Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/22-451_7m58.pdf
Page Number: 80

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

33 

GORSUCH, J., concurring 

new status quo.”  Id., at 737.  In that way, even the most 
novel  and  unlikely  decisions  became  “coveted  anchor-
age[s],” defended heatedly, if ironically, under the banner 
of  “stare  decisis.”  Ibid.;  see  also  Edwards  v.  Vannoy,  593 
U. S. 255, 294, n. 7 (2021) (GORSUCH, J., concurring). 

That  is  Chevron’s  story:  A  revolution  masquerading  as 
the  status  quo.  And  the  defense  of  it  follows  the  same 
course  Justice  Douglas  described.  Though  our  dissenting
colleagues have not hesitated to question other precedents
in  the  past,  they  today  manifest  what  Justice  Douglas 
called an “acute conservatism” for Chevron’s “startling” de-
velopment,  insisting  that  if  this  “coveted  anchorage”  is 
abandoned the heavens will fall.  But the Nation managed 
to live with busy executive agencies of all sorts long before
the  Chevron  revolution  began  to  take  shape  in  the  mid-
1980s.  And  all  today’s  decision  means  is  that,  going  for-
ward, federal courts will do exactly as this Court has since 
2016, exactly as it did before the mid-1980s, and exactly as
it had done since the founding: resolve cases and controver-
sies without any systemic bias in the government’s favor.

Proper  respect  for  precedent  does  not  begin  to  suggest 
otherwise.  Instead, it counsels respect for the written law, 
adherence to consistent teachings over aberrations, and re-
sistance  to  the  temptation  of  treating  our  own  stray  re-
marks as if they were statutes.  And each of those lessons 
points  toward  the  same  conclusion  today:  Chevron  defer-
ence is inconsistent with the directions Congress gave us in
the  APA.  It  represents  a  grave  anomaly  when  viewed
against the sweep of historic judicial practice.  The decision 
undermines core rule-of-law values ranging from the prom-
ise of fair notice to the promise of a fair hearing.  Even on 
its  own  terms,  it  has  proved  unworkable  and  operated  to 
undermine rather than advance reliance interests, often to 
the detriment of ordinary Americans.  And from the start, 
the  whole  project  has  relied  on  the  overaggressive  use  of 
snippets  and  stray  remarks  from  an  opinion  that  carried