
34a. As for the definition of "bound," Customs concluded that HTSUS
was not referring to "bookbinding," but to a less exact sort of
fastening described in the Harmonized Commodity Description and
Coding System Explanatory Notes to Heading 4820, which spoke of
binding by "'reinforcements or fittings of metal, plastics, etc.'"
Id., at 45a.
Customs rejected Mead's further protest of the second
Headquarters ruling letter, and Mead filed suit in the Court of
International Trade (CIT). The CIT granted the Government's motion
for summary judgment, adopting Customs's reasoning without saying
anything about deference. 17 F. Supp. 2d 1004 (1998).
Mead then went to the United States Court of Appeals for the
Federal Circuit. While the case was pending there this Court
decided
United States v.
Haggar Apparel Co., 526
226
u. S. 380 (1999), holding that Customs regulations receive the
deference described in
Chevron U. S.
A. Inc. v.
Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837 (1984). The
appeals court requested briefing on the impact of
Haggar,
and the Government argued that classification rulings, like Customs
regulations, deserve
Chevron deference.
The Federal Circuit, however, reversed the CIT and held that
Customs classification rulings should not get
Chevron
deference, owing to differences from the regulations at issue in
Haggar. Rulings are not preceded by notice and comment as
under the Administrative Procedure Act (AP A), 5 U. S. C. § 553,
they "do not carry the force of law and are not, like regulations,
intended to clarify the rights and obligations of importers beyond
the specific case under review." 185 F. 3d, at 1307. The appeals
court thought classification rulings had a weaker
Chevron
claim even than Internal Revenue Service interpretive rulings, to
which that court gives no deference; unlike rulings by the IRS,
Customs rulings issue from many locations and need not be
published. 185 F. 3d, at 1307-1308.
The Court of Appeals accordingly gave no deference at all to the
ruling classifying the Mead day planners and rejected the agency's
reasoning as to both "diary" and "bound." It thought that planners
were not diaries because they had no space for "relatively
extensive notations about events, observations, feelings, or
thoughts" in the past.
Id., at 1310. And it concluded that
diaries "bound" in subheading 4810.10.20 presupposed "unbound"
diaries, such that treating ring-fastened diaries as "bound" would
leave the "unbound diary" an empty category.
Id., at
1311.
We granted certiorari, 530 U. S. 1202 (2000), in order to
consider the limits of
Chevron deference owed to
administrative practice in applying a statute. We hold that
administrative implementation of a particular statutory provision
qualifies for
Chevron deference when it appears that
Congress delegated authority to the agency generally to make
227
rules carrying the force of law, and that the agency
interpretation claiming deference was promulgated in the exercise
of that authority. Delegation of such authority may be shown in a
variety of ways, as by an agency's power to engage in adjudication
or notice-and-comment rulemaking, or by some other indication of a
comparable congressional intent. The Customs ruling at issue here
fails to qualify, although the possibility that it deserves some
deference under
Skidmore leads us to vacate and remand.
II A
When Congress has "explicitly left a gap for an agency to fill,
there is an express delegation of authority to the agency to
elucidate a specific provision of the statute by regulation,"
Chevron, 467 U. S., at 843-844, and any ensuing regulation
is binding in the courts unless procedurally defective, arbitrary
or capricious in substance, or manifestly contrary to the statute.6
See
id., at 844;
United States v.
Morton, 467
U. S. 822, 834 (1984); APA, 5 U. S. C. §§ 706(2)(A), (D). But
whether or not they enjoy any express delegation of authority on a
particular question, agencies charged with applying a statute
necessarily make all sorts of interpretive choices, and while not
all of those choices bind judges to follow them, they certainly may
influence courts facing questions the agencies have already
answered. "[T]he well-reasoned views of the agencies implementing a
statute 'constitute a body of experience and informed judgment to
which courts and litigants may properly resort for guidance,'"
Bragdon v.
Abbott, 524 U. S. 624, 642 (1998)
(quoting
Skidmore, 323 U. S., at 139-140), and "[w]e have
long recognized that considerable weight should be accorded to an
executive department's
6 Assuming in each case, of course, that the agency's exercise
of authority is constitutional, see 5 U. S. C. § 706(2)(B), and
does not exceed its jurisdiction, see § 706(2)(C).
228
construction of a statutory scheme it is entrusted to administer
.... "
Chevron, supra, at 844 (footnote omitted); see also
Ford Motor Credit Co. v.
Milhollin, 444 U. S. 555, 565
(1980);
Zenith Radio Corp. v.
United States, 437 U. S. 443, 450
(1978). The fair measure of deference to an agency administering
its own statute has been understood to vary with circumstances, and
courts have looked to the degree of the agency's care,7 its
consistency,S formality,9 and relative expertness,lO and to the
persuasiveness of the agency's position, see
Skidmore,
supra, at 139-140. The approach has produced a spectrum of
judicial responses, from great respect at one end, see,
e. g.,
Aluminum Co. of America v.
Central Lincoln Peoples' Util.
Dist., 467 U. S.
380, 389-390 (1984) (" 'substantial deference'" to
administrative construction), to near indifference at the other,
see,
e. g., Bowen v.
Georgetown Univ. Hospital,
488 U. S. 204,
212-213 (1988) (interpretation advanced for the first time in a
litigation brief). Justice Jackson summed things up in
Skidmore v.
Swift &
Co.:
"The weight [accorded to an administrative] judgment in a
particular case will 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." 323 U. S., at
140.
7 See,
e. g., General Elec. Co. v.
Gilbert,
429 U. S. 125,
142 (1976) (courts consider the "'thoroughness evident in [the
agency's] consideration'" (quoting
Skidmore v.
Swift
&
Co., 323
U. S. 134, 140 (1944))).
8 See,
e. g., Good Samaritan Hospital v.
Shalala,
508 U. S. 402,
417 (1993) ("[T]he consistency of an agency's position is a factor
in assessing the weight that position is due").
9 See,
e. g., Reno v.
Koray, 515 U. S. 50, 61 (1995)
(internal agency guideline that is not "subject to the rigors of
the [APA], including public notice and comment," is entitled only
to "some deference" (internal quotation marks omitted)).
10 See, e. g., Aluminum Co. of America v. Central Lincoln
Peoples' Util.
Dist., 467
U. S. 380, 390 (1984).
229
Since 1984, we have identified a category of interpretive
choices distinguished by an additional reason for judicial
deference. This Court in
Chevron recognized that Congress
not only engages in express delegation of specific interpretive
authority, but that "[s]ometimes the legislative delegation to an
agency on a particular question is implicit." 467 U. S., at 844.
Congress, that is, may not have expressly delegated authority or
responsibility to implement a particular provision or fill a
particular gap. Yet it can still be apparent from the agency's
generally conferred authority and other statutory circumstances
that Congress would expect the agency to be able to speak with the
force of law when it addresses ambiguity in the statute or fills a
space in the enacted law, even one about which "Congress did not
actually have an intent" as to a particular result.
Id., at
845. When circumstances implying such an expectation exist, a
reviewing court has no business rejecting an agency's exercise of
its generally conferred authority to resolve a particular statutory
ambiguity simply because the agency's chosen resolution seems
unwise, see id., at 845-846, but is obliged to accept the agency's
position if Congress has not previously spoken to the point at
issue and the agency's interpretation is reasonable, see id., at
842-845; cf. 5 U. S. C. § 706(2) (a reviewing court shall set aside
agency action, findings, and conclusions found to be "arbitrary,
capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance
with law").
We have recognized a very good indicator of delegation meriting
Chevron treatment in express congressional authorizations to
engage in the process of rulemaking or adjudication that produces
regulations or rulings for which deference is claimed. See,
e. g.,
EEOC v.
Arabian American Oil Co.,
499 U. S. 244,
257 (1991) (no
Chevron deference to agency guideline where
congressional delegation did not include the power to "'promulgate
rules or regulations' " (quoting
General Elec. Co. v.
Gilbert, 429
U. S. 125, 141
230
(1976))); see also
Christensen v.
