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Page Number: 42.0

18 

PEREZ v. MORTGAGE BANKERS ASSN. 

THOMAS, J., concurring in judgment 

III 
Although  this  Court  offered  no  theoretical  justifica-
tion for Seminole Rock deference when announcing it, sev- 
eral  justifications  have  been  proposed  since.    None  is 
persuasive. 

A 
Probably  the  most  oft-recited  justification  for  Seminole 
Rock  deference  is  that  of  agency  expertise  in  administer-
ing technical statutory schemes.  Under this justification, 
deference  to  administrative  agencies  is  necessary  when  a
“regulation concerns ‘a complex and highly technical regu-
latory  program’  in  which  the  identification  and  classifica-
tion  of  relevant  ‘criteria  necessarily  require  significant
expertise and entail the exercise of judgment grounded in 
policy  concerns.’ ”    Thomas  Jefferson  Univ.,  512  U. S.,  at 
512. 

This  defense  of  Seminole  Rock  deference  misidentifies 
the relevant inquiry.  The proper question faced by courts
in  interpreting  a  regulation  is  not  what  the  best  policy 
choice might be, but what the regulation means.  Because 
this Court has concluded that “substantive agency regula-
tions  have  the  ‘force  and  effect  of  law,’ ”  Chrysler  Corp.  v. 

—————— 

evidence  and  bear  the  burden  of  proof  in  support  of  those  proposed
rules.  See 5 U. S. C. §556.  

Today, however, formal rulemaking is the Yeti of administrative law.
There  are  isolated  sightings  of  it  in  the  ratemaking  context,  but  else-
where  it  proves  elusive.  It  is  somewhat  ironic  for  the  Court  so  ada-
mantly to insist that agencies be subject to no greater procedures than 
those required by the APA when we have not been adamant in requir-
ing agencies to comply with even those baseline procedures.  See United 
States  v.  Florida  East  Coast  R.  Co.,  410  U. S.  224,  237–238  (1973) 
(concluding  that  the  APA’s  formal  procedures,  which  were  to  apply 
“[w]hen  rules  are  required  by  statute  to  be  made  on  the  record  after
opportunity  for  an  agency  hearing,”  §553(c),  were  not  triggered  by  a 
statute that permitted  an agency to engage in rulemaking only “ ‘after 
[a] hearing’ ”).