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Page Number: 59

12 

LOPER BRIGHT ENTERPRISES v. RAIMONDO 

GORSUCH, J., concurring 

overreliance on their every word.  Steel, 1 Bl. H., at 53, 126 
Eng. Rep., at 33.  As judges, “[w]e neither expect nor hope 
that  our  successors  will  comb”  through  our  opinions,
searching for delphic answers to matters we never fully ex-
plored.  Brown v.  Davenport, 596 U. S. 118, 141 (2022).  To 
proceed otherwise risks “turn[ing] stare decisis from a tool 
of judicial humility into one of judicial hubris.”  Ibid. 

II 
Turning  now  directly  to  the  question  what  stare  decisis 
effect  Chevron  deference  warrants,  each  of  these  lessons 
seem to me to weigh firmly in favor of the course the Court
charts today: Lesson 1, because Chevron deference contra-
venes  the  law  Congress  prescribed  in  the  Administrative 
Procedure Act.  Lesson 2, because Chevron deference runs 
against mainstream currents in our law regarding the sep-
aration of powers, due process, and centuries-old interpre-
tive  rules  that  fortify  those  constitutional  commitments. 
And Lesson 3, because to hold otherwise would effectively 
require us to endow stray statements in Chevron with the 
authority  of  statutory  language,  all  while  ignoring  more
considered language in that same decision and the teach-
ings of experience. 

A 

Start with Lesson 1.  The Administrative Procedure Act 
of 1946 (APA) directs a “reviewing court” to “decide all rel-
evant questions of law” and “interpret” relevant “constitu-
tional and statutory provisions.”  5 U. S. C. §706.  When ap-
plying Chevron deference, reviewing courts do not interpret 
all  relevant  statutory  provisions  and  decide  all  relevant 
questions of law.  Instead, judges abdicate a large measure
of that responsibility in favor of agency officials.  Their in-
terpretations of “ambiguous” laws control even when those 
interpretations are at odds with the fairest reading of the 
law an independent “reviewing court” can muster.  Agency