Harris County,
529 U. S. 576,
596-597 (2000) (BREYER, J., dissenting) (where it is in doubt that
Congress actually intended to delegate particular interpretive
authority to an agency,
Chevron is "inapplicable"). It is
fair to assume generally that Congress contemplates administrative
action with the effect of law when it provides for a relatively
formal administrative procedure tending to foster the fairness and
deliberation that should underlie a pronouncement of such force.ll
Cf.
Smiley v.
Citibank (South Dakota), N.
A.,
517 U. S. 735,
741 (1996) (APA notice and comment "designed to assure due
deliberation"). Thus, the overwhelming number of our cases applying
Chevron deference have reviewed the fruits of
notice-and-comment rulemaking or formal adjudication.12 That said,
and as sig-
11 See Merrill & Hickman,
Chevron's Domain, 89 Geo.
L. J. 833, 872 (2001) ("[I]f
Chevron rests on a presumption
about congressional intent, then
Chevron should apply only
where Congress would want
Chevron to apply. In delineating
the types of delegations of agency authority that trigger
Chevron deference, it is therefore important to determine
whether a plausible case can be made that Congress would want such
a delegation to mean that agencies enjoy primary interpretational
authority").
12 For rulemaking cases, see, e. g., Shalala v. Illinois Council
on Long Term Care, Inc.,
529 U. S. 1,20-21 (2000);
United States v. Haggar Apparel Co.,
526 U. S. 380 (1999);
AT&T Corp. v. Iowa Utilities Bd.,
525 U. S. 366 (1999);
Atlantic Mut. Ins. Co. v. Commissioner,
523 U. S. 382 (1998);
Regions Hospital v. Shalala,
522 U. S. 448 (1998);
United States v. O'Hagan,
521 U. S. 642 (1997);
Smiley v. Citibank (South Dakota), N. A.,
517 U. S. 735 (1996);
Babbitt v. Sweet Home Chapter, Communities for Great Ore.,
515 U. S. 687 (1995); ICC
v. Transcon Lines,
513 U. S. 138 (1995); PUD
No.1 of Jefferson Cty. v. Washington Dept. of Ecology,
511 U. S. 700 (1994);
Good Samaritan Hospital v. Shalala, supra; American Hospital Assn.
v. NLRB,
499 U. S.
606 (1991); Sullivan v. Everhart,
494 U. S. 83 (1990);
Sullivan v. Zebley,
493 U. S. 521 (1990);
Massachusetts v. Morash,
490 U. S. 107 (1989); K
mart Corp. v. Cartier, Inc.,
486 U. S. 281 (1988);
Atkins v. Rivera,
477
U. S. 154 (1986); United States v. Fulton,
475 U. S. 657 (1986);
United States v. Riverside Bayview Homes, Inc.,
474 U. S. 121 (1985).
For adjudication cases, see,
e. g., INS v.
Aguirre-Aguirre, 526 U. S. 415, 423-425
(1999);
Federal Employees v.
Department of Interior,
526 U. S.
231
nificant as notice-and-comment is in pointing to
Chevron
authority, the want of that procedure here does not decide the
case, for we have sometimes found reasons for
Chevron
deference even when no such administrative formality was required
and none was afforded, see,
e. g.,
NationsBank of N.
c., N.
A. v.
Variable Annuity Life Ins. Co., 513 U. S. 251, 256-257,
263 (1995).13 The fact that the tariff classification here was not
a product of such formal process does not alone, therefore, bar the
application of
Chevron.
There are, nonetheless, ample reasons to deny
Chevron
deference here. The authorization for classification rulings, and
Customs's practice in making them, present a case far removed not
only from notice-and-comment process, but from any other
circumstances reasonably suggesting that Congress ever thought of
classification rulings as deserving the deference claimed for them
here.
B
No matter which angle we choose for viewing the Customs ruling
letter in this case, it fails to qualify under
Chevron. On
the face of the statute, to begin with, the terms of the
congressional delegation give no indication that Congress meant to
delegate authority to Customs to issue classifica-
86,98-99 (1999); Holly Farms Corp. v. NLRB,
517 U. S. 392 (1996); ABF
Freight System, Inc. v. NLRB,
510 U. S. 317, 324-325
(1994); National Railroad Passenger Corporation v. Boston &
Maine Corp.,
503 U.
S. 407, 417-418 (1992); Norfolk & Western R. Co. v. Train
Dispatchers,
499 U.
S. 117, 128 (1991); Fort Stewart Schools v. FLRA,
495 U. S. 641, 644-645
(1990); Department of Treasury, IRS v. FLRA,
494 U. S. 922 (1990).
13 In
NationsBank of N. C., N. A. v.
Variable Annuity
Life Ins. Co., 513 U. S., at 256-257 (internal quotation marks
omitted), we quoted longstanding precedent concluding that "[t]he
Comptroller of the Currency is charged with the enforcement of
banking laws to an extent that warrants the invocation of [the rule
of deference] with respect to his deliberative conclusions as to
the meaning of these laws." See also 1 M. Malloy, Banking Law and
Regulation § 1.3.1, p. 1.41 (1996) (stating that the Comptroller is
given "personal authority" under the National Bank Act).
232
tion rulings with the force of law. We are not, of course, here
making any global statement about Customs's authority, for it is
true that the general rulemaking power conferred on Customs, see 19
U. S. C. § 1624, authorizes some regulation with the force of law,
or "legal norms," as we put it in
Haggar, 526 U. S., at
391.14 It is true as well that Congress had classification rulings
in mind when it explicitly authorized, in a parenthetical, the
issuance of "regulations establishing procedures for the issuance
of binding rulings prior to the entry of the merchandise
concerned," 19 U. S. C. § 1502(a).15 The reference to binding
classifications does not, however, bespeak the legislative type of
activity that would naturally bind more than the parties to the
ruling, once the goods classified are admitted into this country.
And though the statute's direction to disseminate "information"
necessary to "secure" uniformity, ibid., seems to assume that a
ruling may be precedent in later transactions, precedential value
alone does not add up to
Chevron entitlement; interpretive
rules may sometimes function as precedents, see Strauss, The
Rulemaking Continuum, 41 Duke L. J. 1463, 1472-1473 (1992), and
they enjoy no
Chevron status as a class. In any event, any
precedential claim of a classification ruling is counterbalanced by
the provision for independent review of Customs classifications by
the CIT, see 28 U. S. C. §§ 2638-2640; the scheme for CIT review
includes a provision that treats classification rulings on par with
the Secretary's rulings on "valuation, rate of duty, marking,
restricted mer-
14 Cf.
Adams Fruit Co. v.
Barrett, 494 U. S. 638, 649-650
(1990) (although Congress required the Secretary of Labor to
promulgate standards implementing certain provisions of the Migrant
and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act, and "agency
determinations within the scope of delegated authority are entitled
to deference," the Secretary's interpretation of the Act's
enforcement provisions is not entitled to
Chevron deference
because "[n]o such delegation regarding [those] provisions is
evident in the statute").
15The ruling in question here, however, does not fall within
that category.
233
chandise, entry requirements, drawbacks, vessel repairs, or
similar matters," § 1581(h); see § 2639(b). It is hard to imagine a
congressional understanding more at odds with the
Chevron
regime.16
It is difficult, in fact, to see in the agency practice itself
any indication that Customs ever set out with a lawmaking pretense
in mind when it undertook to make classifications like these.
Customs does not generally engage in noticeand-comment practice
when issuing them, and their treatment by the agency makes it clear
that a letter's binding character as a ruling stops short of third
parties; Customs has regarded a classification as conclusive only
as between itself and the importer to whom it was issued, 19 CFR §
177.9(c) (2000), and even then only until Customs has given advance
notice of intended change, §§ 177.9(a), (c). Other importers are in
fact warned against assuming any right of detrimental reliance. §
177.9(c).
