Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 664.0

529US2

Unit: $U53

[09-26-01 10:37:28] PAGES PGT: OPIN

Cite as: 529 U. S. 576 (2000)

589

Opinion of Scalia, J.

Justice Souter, concurring.

I join the opinion of the Court on the assumption that it
does not foreclose a reading of the Fair Labor Standards Act
of 1938 that allows the Secretary of Labor to issue regula-
tions limiting forced use.

Justice Scalia, concurring in part and concurring in the

judgment.

I join the judgment of the Court and all of its opinion ex-
cept Part III, which declines to give effect to the position of
the Department of Labor in this case because its opinion let-
ter is entitled only to so-called “Skidmore deference,” see
Skidmore v. Swift & Co., 323 U. S. 134, 140 (1944). Skid-
more deference to authoritative agency views is an anach-
ronism, dating from an era in which we declined to give
agency interpretations (including interpretive regulations,
as opposed to “legislative rules”) authoritative effect. See
EEOC v. Arabian American Oil Co., 499 U. S. 244, 259
(1991) (Scalia, J., concurring in part and concurring in judg-
ment). This former judicial attitude accounts for that pro-
vision of the 1946 Administrative Procedure Act which
exempted “interpretative rules” (since they would not be
authoritative) from the notice-and-comment requirements
applicable to rulemaking, see 5 U. S. C. § 553(b)(A).

That era came to an end with our watershed decision in
Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council,
Inc., 467 U. S. 837, 844 (1984), which established the principle
that “a court may not substitute its own construction of a
statutory provision for a reasonable interpretation made by
the administrator of an agency.” * While Chevron in fact

*I do not comprehend Justice Breyer’s contention, post, at 596–597
(dissenting opinion), that Skidmore deference—that special respect one
gives to the interpretive views of the expert agency responsible for admin-
istering the statute—is not an anachronism because it may apply in “cir-
cumstances in which Chevron-type deference is inapplicable.” Chevron-