Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/22-451_7m58.pdf
Page Number: 93.0

12 

LOPER BRIGHT ENTERPRISES v. RAIMONDO 

KAGAN, J., dissenting 

Corp.  v.  Lewis,  584  U. S.  497,  519–520  (2018).    Well,  of 
course not—if Congress has not put an agency in charge of 
implementing a statute, Congress would not have given the 
agency a special role in its construction.  Or take the rule 
that an agency will not receive deference if it has reached 
its decision without using—or without using properly—its
rulemaking or adjudicatory authority.  See United States v. 
Mead Corp., 533 U. S. 218, 226–227 (2001); Encino Motor-
cars, LLC v. Navarro, 579 U. S. 211, 220 (2016).  Again, that
should not be surprising: Congress expects that authorita-
tive pronouncements on a law’s meaning will come from the
procedures it has enacted to foster “fairness and delibera-
tion” in agency decision-making.  Mead, 533 U. S., at 230. 
Or  finally,  think  of  the  “extraordinary  cases”  involving
questions  of  vast  “economic  and  political  significance”  in
which the Court has declined to defer.  King v. Burwell, 576 
U. S.  473,  485–486  (2015).  The  theory  is  that  Congress 
would not have left matters of such import to an agency, but
would instead have insisted on maintaining control.  So the 
Chevron  refinements  proceed  from  the  same  place  as  the
original  doctrine.  Taken  together,  they  give  interpretive
primacy to the agency when—but only when—it is acting,
as Congress specified, in the heartland of its delegated au-
thority.

That carefully calibrated framework “reflects a sensitiv-
ity to the proper roles of the political and judicial branches.” 
Pauley, 501 U. S., at 696.  Where Congress has spoken, Con-
gress  has  spoken;  only  its  judgments  matter.  And  courts 
alone determine when that has happened: Using all their
normal  interpretive  tools,  they  decide  whether  Congress
has addressed a given issue.  But when courts have decided 
that  Congress  has  not  done  so,  a  choice  arises.    Absent  a 
legislative  directive,  either  the  administering  agency  or  a 
court must take the lead.  And the matter is more fit for the 
agency.  The decision is likely to involve the agency’s sub-
ject-matter expertise; to fall within its sphere of regulatory