Indeed, to claim that classifications have legal force is to
ignore the reality that 46 different Customs offices issue 10,000
to 15,000 of them each year, see Brief for Respondent 5; CITBA
Brief 6 (citing Treasury Advisory Committee on the Commercial
Operations of the United States Customs Service, Report of the COAC
Subcommittee on OR&R, Exhs. 1, 3 (Jan. 26, 2000) (reprinted in
App. to CITBA Brief 20a-21a)). Any suggestion that rulings intended
to have the force of law are being churned out at a rate of 10,000
a year at an agency's 46 scattered offices is simply self-refuting.
Although the circumstances are less startling here, with a
Headquarters letter in issue, none of the relevant statutes
recognizes this category of rulings as separate or different from
others; there is thus no indication that a
16 Although Customs's decision "is presumed to be correct" on
review, 28 U. S. C. § 2639(a)(1), the crT "may consider any new
ground" even if not raised below, § 2638, and "shall make its
determinations upon the basis of the record made before the court,"
rather than that developed by Customs, § 2640(a); see generally
Haggar Apparel, 526 U. S., at 391.
234
more potent delegation might have been understood as going to
Headquarters even when Headquarters provides developed reasoning,
as it did in this instance.
Nor do the amendments to the statute made effective after this
case arose disturb our conclusion. The new law requires Customs to
provide notice-and-comment procedures only when modifying or
revoking a prior classification ruling or modifying the treatment
accorded to substantially identical transactions, 19 U. S. C. §
1625(c); and under its regulations, Customs sees itself obliged to
provide notice-andcomment procedures only when "changing a
practice" so as to produce a tariff increase, or in the imposition
of a restriction or prohibition, or when Customs Headquarters
determines that "the matter is of sufficient importance to involve
the interests of domestic industry," 19 CFR §§ 177.10(c)(1), (2)
(2000). The statutory changes reveal no new congressional objective
of treating classification decisions generally as rulemaking with
force of law, nor do they suggest any intent to create a
Chevron patchwork of classification rulings, some with force
of law, some without.
In sum, classification rulings are best treated like
"interpretations contained in policy statements, agency manuals,
and enforcement guidelines."
Christensen, 529 U. S., at 587.
They are beyond the
Chevron pale.
C
To agree with the Court of Appeals that Customs ruling letters
do not fall within
Chevron is not, however, to place them
outside the pale of any deference whatever.
Chevron did
nothing to eliminate
Skidmore's holding that an agency's
interpretation may merit some deference whatever its form, given
the "specialized experience and broader investigations and
information" available to the agency, 323 U. S., at 139, and given
the value of uniformity in its administrative and judicial
understandings of what a national law requires,
id., at 140.
See generally
Metropolitan Stevedore Co. v.
235
Rambo, 521
U. S. 121, 136 (1997) (reasonable agency interpretations carry
"at least some added persuasive force" where
Chevron is
inapplicable);
Reno v.
Koray, 515 U. S. 50, 61 (1995)
(according "some deference" to an interpretive rule that "do[es]
not require notice and comment");
Martin v.
Occupational
Safety and Health Review Comm'n, 499 U. S. 144, 157 (1991)
("some weight" is due to informal interpretations though not "the
same deference as norms that derive from the exercise of ...
delegated lawmaking powers").
There is room at least to raise a
Skidmore claim here,
where the regulatory scheme is highly detailed, and Customs can
bring the benefit of specialized experience to bear on the subtle
questions in this case: whether the daily planner with room for
brief daily entries falls under "diaries," when diaries are grouped
with "notebooks and address books, bound; memorandum pads, letter
pads and similar articles," HTSUS subheading 4820.10.20; and
whether a planner with a ring binding should qualify as "bound,"
when a binding may be typified by a book, but also may have
"reinforcements or fittings of metal, plastics, etc.," Harmonized
Commodity Description and Coding System Explanatory Notes to
Heading 4820, p. 687 (cited in Customs Headquarters letter, App. to
Pet. for Cert. 45a. A classification ruling in this situation may
therefore at least seek a respect proportional to its "power to
persuade,"
Skidmore, supra, at 140; see also
Christensen, 529 U. S., at 587;
id., at 595 (STEVENS,
J., dissenting); id., at 596-597 (BREYER, J., dissenting). Such a
ruling may surely claim the merit of its writer's thoroughness,
logic, and expertness, its fit with prior interpretations, and any
other sources of weight.
D
Underlying the position we take here, like the position
expressed by JUSTICE SCALIA in dissent, is a choice about the best
way to deal with an inescapable feature of the
236
body of congressional legislation authorizing administrative
action. That feature is the great variety of ways in which the laws
invest the Government's administrative arms with discretion, and
with procedures for exercising it, in giving meaning to Acts of
Congress. Implementation of a statute may occur in formal
adjudication or the choice to defend against judicial challenge; it
may occur in a central board or office or in dozens of enforcement
agencies dotted across the country; its institutional lawmaking may
be confined to the resolution of minute detail or extend to
legislative rulemaking on matters intentionally left by Congress to
be worked out at the agency level.
Although we all accept the position that the Judiciary should
defer to at least some of this multifarious administrative action,
we have to decide how to take account of the great range of its
variety. If the primary objective is to simplify the judicial
process of giving or withholding deference, then the diversity of
statutes authorizing discretionary administrative action must be
declared irrelevant or minimized. If, on the other hand, it is
simply implausible that Congress intended such a broad range of
statutory authority to produce only two varieties of administrative
action, demanding either
Chevron deference or none at all,
then the breadth of the spectrum of possible agency action must be
taken into account. JUSTICE SCALIA'S first priority over the years
has been to limit and simplify. The Court's choice has been to
tailor deference to variety.17 This accept-
17 Compare
Christensen v.
Harris County, 529 U. S. 576, 587 (2000)
("Interpretations such as those in opinion letters-like
interpretations contained in policy statements, agency manuals, and
enforcement guidelines, all of which lack the force of law-do not
warrant
Chevron-style deference"), and
EEOC v.
Arabian American Oil Co., 499 U. S. 244, 257258
(1991) (applying
Skidmore analysis where Congress did not
confer upon the agency authority to promulgate rules or
regulations), with
Christensen, supra, at 589-591 (SCALIA,
J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment) (urging
Chevron treatment);
EEOC v.
Arabian American Oil
Co., supra, at 259-260 (SCALIA, J., concurring in part and
concurring
237
ance of the range of statutory variation has led the Court to
recognize more than one variety of judicial deference, just as the
Court has recognized a variety of indicators that Congress would
expect
Chevron deference.18
Our respective choices are repeated today. JUSTICE SCALIA would
pose the question of deference as an eitheror choice. On his view
that
Chevron rendered
Skidmore anachronistic, when
courts owe any deference it is
Chevron deference that they
owe,
post, at 250. Whether courts do owe deference in a
given case turns, for him, on whether the agency action (if
reasonable) is "authoritative,"
post, at 257. The character
of the authoritative derives, in turn, not from breadth of
delegation or the agency's procedure in implementing it, but is
defined as the "official" position of an agency,
ibid., and
may ultimately be a function of administrative persistence alone,
ante, at 258.
The Court, on the other hand, said nothing in
Chevron to
eliminate
Skidmore's recognition of various justifications
for deference depending on statutory circumstances and agency
action;
Chevron was simply a case recognizing that even
without express authority to fill a specific statutory gap,
circumstances pointing to implicit congressional delegation present
a particularly insistent call for deference. Indeed, in holding
here that
Chevron left
Skidmore intact and applicable
where statutory circumstances indicate no intent to delegate
general authority to make rules with force of law, or where such
authority was not invoked, we hold nothing more than we said last
Term in response to the particular
in judgment) (urging
Chevron treatment); see also
INS v.
CardozaFonseca, 480 U. S. 421,453-455
(1987) (SCALIA, J., concurring in judgment) (urging broader
application of
Chevron).
18 It is, of course, true that the limit of
Chevron
deference is not marked by a hard-edged rule. But
Chevron
itself is a good example showing when
Chevron deference is
warranted, while this is a good case showing when it is not. Judges
in other, perhaps harder, cases will make reasoned choices between
the two examples, the way courts have always done.
238
statutory circumstances in
Christensen, to which JUSTICE
SCALIA then took exception, see 529 U. S., at 589, just as he does
again today.
