Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/22-451_7m58.pdf
Page Number: 29

Cite as:  603 U. S. ____ (2024) 

21 

Opinion of the Court 

B 
Neither  Chevron  nor  any  subsequent  decision  of  this 
Court attempted to reconcile its framework with the APA. 
The “law of deference” that this Court has built on the foun-
dation laid in Chevron has instead been “[h]eedless of the 
original design” of the APA.  Perez, 575 U. S., at 109 (Scalia, 
J., concurring in judgment). 

1 
Chevron defies the command of the APA that “the review-
ing  court”—not  the  agency  whose  action  it  reviews—is  to
“decide  all  relevant  questions  of  law”  and  “interpret  . . . 
statutory provisions.”  §706 (emphasis added).  It requires 
a court to ignore, not follow, “the reading the court would
have reached” had it exercised its independent judgment as
required by the APA.  Chevron, 467 U. S., at 843, n. 11.  And 
although  exercising  independent  judgment  is  consistent 
with the “respect” historically given to Executive Branch in-
terpretations, see, e.g., Edwards’ Lessee, 12 Wheat., at 210; 
Skidmore, 323 U. S., at 140, Chevron insists on much more. 
It demands that courts mechanically afford binding defer-
ence  to  agency  interpretations,  including  those  that  have 
been  inconsistent  over  time.    See  467  U. S.,  at  863.  Still 
worse, it forces courts to do so even when a pre-existing ju-
dicial  precedent  holds  that  the  statute  means  something 
else—unless the prior court happened to also say that the
statute is “unambiguous.”  Brand X, 545 U. S., at 982.  That 
regime is the antithesis of the time honored approach the 
APA prescribes.  In fretting over the prospect of “allow[ing]” 
a  judicial  interpretation  of  a  statute  “to  override  an 
agency’s” in a dispute before a court, ibid., Chevron turns 
the statutory scheme for judicial review of agency action up-
side down. 

Chevron cannot be reconciled with the APA, as the Gov-
ernment and the dissent contend, by presuming that statu-
tory ambiguities are implicit delegations to agencies.  See