Opinion ID: 656573
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Deference to Agency

Text: 24 When Congress's intent is ambiguous, we normally confer agency interpretations considerable deference. The Supreme Court has held that where an agency's interpretation is a permissible construction of the statute, we may not substitute our own construction. Chevron, 467 U.S. at 844-45, 104 S.Ct. at 2782-83. 25 The plaintiffs argue that we should give the Secretary less deference, however, because the agency's interpretation significantly departs from previous interpretations. The plaintiffs focus on the difference between the proposed version of § 302.51(a) and the interim final rule. Section 302.51(a) defines the date at which child support payments are deemed to have been collected. The proposed version of that rule defined the date of collection as the date payment is received by the IV-D agency of the State in which collection is made or the date the employer withholds the wages to meet the support obligation. 49 Fed.Reg. 36797 (1984). However, the interim final rule defined the date of collection as the date on which the local collecting agency received the payment in the state in which the AFDC recipients live. 50 Fed.Reg. 19648 (1985). This rule precluded pass-throughs to AFDC families where the parent's employer failed to withhold the parent's wages in a timely manner or where the parent lived in a different state than the children and the state agency in the parent's state forwarded the payment to the state agency in the children's state after the month in which it was due. The Secretary subsequently promulgated a final version of § 302.51(a) in which the date of collection was redefined as the date the payments are received by any collecting agency (in-state or out-of-state) in the month due. 53 Fed.Reg. 21642 (1988). Plaintiffs argue that the Secretary's change in position vis-a-vis § 302.51(a) requires the court to give her interpretation of § 657(b)(1) less deference. See New York v. Sullivan, 889 F.2d 401, 409 (2d Cir.1989), aff'd sub nom. Rust v. Sullivan, 500 U.S. 173, 111 S.Ct. 1759, 114 L.Ed.2d 233 (1991). The First Circuit and the district court below agreed. Wilcox, 864 F.2d at 925. 26 However, we think that the Secretary's position regarding § 302.51(a) is unrelated to whether § 302.51(b)(1) deserves deference. Section 302.51(b)(1) has not changed since its initial promulgation and the Secretary has remained consistent that its construction of § 657(b)(1) permits pass-throughs only when child-support payments are timely made. We agree fully with the Ninth Circuit's analysis that the changes in definition in receipt and collection pursuant to § 302.51(a) do not concern the ultimate question whether the statute entitles recipients to multiple pass-throughs for delinquent child support payments. See Vanscoter, 920 F.2d at 1447. 27 While § 302.51(a) did affect the administration of the pass-through program by designating when payments were considered timely for purposes of § 302.51(b)(1), § 302.51(a) affected other issues as well. For example, § 302.51(a) established the date of collection of support for purposes of counting income in AFDC eligibility redetermination as well. 45 C.F.R. § 232.20(b)(1). Consequently, we think that the Secretary's changes regarding § 302.51(a) does not detract from the deference that we must otherwise show to § 302.51(b)(1). 28 Considering § 302.51(b)(1) on its own, we see no reason why the Secretary's interpretation of § 657(b)(1) should not be accorded substantial deference. We agree with Judge Breyer's statement in his concurring opinion in Wilcox that [i]n a case like this one, where the statutory provision is minor and interstitial, where the agency has a firm understanding of the relationship of that provision to other, more important, provisions of the statute, and where that understanding grows out of both the agency's daily experience in administering its statute and its familiarity with the initial legislative drafting process, the Secretary's argument has considerable 'power to persuade.'  864 F.2d at 926-27 (Breyer, J., concurring) (quoting Skidmore v. Swift & Co., 323 U.S. 134, 140, 65 S.Ct. 161, 164, 89 L.Ed. 124 (1944)). 29 We conclude that § 657(b)(1), prior to its 1988 amendment, was susceptible to various interpretations. We agree with the able district judge that the implementation of § 302.51(b)(1) was troubling in some cases since it resulted in a denial of the $50 pass-through to AFDC recipients through no fault of their own. See Luyando, 808 F.Supp. at 288; Wilcox, 864 F.2d at 920. But, while we can easily see how the Secretary might have reasonably chosen to interpret the statute to permit pass-throughs for months in which payments were not received in order to mitigate hardship, we cannot say that such an interpretation was compelled or that the Secretary's contrary interpretation as embodied in § 302.51(b)(1) was an impermissible, and hence invalid, construction of the statute. Chevron, 467 U.S. at 842-44, 104 S.Ct. at 2781-82. 30 Because we find that § 302.51(b)(1) did not violate the statutory mandate of § 657(b)(1), we need not reach the defendants' other arguments.