We think, in sum, that JUSTICE SCALIA'S efforts to simplify
ultimately run afoul of Congress's indications that different
statutes present different reasons for considering respect for the
exercise of administrative authority or deference to it. Without
being at odds with congressional intent much of the time, we
believe that judicial responses to administrative action must
continue to differentiate between
Chevron and
Skidmore, and that continued recognition of
Skidmore
is necessary for just the reasons Justice Jackson gave when that
case was decided.19
***
Since the
Skidmore assessment called for here ought to be
made in the first instance by the Court of Appeals for the
19 Surely Justice Jackson's practical criteria, along with
Chevron's concern with congressional understanding, provide
more reliable guideposts than conclusory references to the
"authoritative" or "official." Even if those terms provided a true
criterion, there would have to be something wrong with a standard
that accorded the status of substantive law to everyone of 10,000
"official" customs classifications rulings turned out each year
from over 46 offices placed around the country at the Nation's
entryways. JUSTICE SCALIA tries to avoid that result by limiting
what is "authoritative" or "official" to a pronouncement that
expresses the "judgment of central agency management, approved at
the highest levels," as distinct from the pronouncements of
"underlings,"
post, at 259, n. 6. But that analysis would
not entitle a Headquarters ruling to
Chevron deference; the
"highest level" at Customs is the source of the regulation at issue
in
Haggar, the Commissioner of Customs with the approval of
the Secretary of the Treasury. 526 U. S., at 386. The Commissioner
did not issue the Headquarters ruling. What JUSTICE SCALIA has in
mind here is that because the Secretary approved the Government's
position in its brief to this Court,
Chevron deference is
due. But if that is so,
Chevron deference was not called for
until sometime after the litigation began, when central management
at the highest level decided to defend the ruling, and the
deference is not to the classification ruling as such but to the
brief. This explains why the Court has not accepted JUSTICE
SCALIA'S position.
239
Federal Circuit or the CIT, we go no further than to vacate the
judgment and remand the case for further proceedings consistent
with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
JUSTICE SCALIA, dissenting.
Today's opinion makes an avulsive change in judicial review of
federal administrative action. Whereas previously a reasonable
agency application of an ambiguous statutory provision had to be
sustained so long as it represented the agency's authoritative
interpretation, henceforth such an application can be set aside
unless "it appears that Congress delegated authority to the agency
generally to make rules carrying the force of law," as by giving an
agency "power to engage in adjudication or notice-and-comment
rulemaking, or ... some other [procedure] indicati[ng] comparable
congressional intent," and "the agency interpretation claiming
deference was promulgated in the exercise of that authority."
Ante, at 226-227.1 What was previously a general presumption
of authority in agencies to resolve ambiguity in the statutes they
have been authorized to enforce has been changed to a presumption
of no such authority, which must be overcome by affirmative
legislative intent to the contrary. And whereas previously, when
agency authority to resolve ambiguity did not exist the court was
free to give the statute what it considered the best
interpretation, henceforth the court must supposedly give the
agency view some indeterminate amount of so-called
Skidmore
deference.
Skidmore v.
Swift &
Co.,
323 U. S. 134
(1944). We will be sorting out the consequences of the
Mead
doctrine, which has today replaced the
Chevron doctrine,
Chevron U. S.
A. Inc. v.
Natural Resources Defense
Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837 (1984), for
years to come. I would adhere to our established jurisprudence,
1 It is not entirely clear whether the formulation newly minted
by the Court today extends to both formal and informal
adjudication, or simply the former. Cf.,
e. g.,
ante,
at 230.
240
defer to the reasonable interpretation the Customs Service has
given to the statute it is charged with enforcing, and reverse the
judgment of the Court of Appeals.
I
Only five years ago, the Court described the
Chevron
doctrine as follows: "We accord deference to agencies under
Chevron ... because of a presumption that Congress, 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 (1996) (citing
Chevron, supra, at 843-844).
Today the Court collapses this doctrine, announcing instead a
presumption that agency discretion does not exist unless the
statute, expressly or impliedly, says so. While the Court disclaims
any hardand-fast rule for determining the existence of
discretionconferring intent, it asserts that "a very good indicator
[is] express congressional authorizations to engage in the process
of rulemaking or adjudication that produces regulations or rulings
for which deference is claimed,"
ante, at 229. Only when
agencies act through "adjudication[,] notice-and-comment
rulemaking, or ... some other [procedure] indicati[ng] comparable
congressional intent [whatever that means]" is
Chevron
deference applicable-because these "relatively formal
administrative procedure[s] [designed] to foster ... fairness and
deliberation" bespeak (according to the Court) congressional
willingness to have the agency, rather than the courts, resolve
statutory ambiguities.
Ante, at 227, 230. Once it is
determined that
Chevron deference is not in order, the
uncertainty is not at an end-and indeed is just beginning.
Litigants cannot then assume that the statutory question is one for
the courts to determine, accord-
241
ing to traditional interpretive principles and by their own
judicial lights. No, the Court now resurrects, in full force, the
pre-Chevron doctrine of
Skidmore deference, see
Skidmore, supra, whereby "[t]he fair measure of deference to
an agency administering its own statute ... var[ies] with
circumstances," including "the degree of the agency's care, its
consistency, formality, and relative expertness, and ... the
persuasiveness of the agency's position,"
ante, at 228
(footnotes omitted). The Court has largely replaced
Chevron,
in other words, with that test most beloved by a court unwilling to
be held to rules (and most feared by litigants who want to know
what to expect): th'ol' "totality of the circumstances" test.
The Court's new doctrine is neither sound in principle nor
sustainable in practice.
A
As to principle: The doctrine of
Chevron-that all
authoritative agency interpretations of statutes they are
charged with administering deserve deference-was rooted in a legal
presumption of congressional intent, important to the division of
powers between the Second and Third Branches. When,
Chevron
said, Congress leaves an ambiguity in a statute that is to be
administered by an executive agency, it is presumed that Congress
meant to give the agency discretion, within the limits of
reasonable interpretation, as to how the ambiguity is to be
resolved. By committing enforcement of the statute to an agency
rather than the courts, Congress committed its initial and primary
interpretation to that branch as well.
There is some question whether
Chevron was faithful to
the text of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), which it did
not even bother to cite.2 But it was in accord with the
2 Title 5 U. S. C. § 706 provides that, in reviewing agency
action, the court shall "decide all relevant questions of
law"-which would seem to mean that all statutory ambiguities are to
be resolved judicially. See
242
origins of federal-court judicial review. Judicial control of
federal executive officers was principally exercised through the
prerogative writ of mandamus. See L. Jaffe, Judicial Control of
Administrative Action 166, 176-177 (1965). That writ generally
would not issue unless the executive officer was acting plainly
beyond the scope of his authority.
"The questions mooted before the Secretary and decided by him
were whether the fund is a tribal fund, whether the tribe is still
existing and whether the distribution of the annuities is to be
confined to members of the tribe .... These are all questions of
law the solution of which requires a construction of the act of
1889 and other related acts. A reading of these acts shows that
they fall short of plainly requiring that any of the questions be
answered in the negative and that in some aspects they give color
to the affirmative answers of the Secretary. That the construction
of the acts insofar as they have a bearing on the first and third
questions is sufficiently uncertain to involve the exercise of
judgment and discretion is rather plain ....
"From what has been said it follows that the case is not one in
which mandamus will lie." Wilbur v. United States ex rel.
Kadrie, 281 U. S.
206, 221-222 (1930).
Anthony, The Supreme Court and the APA: Sometimes They Just
Don't Get It, 10 Am. U. Admin. L. J. 1, 9-11 (1996). It could be
argued, however, that the legal presumption identified by
Chevron left as the only "questio[n] of law" whether the
agency's interpretation had gone beyond the scope of discretion
that the statutory ambiguity conferred. Today's opinion, of course,
is no more observant of the APA's text than
Chevron was-and
indeed is even more difficult to reconcile with it. Since the
opinion relies upon actual congressional intent to suspend § 706,
rather than upon a legal presumption against which § 706 was
presumably enacted, it runs head-on into the provision of the APA
which specifies that the Act's requirements (including the
requirement that judges shall "decide all relevant questions of
law") cannot be amended except expressly. See §559.
