Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/22-451_7m58.pdf
Page Number: 84.0

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

3 

KAGAN, J., dissenting 

gap.  Put all that together and deference to the agency is
the  almost  obvious  choice,  based  on  an  implicit  congres-
sional  delegation  of  interpretive  authority.    We  defer,  the 
Court has explained, “because of a presumption that Con-
gress”  would  have  “desired  the  agency  (rather  than  the 
courts)” to exercise “whatever degree of discretion” the stat-
ute allows.  Smiley v. Citibank (South Dakota), N. A., 517 
U. S. 735, 740–741 (1996).

Today, the Court flips the script: It is now “the courts (ra-
ther than the agency)” that will wield power when Congress 
has left an area of interpretive discretion.  A rule of judicial
humility  gives  way  to  a  rule  of  judicial  hubris.    In  recent 
years, this Court has too often taken for itself decision-mak-
ing authority Congress assigned to agencies.  The Court has 
substituted its own judgment on workplace health for that
of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration; its
own  judgment  on  climate  change  for  that  of  the  Environ-
mental Protection Agency; and its own judgment on student 
loans  for  that  of  the  Department  of  Education.    See,  e.g., 
National Federation of Independent Business v. OSHA, 595 
U. S. 109 (2022); West Virginia v. EPA, 597 U. S. 697 (2022); 
Biden v. Nebraska, 600 U. S. 477 (2023).  But evidently that 
was, for this Court, all too piecemeal.  In one fell swoop, the 
majority today gives itself exclusive power over every open 
issue—no matter how expertise-driven or policy-laden—in-
volving the meaning of regulatory law.  As if it did not have 
enough on its plate, the majority turns itself into the coun-
try’s administrative czar.  It defends that move as one (sud-
denly) required by the (nearly 80-year-old) Administrative
Procedure  Act.    But  the  Act  makes  no  such  demand.    To-
day’s  decision  is  not  one  Congress  directed.    It  is  entirely 
the majority’s choice.

And the majority cannot destroy one doctrine of judicial 
humility without making a laughing-stock of a second.  (If
opinions  had  titles,  a  good  candidate  for  today’s  would  be
Hubris  Squared.)    Stare  decisis  is,  among  other  things,  a