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Page Number: 23.0

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

15 

Opinion of the Court 

agency interpretations of statutes—like agency interpreta-
tions of the Constitution—are not entitled to deference.  Un-
der the APA, it thus “remains the responsibility of the court
to  decide  whether  the  law  means  what  the  agency  says.” 
Perez v. Mortgage Bankers Assn., 575 U. S. 92, 109 (2015) 
(Scalia, J., concurring in judgment).4 

The text of the APA means what it says.  And a look at 
its history if anything only underscores that plain meaning.
According to both the House and Senate Reports on the leg-
islation, Section 706 “provide[d] that questions of law are
for courts rather than agencies to decide in the last analy-
sis.”  H. R. Rep. No. 1980, 79th Cong., 2d Sess., 44 (1946) 
(emphasis added); accord, S. Rep. No. 752, 79th Cong., 1st 
Sess., 28 (1945).  Some of the legislation’s most prominent 
supporters  articulated  the  same  view.  See  92  Cong.  Rec.
5654 (1946) (statement of Rep. Walter); P. McCarran, Im-
proving “Administrative Justice”: Hearings and Evidence; 
Scope  of  Judicial  Review,  32  A. B. A. J.  827,  831  (1946).
Even the Department of Justice—an agency with every in-
centive to endorse a view of the APA favorable to the Exec-
utive Branch—opined after its enactment that Section 706 
merely “restate[d] the present law as to the scope of judicial 
review.”  Dept. of Justice, Attorney General’s Manual on the 

—————— 

4 The  dissent  observes  that  Section  706  does  not  say  expressly  that 
courts are to decide legal questions using “a de novo standard of review.” 
Post, at 16.  That much is true.  But statutes can be sensibly understood 
only “by reviewing text in context.”  Pulsifer v. United States, 601 U. S. 
124, 133 (2024).  Since the start of our Republic, courts have “decide[d] 
. . . questions of law” and “interpret[ed] constitutional and statutory pro-
visions” by applying their own legal judgment.  §706.  Setting aside its 
misplaced reliance on Gray and Hearst, the dissent does not and could 
not  deny  that  tradition.    But  it  nonetheless  insists  that  to  codify  that 
tradition,  Congress  needed  to  expressly  reject  a  sort  of  deference  the 
courts  had  never  before  applied—and  would  not  apply  for  several  dec-
ades to come.  It did not.  “The notion that some things ‘go without saying’ 
applies  to  legislation  just  as  it  does  to  everyday  life.”    Bond  v.  United 
States, 572 U. S. 844, 857 (2014).