243
Statutory ambiguities, in other words, were left to reasonable
resolution by the Executive.
The basis in principle for to day's new doctrine can be
described as follows: The background rule is that ambiguity in
legislative instructions to agencies is to be resolved not by the
agencies but by the judges. Specific congressional intent to depart
from this rule must be found-and while there is no single
touchstone for such intent it can generally be found when Congress
has authorized the agency to act through (what the Court says is)
relatively formal procedures such as informal rulemaking and formal
(and informal?) adjudication, and when the agency in fact employs
such procedures. The Court's background rule is contradicted by the
origins of judicial review of administrative action. But in
addition, the Court's principal criterion of congressional intent
to supplant its background rule seems to me quite implausible.
There is no necessary connection between the formality of procedure
and the power of the entity administering the procedure to resolve
authoritatively questions of law. The most formal of the procedures
the Court refers to-formal adjudication-is modeled after the
process used in trial courts, which of course are not generally
accorded deference on questions of law. The purpose of such a
procedure is to produce a closed record for determination and
review of the facts-which implies nothing about the power of the
agency subjected to the procedure to resolve authoritatively
questions of law.
As for informal rulemaking: While formal adjudication procedures
are
prescribed (either by statute or by the Constitution),
see 5 U. S. C. §§ 554, 556;
Wong Yang Sung v.
McGrath,
339 U.
S. 33, 50 (1950), informal rulemaking is more typically
authorized but not required. Agencies with such authority
are free to give guidance through rulemaking, but they may proceed
to administer their statute case-bycase, "making law" as they
implement their program (not necessarily through formal
adjudication). See
NLRB v.
Bell
244
Aerospace Co., 416 U. S. 267, 290-295
(1974);
SEC v.
Chenery Corp., 332 U. S. 194, 202-203
(1947). Is it likely-or indeed even plausible-that Congress meant,
when such an agency chooses rulemaking, to accord the
administrators of that agency,
and their successors, the
flexibility of interpreting the ambiguous statute now one way, and
later another; but, when such an agency chooses case-by-case
administration, to eliminate all future agency discretion by having
that same ambiguity resolved authoritatively (and forever) by the
courts? 3 Surely that makes no sense. It is also the case that
certain significant categories of rules-those involving grant and
benefit programs, for example, are exempt from the requirements of
informal rulemaking. See 5 U. S. C. § 553(a)(2). Under the Court's
novel theory, when an agency takes advantage of that exemption its
rules will be deprived of
Chevron deference, i.
e.,
authoritative effect. Was this either the plausible intent of the
APA rulemaking exemption, or the plausible intent of the Congress
that established the grant or benefit program?
Some decisions that are neither informal rulemaking nor formal
adjudication are required to be made personally by a Cabinet
Secretary, without any prescribed procedures. See,
e. g., United
States v.
Giordano, 416 U. S. 505, 508 (1974)
(involving application of 18 U. S. C. § 2516 (1970 ed.), requiring
wiretap applications to be authorized by "[t]he Attorney General,
or any Assistant Attorney General specially designated by the
Attorney General");
D. C.
Federation of Civic Assns.
v.
Volpe, 459 F.2d
1231, 1248-1249 (CADC 1971) (involving application of 23 U. S.
C. § 138 (1970 ed.) requiring the Secretary of Transportation to
determine that there is "no feasible and prudent alternative to the
use of" publicly owned parkland for a federally funded highway),
cert. denied,
405 U.
S. 1030 (1972). Is it conceivable that decisions
3 See
infra, at 247-250.
245
specifically committed to these high-level officers are meant to
be accorded no deference, while decisions by an administrative law
judge left in place without further discretionary agency review,
see 5 U. s. C. § 557(b), are authoritative? This seems to me quite
absurd, and not at all in accord with any plausible actual intent
of Congress.
B
As for the practical effects of the new rule:
1
The principal effect will be protracted confusion. As noted
above, the one test for
Chevron deference that the Court
enunciates is wonderfully imprecise: whether "Congress delegated
authority to the agency generally to make rules carrying the force
of law, ... as by ... adjudication[,] notice-and-comment
rulemaking, or ... some other [procedure] indicati[ng] comparable
congressional intent." But even this description does not do
justice to the utter flabbiness of the Court's criterion, since, in
order to maintain the fiction that the new test is really just the
old one, applied consistently throughout our case law, the Court
must make a virtually open-ended exception to its already imprecise
guidance: In the present case, it tells us, the absence of
notice-and-comment rulemaking (and "[who knows?] [of] some other
[procedure] indicati[ng] comparable congressional intent") is not
enough to decide the question of
Chevron deference, "for we
have sometimes found reasons for
Chevron deference even when
no such administrative formality was required and none was
afforded."
Ante, at 226-227, 231. The opinion then goes on
to consider a grab bag of other factors-including the factor that
used to be the sole criterion for
Chevron deference: whether
the interpretation represented the
authoritative position of
the agency, see
ante,
246
at 231-234. It is hard to know what the lower courts are to make
of today's guidance.
2
Another practical effect of to day's opinion will be an
artificially induced increase in informal rulemaking. Buy stock in
the GPO. Since informal rulemaking and formal adjudication are the
only more-or-Iess safe harbors from the storm that the Court has
unleashed; and since formal adjudication is not an option but must
be mandated by statute or constitutional command; informal
rulemaking-which the Court was once careful to make voluntary
unless required by statute, see
Bell Aerospace, supra, and
Chenery, suprawill now become a virtual necessity. As I have
described, the Court's safe harbor requires not merely that the
agency have been given rulemaking authority, but also that the
agency have
employed rulemaking as the means of resolving
the statutory ambiguity. (It is hard to understand why that should
be so. Surely the mere
conferral of rulemaking authority
demonstrates-if one accepts the Court's logic-a congressional
intent to allow the agency to resolve ambiguities. And given that
intent, what difference does it make that the agency chooses
instead to use another perfectly permissible means for that
purpose?) Moreover, the majority's approach will have a perverse
effect on the rules that do emerge, given the principle (which the
Court leaves untouched today) that judges must defer to reasonable
agency interpretations of their own regulations. See,
e. g.,
United States v.
Cleveland Indians Baseball Co.,
532 U. S. 200,
220 (2001) ("We need not decide whether the [informal] Revenue
Rulings themselves are entitled to deference[, ... because] the
Rulings simply reflect the agency's longstanding interpretation of
its own regulations"). Agencies will now have high incentive to
rush out barebones, ambiguous rules construing statutory
ambiguities, which they can then in turn further clarify through
informal rulings entitled to judicial respect.
247
3
Worst of all, the majority's approach will lead to the
ossification of large portions of our statutory law. Where
Chevron applies, statutory ambiguities remain ambiguities
subject to the agency's ongoing clarification. They create a space,
so to speak, for the exercise of continuing agency discretion. As
Chevron itself held, the Environmental Protection Agency can
interpret "stationary source" to mean a single smokestack, can
later replace that interpretation with the "bubble concept"
embracing an entire plant, and if that proves undesirable can
return again to the original interpretation. 467 U. S., at 853-859,
865-866. For the indeterminately large number of statutes taken out
of
Chevron by to day's decision, however, ambiguity (and
hence flexibility) will cease with the first judicial resolution.
Skidmore deference gives the agency's current position some
vague and uncertain amount of respect, but it does not, like
Chevron, leave the matter within the control of the
Executive Branch for the future. Once the court has spoken, it
becomes un
lawful for the agency to take a contradictory
position; the statute now
says what the court has
prescribed. See
Neal v.
United States, 516 U. S. 284, 295
(1996);
Lechmere, Inc. v.
NLRB, 502 U. S. 527, 536-537
(1992);
Maislin Industries, U. S., Inc. v.
Primary Steel,
Inc., 497 U. S.
