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LOPER BRIGHT ENTERPRISES v. RAIMONDO 

Opinion of the Court 

the statute that lays out how such review works.  Its flaws 
were nonetheless apparent from the start, prompting this 
Court to revise its foundations and continually limit its ap-
plication.  It has launched and sustained a cottage industry 
of  scholars attempting  to  decipher  its  basis  and  meaning.
And Members of this Court have long questioned its prem-
ises.  See, e.g., Pereira v. Sessions, 585 U. S. 198, 219–221 
(2018)  (Kennedy, J.,  concurring);  Michigan,  576  U. S.,  at 
760–764  (THOMAS, J.,  concurring);  Buffington,  598  U. S. 
___ (opinion of GORSUCH, J.); B. Kavanaugh, Fixing Statu-
tory  Interpretation,  129  Harv.  L. Rev.  2118,  2150–2154
(2016).  Even Justice Scalia, an early champion of Chevron, 
came to seriously doubt whether it could be reconciled with 
the APA.  See Perez, 575 U. S., at 109–110 (opinion concur-
ring  in  judgment).    For  its  entire  existence,  Chevron  has 
been a “rule in search of a justification,” Knick, 588 U. S., 
at 204, if it was ever coherent enough to be called a rule at
all. 

Experience has also shown that Chevron is unworkable. 
The defining feature of its framework is the identification 
of statutory ambiguity, which requires deference at the doc-
trine’s  second  step.    But  the  concept  of  ambiguity  has  al-
ways evaded meaningful definition.  As Justice Scalia put
the  dilemma  just  five  years  after  Chevron  was  decided: 
“How clear is clear?”  1989 Duke L. J., at 521. 

We are no closer to an answer to that question than we
were four decades ago.  “ ‘[A]mbiguity’ is a term that may
have different meanings for different judges.”  Exxon Mobil 
Corp. v. Allapattah Services, Inc., 545 U. S. 546, 572 (2005) 
(Stevens,  J.,  dissenting).    One  judge  might  see  ambiguity
everywhere; another might never encounter it.  Compare L.
Silberman, Chevron—The Intersection of Law & Policy, 58 
Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 821, 822 (1990), with R. Kethledge, Am-
biguities and Agency Cases: Reflections After (Almost) Ten 
Years  on  the  Bench,  70  Vand.  L. Rev.  En  Banc  315,  323 
(2017).  A  rule  of  law  that  is  so  wholly  “in  the  eye  of  the