Opinion ID: 4116429
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Skidmore

Text: Under Skidmore, the court applies a lower level of deference to certain agency interpretations and considers ʺthe agencyʹs expertise, the care it took in reaching its conclusions, the formality with which it promulgates its interpretations, the consistency of its views over time, and the ultimate persuasiveness of its arguments.ʺ Community Health Ctr. v. Wilson‐Coker, 311 F.3d 132, 138 (2d Cir. 2002); accord In re New Times Sec. Servs., Inc., 371 F.3d 68, 83 (2d Cir. 2004); see Skidmore, 323 U.S. at 140. The appropriate level of deference afforded an agencyʹs interpretation of a statute depends on its ʺpower to persuade.ʺ Christensen v. Harris County, 529 U.S. 576, 587 (2000). Unlike Chevron, however, Skidmore does not require a court to make a threshold finding that the statute is ambiguous before considering the persuasiveness of the agencyʹs interpretation. Instead, Skidmore merely supplies the appropriate framework for reviewing agency interpretations that ʺlack the force of law.ʺ Id. As the majority notes, the Supreme Court has never explicitly held that courts must find ambiguity before applying the Skidmore framework. While there is some scholarly authority for the proposition that ʺʹthe Skidmore standard implicitly replicates Chevronʹs first step,ʹʺ Op. at 34 (quoting Kristin E. Hickman 22 & Matthew D. Krueger, In Search of the Modern Skidmore Standard, 107 Colum. L. Rev. 1235, 1247 (2007)), the Supreme Court has decided numerous cases under Skidmore without finding that a statuteʹs language was ambiguous, see, e.g., EEOC v. Arabian American Oil, 499 U.S. 244, 257 (1991) (applying Skidmore without finding ambiguity in statute and noting that agencyʹs interpretation ʺlacks support in the plain language of the statuteʺ); Whirlpool Corp. v. Marshall, 445 U.S. 1, 11 (1980) (applying Skidmore without finding ambiguity in statute and holding that regulation was permissible after considering statuteʹs ʺlanguage, structure and legislative historyʺ); see generally Richard J. Pierce, Jr., I Admin. L. Treatise § 6.4 (5th ed. 2010). Of course, the Supreme Court did not hold, in either Skidmore or Mead, that ambiguity was a threshold requirement to applying the framework. See Mead, 533 U.S. at 235 (An agency ruling is entitled to ʺrespect proportional to its ʹpower to persuade,ʹ . . . . Such a ruling may surely claim the merit of its writerʹs thoroughness, logic, and expertness, and any other sources of weight.ʺ (citations omitted)); Skidmore, 323 U.S. at 164 (ʺThe weight of [an agencyʹs] judgment in a particular case will depend upon the thoroughness evident in its consideration, the validity of its reasoning, its consistency with earlier and later 23 pronouncements, and all those factors which give it power to persuade, if lacking power to control.ʺ). Rather, the Skidmore/Mead framework adopts a less rigid, more flexible approach, see U.S. Freightways Corp. v. Commʹr, 270 F.3d 1137, 1142 (7th Cir. 2001) (referring to ʺthe flexible approach Mead described, relying on . . . Skidmoreʺ), as it presents ʺa more nuanced, context‐sensitive rubricʺ for determining the level of deference a court will give to an agency interpretation, Thomas W. Merrill and Kristin E. Hickman, Chevronʹs Domain, 89 Geo. L.J. 833, 836 (2001); see also Pierce, supra, § 6.4, at 444 (ʺThe Court has referred to a variety of factors that can give an agency statement ʹpower to persuade.ʹ . . . [N]o single factor is dispositive . . . .ʺ). Ambiguity in a statute, of course, can be a factor, and in the sliding‐ scale analysis of the Skidmore/Mead framework, the ʺpower to persuadeʺ of an agency determination can be affected by the clarity ‐‐ or lack thereof ‐‐ of the statute it is interpreting. Indeed, upon applying the Skidmore/Mead framework, a court may uphold ‐‐ or reject ‐‐ an agency interpretation because the interpretation is consistent with ‐‐ or contradicts ‐‐ a statute whose meaning is clear. See Pierce, supra, § 6.4, at 443. Here, we did not defer to the agencyʹs 24 interpretation of the Act in Catskill I and II, precisely because the Water Transfers Rule contravened the plain meaning of the Act.