116, 131 (1990). It will be bad enough when this ossification
occurs as a result of judicial determination (under to day's new
principles) that there is no affirmative indication of
congressional intent to "delegate"; but it will be positively
bizarre when it occurs simply because of an agency's failure to act
by rulemaking (rather than informal adjudication) before the issue
is presented to the courts.
One might respond that such ossification would not result if the
agency were simply to readopt its interpretation, after a court
reviewing it under
Skidmore had rejected it, by
repromulgating it through one of the Chevron-eligible procedural
formats approved by the Court today. Approving this
248
procedure would be a landmark abdication of judicial power. It
is worlds apart from
Chevron proper, where the court does
not
purport to give the statute a judicial
interpretationexcept in identifying the scope of the statutory
ambiguity, as to which the court's judgment is final and
irreversible. (Under
Chevron proper, when the agency's
authoritative interpretation comes within the scope of that
ambiguity-and the court therefore approves it-the agency will not
be "overruling" the court's decision when it later decides that a
different interpretation (still within the scope of the ambiguity)
is preferable.) By contrast, under this view, the reviewing court
will not be holding the agency's authoritative interpretation
within the scope of the ambiguity; but will be holding that the
agency has not used the "delegationconferring" procedures, and that
the court must therefore
interpret the statute on its
own-but subject to reversal if and when the agency uses the proper
procedures.
One is reminded of Justice Jackson's words in Chicago &
Southern Air Lines, Inc. v. Waterman S. S. Corp.,
333 U. S. 103, 113
(1948):
"The court below considered that after it reviewed the Board's
order its judgment would be submitted to the President, that his
power to disapprove would apply after as well as before the court
acts, and hence that there would be no chance of a deadlock and no
conflict of function. But if the President may completely disregard
the judgment of the court, it would be only because it is one the
courts were not authorized to render. Judgments within the powers
vested in courts by the Judiciary Article of the Constitution may
not lawfully be revised, overturned or refused faith and credit by
another Department of Government."
I know of no case, in the entire history of the federal courts,
in which we have allowed a judicial interpretation of a statute to
be set aside by an agency-or have allowed a
249
lower court to render an interpretation of a statute subject to
correction by an agency. As recently as 1996, we rejected an
attempt to do
precisely that. In
Chapman v.
United
States, 500 U. S.
453 (1991), we had held that the weight of the blotter paper
bearing the lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) must be counted for
purposes of determining whether the quantity crossed the 10-gram
threshold of 21 U. S. C. § 841(b)(1)(A)(v) imposing a minimum
sentence of 10 years. At that time the United States Sentencing
Commission applied a similar approach under the Sentencing
Guidelines, but had taken no position regarding the meaning of the
statutory provision. The Commission later changed its Guidelines
approach, and, according to the petitioner in
Neal v.
United States, 516 U. S. 284 (1996),
made clear its view that the statute bore that meaning as well. The
petitioner argued that we should defer to that new approach. We
would have none of it.
"Were we, for argument's sake, to adopt petitioner's view that
the Commission intended the commentary as an interpretation of §
841(b)(1), and that the last sentence of the commentary states the
Commission's view that the dose-based method is consistent with the
term 'mixture or substance' in the statute, he still would not
prevail. The Commission's dose-based method cannot be squared with
Chapman .... In these circumstances, we need not decide
what, if any, deference is owed the Commission in order to reject
its alleged contrary interpretation. Once we have determined a
statute's meaning, we adhere to our ruling under the doctrine of
stare decisis, and we assess an agency's later
interpretation of the statute against that settled law."
Id., at 294-295 (citations omitted).
There is, in short, no way to avoid the ossification of federal
law that to day's opinion sets in motion. What a court says is the
law after according
Skidmore deference will be the
250
law forever, beyond the power of the agency to change even
through rulemaking.
4
And finally, the majority's approach compounds the confusion it
creates by breathing new life into the anachronism of
Skidmore, which sets forth a sliding scale of deference owed
an agency's interpretation of a statute that is dependent "upon the
thoroughness evident in [the agency's] 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"; in this way, the
appropriate measure of deference will be accorded the "body of
experience and informed judgment" that such interpretations often
embody, 323 U. S., at 140. Justice Jackson's eloquence
notwithstanding, the rule of
Skidmore deference is an empty
truism and a trifling statement of the obvious: A judge should take
into account the well-considered views of expert observers.
It was possible to live with the indeterminacy of
Skidmore deference in earlier times. But in an era when
federal statutory law administered by federal agencies is
pervasive, and when the ambiguities (intended or unintended) that
those statutes contain are innumerable,
totality-of-thecircumstances
Skidmore deference is a recipe
for uncertainty, unpredictability, and endless litigation. To
condemn a vast body of agency action to that regime (all except
rulemaking, formal (and informal?) adjudication, and whatever else
might now and then be included within to day's intentionally vague
formulation of affirmative congressional intent to "delegate") is
irresponsible.
II
The Court's pretense that to day's opinion is nothing more than
application of our prior case law does not withstand analysis. It
is, to be sure, impossible to demonstrate that any of our cases
contradicts the rule of decision that the
251
Court prescribes, because the Court prescribes none. More
precisely, it at one and the same time (1) renders meaningless its
newly announced requirement that there be an affirmative
congressional intent to have ambiguities resolved by the
administering agency, and (2) ensures that no prior decision can
possibly be cited which contradicts that requirement, by simply
announcing that all prior decisions according
Chevron
deference exemplify the multifarious ways in which that
congressional intent can be manifested: "[A]s significant as
notice-and-comment is in pointing to
Chevron authority, the
want of that procedure here does not decide the case, for we have
sometimes found reasons for
Chevron deference even when no
such administrative formality was required and none was afforded,"
ante, at 230-231.4
4 As a sole, teasing example of those "sometimes" the Court
cites
NationsBank of N. C., N. A. v.
Variable Annuity
Life Ins. Co., 513 U. S. 251 (1995),
explaining in a footnote that our "longstanding precedent" evinced
a tradition of great deference to the "'deliberative conclusions'"
of the Comptroller of the Currency as to the meaning of the banking
laws the Comptroller is charged with enforcing.
Ante, at
231, n. 13. How it is that a tradition of great judicial deference
to the agency head provides affirmative indication of congressional
intent to delegate authority to resolve statutory ambiguities
challenges the intellect and the imagination. If the point is that
Congress must have been aware of that tradition of great deference
when it enacted the law at issue, the same could be said of the
Customs Service, and indeed of
all agencies. See,
e.
g., 4 K. Davis, Administrative Law Treatise § 30.08, pp. 237-238
(1958) (describing the "great weight" accorded the
"determination[s]" of the Federal Trade Commission (quoting
FTC v.
Cement Institute, 333 U. S. 683, 720
(1948)); Report of the Attorney General's Committee on
Administrative Procedure, S. Doc. No.8, 77th Cong., 1st Sess.,
90-91 (1941). Indeed, since our opinion in
Chevron Congress
must have been aware that we would defer to
all
authoritative agency resolutions of statutory ambiguities. Needless
to say,
NationsBank itself makes no mention of any such
affirmative indication, because it was never the law. The many
other cases that contradict the Court's new rule will presumably be
explained, like
NationsBank, as other "modes" of displaying
affirmative congressional intent. If a tradition of judicial
deference can be called that with a straight face, what cannot
be?
252
The principles central to to day's opinion have no antecedent in
our jurisprudence.
Chevron, the case that the opinion
purportedly explicates, made no mention of the "relatively formal
administrative procedure[s],"
ante, at 230, that the Court
today finds the best indication of an affirmative intent by
Congress to have ambiguities resolved by the administering agency.
Which is not so remarkable, since
Chevron made no mention of
any
need to find such an affirmative intent; it said that in
the event of statutory ambiguity agency authority to clarify was to
be
presumed. And our cases have followed that
prescription.
Six years ago, we unanimously accorded
Chevron deference
to an interpretation of the National Bank Act, 12 U. S. C. § 24
Seventh (1988 ed. and Supp. V), contained in a letter to a private
party from a Senior Deputy Comptroller of the Currency. See
NationsBank of N. c., N.
