Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/14pdf/13-1041_0861.pdf
Page Number: 45

Cite as:  575 U. S. ____ (2015) 

21 

THOMAS, J., concurring in judgment 

arrange  their  affairs  not  on  the  basis  of  their  legislators’
unexpressed  intent,  but  on  the  basis  of  the  law  as  it  is 
written  and  promulgated.”    Zuni  Public  School  Dist.  No. 
89  v.  Department  of  Education,  550  U. S.  81,  119  (2007) 
(SCALIA,  J.,  dissenting).  Cf.  Wyeth  v.  Levine,  555  U. S. 
555, 586–587 (2009) (THOMAS, J., concurring in judgment)
(noting that only “federal standards . . . that are set forth
in,  or  necessarily  follow  from, the statutory  text that  was 
produced  through  the  constitutionally  required  bicameral
and  presentment  procedures”—not  Congress’  “purposes
and objectives”—can become the “law of the land”).  “To be 
governed  by  legislated  text  rather  than  legislators’  inten-
tions is what it means to be ‘a Government of laws, not of 
men.’ ”    Zuni  Public  School  Dist.  No.  89,  supra,  at  119 
(SCALIA, J., dissenting).  Only the text of a regulation goes 
through the procedures established by Congress for agency
rulemaking.  And  it  is  that  text  on  which  the  public  is
entitled to rely.  For the same reasons that we should not 
accord controlling weight to postenactment expressions of 
intent by individual Members of Congress, see Sullivan v. 
Finkelstein,  496  U. S.  617,  631–632  (1990)  (SCALIA,  J., 
concurring  in  part),  we  should  not  accord  controlling
weight  to  expressions  of  intent  by  administrators  of
agencies. 

C 
A  third  asserted  justification  for  Seminole  Rock  defer-
ence  is  that  Congress  has  delegated  to  agencies  the  au-
thority to interpret their own regulations.  See, e.g., Mar-
tin,  499  U. S.,  at  151.    The  theory  is  that,  “[b]ecause
applying  an  agency’s  regulation  to  complex  or  changing 
circumstances  calls  upon  the  agency’s  unique  expertise 
and  policymaking  prerogatives,  . . .  the  power  authorita-
tively  to  interpret  its  own  regulations  is  a  component  of 
the agency’s delegated lawmaking powers.”  Ibid. 

This justification fails because Congress lacks authority