Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/19-402_o75p.pdf
Page Number: 5.0

Cite as:  589 U. S. ____ (2020) 

5 

THOMAS, J., dissenting 

When the APA was enacted, the meaning of a statute was
considered a question of law.  The Court recognized as much 
in Trust of Bingham v. Commissioner, 325 U. S. 365 (1945),
writing that questions about “the meaning of the words of
[the statute]” were “questions of law,” id., at 371.  See also 
Brown, Fact and Law in Judicial Review, 56 Harv. L. Rev. 
899,  901  (1943);  J.  Thayer,  Preliminary  Treatise  on  Evi-
dence  at  the  Common  Law  193  (1898).    Moreover,  §706
“places  the  court’s  duty  to  interpret  statutes  on  an  equal
footing  with  its  duty  to  interpret  the  Constitution,  and
courts never defer to agencies in reading the Constitution.”
Duffy, Administrative Common Law in Judicial Review, 77
Texas  L. Rev.  113,  194  (1998).    Finally,  the  deferential
standards of review elsewhere in the APA—which require
courts to “hold unlawful and set aside agency action, find-
ings, and conclusions found to be . . . arbitrary, capricious,
an abuse of discretion . . . [or] unsupported by substantial
evidence,”  §706(2)—do  not  mention  statutory  interpreta-
tion.  See id., at 194.  Even if Chevron raised no constitu-
tional concerns, these statutory arguments give rise to se-
rious doubts about Chevron’s legitimacy. 

C 
In the past, I have left open the possibility that “there is
some unique historical justification for deferring to federal
agencies.”  Michigan,  supra,  at  ___  (concurring  opinion)
(slip op., at 4).  It now appears to me that there is no such
special justification and that Chevron is inconsistent with 
accepted  principles  of  statutory  interpretation  from  the
first century of the Republic. 

For  most  of  the  19th  century,  there  was  no  general
federal-question jurisdiction.  Instead, review was available 
in  a  common-law  action,  under  certain  limited  grants  of
federal-question jurisdiction, or by extraordinary writ (such
as a writ of mandamus).  Bamzai, The Origins of Judicial 
Deference to Executive Interpretation, 126 Yale L. J. 908,