A. v.
Variable Annuity
Life Ins. Co., 513 U. S. 251, 255, 257
(1995). We did so because the letter represented (and no one
contested) that it set forth the official position of the
Comptroller of the Currency, see id., at 263.
Several cases decided virtually in the wake of
Chevron,
which the Court conveniently ignores, demonstrate that Congress
could not (if it was reading our opinions) have acted in reliance
on a background assumption that
Chevron deference would
generally be accorded only to agency interpretations arrived at
through formal adjudication, notice-andcomment rulemaking, or other
procedures assuring "fairness and deliberation,"
ante, at
230. In
FDIC v.
Philadelphia Gear Corp., 476 U. S. 426, 438-439
(1986), we accorded
Chevron deference to the Federal Deposit
Insurance Corporation's interpretation of the statutory term
"deposit" reflected in a course of unstructured administrative
actions, and gave particular weight to the agency's
"contemporaneous understanding" reflected in the response given by
an FDIC official to a question asked at a meeting of FDIC and bank
officials. It was clear that the position reflected
253
the official position of the agency, and that was enough to
command
Chevron deference. In
Young v.
Community
Nutrition Institute, 476 U. S. 974 (1986), the
statutory ambiguity at issue pertained to a provision that "the
Secretary [of Health and Human Services] shall promulgate
regulations limiting the quantity [of any poisonous or deleterious
substance added to any food] to such extent as he finds necessary
for the protection of public health." The Secretary had regularly
interpreted the phrase "to such extent as he finds necessary" as
conferring discretion not to issue a rule, rather than merely
discretion regarding the quantity that the rule would permit. This
interpretation was not, of course, reflected in any formal
adjudication, and had not been the subject of any informal
rulemaking-it was the Secretary's
understanding consistently
applied in the course of the Department's practice. We accorded it
Chevron deference, as unquestionably we should have. And in
Mead Corp. v.
Tilley, 490 U. S. 714 (1989), a
private suit by retirees against their former employer under the
Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), we
accorded
Chevron deference to the Pension Benefit Guaranty
Corporation's interpretation of § 4044(a) of ERISA, 29 U. S. C. §
1344(a) (1982 ed. and Supp. V), that was reflected only in an
amicus brief to this Court and in several opinion letters
issued without benefit of any prescribed procedures. See 490 U. S.,
at 722.
I could continue to enumerate cases according
Chevron
deference to agency interpretations not arrived at through formal
proceedings-for example,
Pension Benefit Guaranty
Corporation v.
LTV Corp., 496 U. S. 633, 642-643,
647-648 (1990) (according
Chevron deference to the PBGC's
interpretation of the requirements for its restoring a terminated
plan under § 4047 of ERISA, 29 U. S. C. § 1347 (1988 ed.), which
interpretation was reflected in nothing more than the agency's act
of issuing a notice of restoration). Suffice it to say that many
cases flatly contradict the theory of
Chevron set forth in
to day's opinion, and
with one exception
254
not a single case can be found with language that supports the
theory. That exception, a very recent one, deserves extended
discussion.
In
Christensen v.
Harris County, 529 U. S. 576 (2000), the
Court said the following:
"[W]e confront an interpretation contained in an opinion letter,
not one arrived at after, for example, a formal adjudication or
notice-and-comment rulemaking. Interpretations such as those in
opinion letters-like interpretations contained in policy
statements, agency manuals, and enforcement guidelines, all of
which lack the force of law-do not warrant Chevron-style
deference." Id., at 587.
This statement was dictum, unnecessary to the Court's holding.
Since the Court went on to find that the Secretary of Labor's
position "ma[de] little sense" given the text and structure of the
statute,
id., at 585-586,
Chevron deference could not
have been accorded
no matter what the conditions for its
application. See 529 U. S., at 591 (SCALIA, J., concurring in part
and concurring in judgment). It was, moreover, dictum unsupported
by the precedent that the Court cited.
The
Christensen majority followed its above-quoted dictum
with a string citation of three cases, none of which sustains its
point. In
Reno v.
Koray, 515 U. S. 50 (1995), we
had no occasion to consider what level of deference was owed the
Bureau of Prisons' interpretation of 18 U. S. C. § 3585(b) set
forth in an internal agency guideline, because our opinion made
clear that we would have independently arrived at the same
interpretation on our own, see 515 U. S., at 57-60. And although
part of one sentence in
Koray might be read to suggest that
the Bureau's "Program Statemen[t]" should be accorded a measure of
deference less than that mandated by
Chevron, this aside is
ultimately inconclusive,
255
since the sentence ends by observing that the statement was "a
'permissible construction of the statute'" under
Chevron.
515 U. S., at 61 (quoting
Chevron, 467 U. S., at 843). In
the second case cited,
EEOC v.
Arabian American Oil Co.,
499 U. S. 244 (1991), it was again unnecessary to our holding
whether the agency's interpretation of the statute warranted
Chevron deference, since the "longstanding ... 'canon of
[statutory] construction'" disfavoring extraterritoriality, 499 U.
S., at 248, would have required the same result even if
Chevron applied. See 499 U. S., at 260 (SCALIA, J.,
concurring in part and concurring in judgment). While the opinion
did purport to accord the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's
informally promulgated interpretation only
Skidmore
deference, it did so because the Court thought itself bound by its
pre-Chevron, EEOC-specific decision in
General Elec.
Co. v.
Gilbert, 429 U. S. 125 (1976),
which noted that "'Congress, in enacting Title VII, did not'"
intend to give the EEOC substantive authority to resolve statutory
ambiguities,
Arabian American Oil, supra, at 257 (quoting
Gilbert, supra, at 141). Lastly, in
Martin v.
Occupational Safety and Health Review Comm'n, 499 U. S. 144 (1991), the
question of the level of deference owed the Secretary of Labor's
interpretation of the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970,
84 Stat. 1590, as amended, 29 U. S. C. § 651
et seq., was
neither presented by the case nor considered in our opinion. The
only question before the Court was which of two competing
interpretations of 29 CFR § 1910.1029 (1990)-the Secretary's or the
Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission's-should have been
deferred to by the court below. See 499 U. S., at 150. The dicta
the
Christensen Court cited, 529 U. S., at 587 (citing 499
U. S., at 157), opined on the measure of deference owed the
Secretary's interpretation, not of the statute, but of his own
regulations, see generally Manning, Constitutional Structure
256
and Judicial Deference to Agency Interpretations of Agency
Rules, 96 Colum. L. Rev. 612 (1996).
To make matters worse, the arguments marshaled by
Christensen in support of its dictum-its observation that
"interpretations contained in policy statements, agency manuals,
and enforcement guidelines, all ... lack the force of law," and its
citation of 1 K. Davis & R. Pierce, Administrative Law Treatise
§ 3.5 (3d ed. 1994), 529 U. S., at 587-are not only unpersuasive
but bear scant resemblance to the reasoning of to day's opinion.
Davis and Pierce, and Professor Robert Anthony upon whom they rely,
see Anthony, Which Agency Interpretations Should Bind Citizens and
the Courts?, 7 Yale J. on Reg. 1 (1990), do indeed set forth the
argument I have criticized above, that congressional authorization
of informal rulemaking or formal (and perhaps even informal)
adjudication somehow bespeaks a congressional intent to "delegate"
power to resolve statutory ambiguities. But their analysis does not
permit the broad add-ons that the Court's opinion contains-"some
other [procedure] indicati[ng] comparable congressional intent,"
ante, at 227, and "we have sometimes found reasons for
Chevron deference even when no such administrative formality
was required and none was afforded,"
ante, at 231.
III
To decide the present case, I would adhere to the original
formulation of
Chevron. "'The power of an administrative
agency to administer a congressionally created ... program
necessarily requires the formulation of policy and the making of
rules to fill any gap left, implicitly or explicitly, by
Congress,'" 467 U. S., at 843 (quoting
Morton v.
Ruiz,
415 U. S. 199, 231 (1974)). We accordingly presume-and our
precedents have made clear to Congress that we presumethat, absent
some clear textual indication to the contrary, "Congress, when it
left ambiguity in a statute meant for im-
257
plementation 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, 517 U. S., at
740-741 (citing
Chevron, supra, at 843-844).
