Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 665.0

529US2

Unit: $U53

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CHRISTENSEN v. HARRIS COUNTY

Opinion of Scalia, J.

involved an interpretive regulation, the rationale of the case
was not limited to that context: “ ‘The power of an adminis-
trative 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,
Id., at 843, quoting Morton v. Ruiz, 415
by Congress.’ ”
U. S. 199, 231 (1974). Quite appropriately, therefore, we
have accorded Chevron deference not only to agency regula-
tions, but to authoritative agency positions set forth in a va-
riety of other formats. See, e. g., INS v. Aguirre-Aguirre,
526 U. S. 415, 425 (1999) (adjudication); NationsBank of
N. C., N. A. v. Variable Annuity Life Ins. Co., 513 U. S. 251,
256–257 (1995) (letter of Comptroller of the Currency); Pen-
sion Beneﬁt Guaranty Corporation v. LTV Corp., 496 U. S.
633, 647–648 (1990) (decision by Pension Beneﬁt Guaranty
Corp. to restore pension beneﬁt plan); Young v. Community
Nutrition Institute, 476 U. S. 974, 978–979 (1986) (Food and

type deference can be inapplicable for only three reasons: (1) the statute is
unambiguous, so there is no room for administrative interpretation; (2) no
interpretation has been made by personnel of the agency responsible for
administering the statute; or (3) the interpretation made by such person-
nel was not authoritative, in the sense that it does not represent the ofﬁcial
position of the expert agency. All of these reasons preclude Skidmore
deference as well. The speciﬁc example of the inapplicability of Chevron
that Justice Breyer posits, viz., “where one has doubt that Congress
actually intended to delegate interpretive authority to the agency,” post,
at 597, appears to assume that, after ﬁnding a statute to be ambiguous,
we must ask in addition, before we can invoke Chevron deference, whether
Congress intended the ambiguity to be resolved by the administering
agency. That is not so. Chevron establishes a presumption that ambigu-
ities are to be resolved (within the bounds of reasonable interpretation)
by the administering agency. The implausibility of Congress’s leaving
a highly signiﬁcant issue unaddressed (and thus “delegating” its reso-
lution to the administering agency) is assuredly one of the factors to be
considered in determining whether there is ambiguity, see MCI Tele-
communications Corp. v. American Telephone & Telegraph Co., 512 U. S.
218, 231 (1994), but once ambiguity is established the consequences of
Chevron attach.