Court Opinion

ID: 9575335
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:13:04.623591+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:48:08.434019
License: Public Domain

JORDAN, Circuit Judge,
concurring in the judgment.
I agree with the majority that the ATF was not required to give deference to the *523ALJ’s factual findings and legal conclusions. I also agree that substantial evidence supports the ATF’s finding that Vineland willfully violated certain statutory and regulatory record-keeping requirements and that its petition for review should therefore be denied.23 I take issue, however, with the majority’s assertion that we owe Chevron deference to the ATF’s interpretation of the term “willfully” as it appears in 18 U.S.C. § 843(b)(2).
Section 843(b) of Title 18 states that, upon the filing of an application for a license to manufacture or deal in explosives, the Attorney General shall issue the appropriate license if, among other things, “the applicant has not willfully violated any of the provisions of [18 U.S.C. §§ 841 through 848] or regulations issued [thereunder.”24 18 U.S.C. § 843(b)(2). As explained by the majority, the ATF concluded that proof that Vineland acted with knowledge that its conduct was unlawful— that it distributed fireworks without maintaining the daily records that it knew were required by law — was sufficient to establish willfulness within the meaning of § 843(b)(2). The majority then holds that the ATF’s interpretation of the term “willfully” is entitled to deference under Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U.S. 837, 104 S.Ct. 2778, 81 L.Ed.2d 694 (1984). However, I see no need to invoke Chevron on that point. Since it appears that we would independently arrive at the ATF’s position on willfulness, there is “no occasion to defer and no point in asking what kind of deference, or how much.” Edelman v. Lynchburg Coll., 535 U.S. 106, 114, 122 S.Ct. 1145, 152 L.Ed.2d 188 (2002).
Moreover, Chevron instructs us to give deference to an agency’s reasonable policy choice when Congress gave the agency the authority to make such a choice. Here, the ATF did not even purport to be doing that. There is nothing in the ATF’s decision that suggests that its interpretation of “willfully” was the result of its independent determination that its construction was desirable to further some policy goal. Instead, the ATF relied entirely on decisions of the various Courts of Appeals interpreting that term in the firearms and explosives licensing contexts, and it concluded from those decisions that the ALJ had applied the “incorrect standard.” (App.14.) In other words, the agency accurately saw itself as applying a general legal standard, not making a decision within its peculiar administrative ken. Cf. Colacicco v. Apotex Inc., 521 F.3d 253, 274 (3d Cir.2008) (Noting that we are “ordinarily ... leery of an agency’s view of what is essentially a legal issue”); Blackburn v. Reich, 79 F.3d 1375, 1377 n. 3 (4th Cir.1996) (“Because the Secretary based his decision in the instant case on judicial precedent rather than his own interpretation of the statute, we owe ‘no more deference than we would any lower court’s analysis of the law.’” (quoting Thomas Hodgson & Sons, Inc. v. FERC, 49 F.3d 822, 826 (1st Cir.1995))). Indeed, nowhere in its briefing did the agency ask for Chevron deference, as one might have expected it would had it believed it necessary.
*524For these reasons, I do not believe the majority’s Chevron analysis is required in this case, and I decline to join it.

. Vineland agreed during oral argument that the ATF’s order should be upheld if we concluded that any one of the charged violations was supported by substantial evidence.

. Among the provisions referred to by § 843(b)(2) is 18 U.S.C. § 842(f), which makes it a crime for a licensee "willfully to manufacture, import, purchase, distribute, or receive explosive materials without making such records as the Attorney General may by regulation require," and 27 C.F.R. § 555.127, which requires licensees to keep daily records of the total quantity of .explosives received in and removed from each magazine and the total remaining on hand at the end of the day.