Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/22-451_7m58.pdf
Page Number: 83

2 

LOPER BRIGHT ENTERPRISES v. RAIMONDO 

KAGAN, J., dissenting 

Congress has left an ambiguity or gap, then a choice must 
be made.  Who should give content to a statute when Con-
gress’s instructions have run out?  Should it be a court?  Or 
should it be the agency Congress has charged with admin-
istering the statute?  The answer Chevron gives is that it
should usually be the agency, within the bounds of reason-
ableness.  That rule has formed the backdrop against which
Congress, courts, and agencies—as well as regulated par-
ties and the public—all have operated for decades.  It has 
been applied in thousands of judicial decisions.  It has be-
come part of the warp and woof of modern government, sup-
porting regulatory efforts of all kinds—to name a few, keep-
ing air and water clean, food and drugs safe, and financial 
markets honest. 

And  the  rule  is  right.    This  Court  has  long  understood 
Chevron  deference  to  reflect  what  Congress  would  want,
and so to be rooted in a presumption of legislative intent.
Congress knows that it does not—in fact cannot—write per-
fectly  complete  regulatory  statutes.    It  knows  that  those 
statutes will inevitably contain ambiguities that some other 
actor will have to resolve, and gaps that some other actor 
will have to fill.  And it would usually prefer that actor to
be the responsible agency, not a court.  Some interpretive
issues arising in the regulatory context involve scientific or
technical subject matter.  Agencies have expertise in those
areas; courts do not.  Some demand a detailed understand-
ing  of  complex  and  interdependent  regulatory  programs.
Agencies know those programs inside-out; again, courts do 
not.  And some present policy choices, including trade-offs 
between competing goods.  Agencies report to a President,
who in turn answers to the public for his policy calls; courts
have no such accountability and no proper basis for making 
policy.  And  of  course  Congress  has  conferred  on  that  ex-
pert,  experienced,  and  politically  accountable  agency  the 
authority  to  administer—to  make  rules  about  and  other-
wise implement—the statute giving rise to the ambiguity or