Chevron
sets forth an across-the-board presumption, which operates as a
background rule of law against which Congress legislates: Ambiguity
means Congress intended agency discretion. Any resolution of the
ambiguity by the administering agency that is authoritative-that
represents the official position of the agency-must be accepted by
the courts if it is reasonable.
Nothing in the statute at issue here displays an intent to
modify the background presumption on which
Chevron deference
is based. The Court points,
ante, at 233, n. 16, to 28 U. S.
C. § 2640(a), which provides that, in reviewing the ruling by the
Customs Service, the Court of International Trade (CIT) "shall make
its determinations upon the basis of the record made before the
court." But records are made to determine the facts, not the law.
All this provision means is that new evidence may be introduced at
the CIT stage; it says nothing about whether the CIT must respect
the Customs Service's authoritative interpretation of the law. More
significant than § 2640(a), insofar as the CIT's obligation to
defer to the Customs Service's legal interpretations is concerned,
is § 2639(a)(1), which requires the CIT to accord a "presum[ption
of] correct[ness]" to the Customs Service's decision. Another
provision cited by the Court,
ante, at 233, n. 16, is §
2638, which provides that the CIT, "by rule, may consider any new
ground in support" of the challenge to the Customs Service's
ruling. Once again, it is impossible to see how this has any
connection to the degree of deference the CIT must accord the
Customs Service's interpretation of its statute. Such "new
ground[s]" may be intervening or newly discovered facts, or some
intervening
258
law or regulation that might render the Customs Service's ruling
unsound.5
There is no doubt that the Customs Service's interpretation
represents the authoritative view of the agency. Although the
actual ruling letter was signed by only the Director of the
Commercial Rulings Branch of Customs Headquarters' Office of
Regulations and Rulings, see Pet. for Cert. 47a, the Solicitor
General of the United States has filed a brief, cosigned by the
General Counsel of the Department of the Treasury, that represents
the position set forth in the ruling letter to be the official
position of the Customs Service. Cf.
Christensen, 529 U. S.,
at 591 (SCALIA, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment).
No one contends that it is merely a
"post hoc
rationalizatio[n]" or an "agency litigating positio[n] wholly
unsupported by regulations, rulings, or administrative practice,"
Bowen v.
Georgetown Univ. Hospital, 488 U. S. 204, 212
(1988).6
5 The Court also states that "[i]t is hard to imagine" that
Congress would have intended courts to defer to classification
rulings since "the scheme for CIT review includes a provision that
treats classification rulings on par with the Secretary's rulings
on 'valuation, rate of duty, marking, restricted merchandise, entry
requirements, drawbacks, vessel repairs, or similar matters,'"
ante, at 232-233 (quoting 28 U. S. C. § 1581(h), and citing
§ 2639(b)). I fail to see why this is hard to imagine at all. If
anything, the fact that "the scheme for CIT review ... treats
classification rulings on par with the Secretary's rulings on" such
important matters as "'valuation, rate of duty, ... restricted
merchandise [and] entry requirements,' "
ante, at 232-233,
which often require interpretation of the Nation's customs and
tariff statutes, only strengthens the case for according
Chevron deference to whatever statutory interpretations (as
opposed to factual determinations) such rulings embody. In other
words, the Court's point is wrong-indeed, the Court's point cuts
deeply into its own case-unless the Court believes that the
Secretary's
personal rulings on the legal criteria for
imposing particular rates of duty, or for determining restricted
merchandise, are entitled to no deference.
6 The Court's parting shot, that "there would have to be
something wrong with a standard that accorded the status of
substantive law to everyone of 10,000 'official' customs
classifications rulings turned out each year from over 46 offices
placed around the country at the Nation's entryways,"
ante,
at 238, n. 19, misses the mark. I do not disagree. The
259
There is also no doubt that the Customs Service's interpretation
is a reasonable one, whether or not judges would consider it the
best. I will not belabor this point, since the Court evidently
agrees: An interpretation that was unreasonable would not merit the
remand that the Court decrees for consideration of
Skidmore
deference.
IV
Finally, and least importantly, even were I to accept the
Court's revised version of
Chevron as a correct
statement
"authoritativeness" of an agency interpretation does not turn
upon whether it has been enunciated by someone who is actually
employed by the agency. It must represent the judgment of central
agency management, approved at the highest levels. I would find
that condition to have been satisfied when, a ruling having been
attacked in court, the general counsel of the agency has determined
that it should be defended. If one thinks that that does not impart
sufficient authoritativeness, then surely the line has been crossed
when, as here, the General Counsel of the agency and the Solicitor
General of the United States have assured this Court that the
position represents the agency's authoritative view. (Contrary to
the Court's suggestion, there would be nothing bizarre about the
fact that this latter approach would entitle the ruling to
deference here, though it would not have been entitled to deference
in the lower courts. Affirmation of the official agency position
before this court-if that is thought necessary-is no different from
the agency's issuing a new rule after the Court of Appeals
determination. It establishes a new legal basis for the decision,
which this Court must take into account (or remand for that
purpose), even though the Court of Appeals could not. See
Thorpe v.
Housing Authority of Durham, 393 U. S. 268, 282
(1969); see also
United States v.
Schooner Peggy, 1
Cranch 103 (1801).)
The
authoritativeness of the agency ruling may not be a
bright-line standard-but it is infinitely brighter than the line
the Court asks us to draw today, between a statute such as the one
at issue in
NationsBank that (according to the Court)
does display an "affirmative intent" to "delegate"
interpretive authority, and innumerable indistinguishable statutes
that (according to the Court) do
not. And, most important of
all, it is a line that focuses attention on the right question: not
whether Congress "affirmatively intended" to delegate interpretive
authority (if it entrusted administration of the statute to an
agency, it did, because that is how our system works); but whether
it is truly the agency's considered view, or just the opinions of
some underlings, that are at issue.
260
of the law, I would still accord deference to the tariff
classification ruling at issue in this case. For the case is
indistinguishable, in that regard, from
NationsBank of N.
c., N.
A. v.
Variable Annuity Life Ins. Co., 513 U. S. 251 (1995),
which the Court acknowledges as an instance in which
Chevron
deference is warranted notwithstanding the absence of formal
adjudication, notice-and-comment rulemaking, or comparable
"administrative formality,"
ante, at 231. Here, as in
NationsBank, there is a tradition of great deference to the
opinions of the agency head,
ante, at 231, n. 13. Just two
Terms ago, we observed:
"As early as 1809, Chief Justice Marshall noted in a customs
case that '[i]f the question had been doubtful, the court would
have respected the uniform construction which it is understood has
been given by the treasury department of the United States upon
similar questions.' United States v. Vowell, 5 Cranch
368, 372. See also P. Reed, The Role of Federal Courts in U. S.
Customs & International Trade Law 289 (1997) ('Consistent with
the Chevron methodology, and as has long been the rule in
customs cases, customs regulations are sustained if they represent
reasonable interpretations of the statute'); cf. Zenith Radio
Corp. v. United States, 437 U. S. 443, 450 (1978)
(deferring to the Treasury Department's 'longstanding and
consistent administrative interpretation' of the countervailing
duty provision of the Tariff Act." United States v.
Haggar Apparel Co., 526 U. S. 380, 393
(1999).
And here, as in
NationsBank, the agency interpretation in
question is officially that of the agency head. Consequently, even
on the Court's own terms, the Customs ruling at issue in this case
should be given
Chevron deference.
***
261
For the reasons stated, I respectfully dissent from the Court's
judgment. I would uphold the Customs Service's construction of
Subheading 4820.10.20 of the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the
United States, 19 U. S. C. § 1202, and would reverse the contrary
decision of the Court of Appeals. I dissent even more vigorously
from the reasoning that produces the Court's judgment, and that
makes today's decision one of the most significant opinions ever
rendered by the Court dealing with the judicial review of
administrative action. Its consequences will be enormous, and
almost uniformly bad.
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