Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/22-451_7m58.pdf
Page Number: 68

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.