Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/21-954_7l48.pdf
Page Number: 28.0

Cite as:  597 U. S. ____ (2022) 

23 

Opinion of the Court 

evaluating  the  agency’s  contemporaneous  explanation  in 
light of the existing administrative record.”  Department of 
Commerce, 588 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 23).  Department of 
Commerce  involved  a  “narrow  exception  to  th[at]  general 
rule” that applies where the challengers to the agency’s ac-
tion  make  a  “strong  showing  of  bad  faith  or  improper  be-
havior” on the part of the agency.  Id., at ___ (slip op., at 24)
(quoting  Citizens  to  Preserve  Overton  Park,  Inc.  v.  Volpe, 
401 U. S. 402, 420 (1971)).  We held that exception satisfied 
by  an  accumulation  of  “unusual  circumstances”  that 
demonstrated an “explanation for agency action that [was] 
incongruent  with  what  the  record  reveal[ed]  about  the 
agency’s  priorities  and  decisionmaking  process.”    Depart-
ment of Commerce, 588 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 28). 

The circumstances in this case do not come close to those 
in  Department  of  Commerce.  Nothing  in  this  record  sug-
gests a “significant mismatch between the decision the Sec-
retary made and the rationale he provided.”  Id., at ___ (slip
op., at 26).   Respondents direct us instead to  the Govern-
ment’s litigation conduct.  But the examples of misconduct
to which respondents refer—such as a failure to timely com-
plete the administrative record, Brief for Respondents 42—
have no bearing on the legal status of the October 29 Mem-
oranda.  And in any event, they fall well short of the “strong
showing of bad faith or improper behavior,” Overton Park, 
401 U. S., at 420, that we require before deviating from our 
normal rule that “[t]he grounds upon which an administra-
tive order must be judged are those upon which the record 
discloses that its action was based,” SEC v. Chenery Corp., 
318 U. S. 80, 87 (1943).

The Court of Appeals leveled the related but more modest 
charge  that  the  Secretary  failed  to  proceed  with  a  suffi-
ciently open mind.  See, e.g., 20 F. 4th, at 955 (agency pro-
ceeded “without a hint of an intention to put the Termina-
tion  Decision  back  on  the  chopping  block  and  rethink