SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
_________________
Nos. 11–338 and 11–347
_________________
DOUG DECKER, in his official capacity as
OREGON STATE FORESTER, et al., PETITIONERS
11–338
v.
NORTHWEST ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE
CENTER
GEORGIA-PACIFIC WEST, INC., et al.,
PETITIONERS
11–347
v.
NORTHWEST ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE
CENTER
on writs of certiorari to the united states
court of appeals for the ninth circuit
[March 20, 2013]
Justice Scalia, concurring in part and
dissenting in part.
I join Parts I and II of the Court’s opinion; I
agree that these cases are not moot and that the District Court had
jurisdiction. I do not join Part III. The Court there gives effect
to a reading of EPA’s regulations that is not the most natural one,
simply because EPA says that it believes the unnatural reading is
right. It does this, more- over, even though the agency has vividly
illustrated that it can write a rule saying precisely what it
means—by doing
just that while these cases were being
briefed.
Enough is enough.
I
For decades, and for no good reason, we have
been giving agencies the authority to say what their rules mean,
under the harmless-sounding banner of “defer[ring] to an agency’s
interpretation of its own regulations.”
Talk America, Inc.
v.
Michigan Bell Telephone Co., 564 U. S. ___, ___
(2011) (Scalia, J., concurring) (slip op., at 1). This is generally
called
Seminole Rock or
Auer deference. See
Bowles v.
Seminole Rock & Sand Co.,
325 U.S.
410 (1945);
Auer v.
Robbins,
519 U.S.
452 (1997).
Two Terms ago, in my separate concurrence in
Talk America, I expressed doubts about the validity of this
practice. In that case, however, the agency’s interpretation of the
rule was also the fairest one, and no party had asked us to
reconsider
Auer. Today, however, the Court’s deference to
the agency makes the difference (note the Court’s defensive
insistence that the agency’s interpretation need not be “the best
one,”
ante, at 14). And respon- dent has asked us, if
necessary, to “ ‘reconsider
Auer.’ ” I believe
that it is time to do so. See Brief for Respondent 42, n. 12;
see also Brief for Law Professors on the Propri- ety of
Administrative Deference as
Amici Curiae. This is especially
true because the circumstances of these cases illustrate
Auer’s flaws in a particularly vivid way.
The canonical formulation of
Auer
deference is that we will enforce an agency’s interpretation of its
own rules unless that interpretation is “plainly erroneous or
inconsistent with the regulation.”
Seminole Rock,
supra, at 414. But of course whenever the agency’s
interpretation of the regulation is different from the fairest
reading, it is in that sense “inconsistent” with the regulation.
Obviously, that is not enough, or there would be nothing for
Auer to do. In practice,
Auer deference is
Chevron deference applied to regulations rather than
statutes. See
Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v.
Natural
Resources Defense Council, Inc.,
467 U.S.
837 (1984). The agency’s interpretation will be accepted if,
though not the fairest reading of the regulation, it is a plausible
reading—within the scope of the ambiguity that the regulation
contains.
Our cases have not put forward a persuasive
justification for
Auer deference. The first case to apply
it,
Seminole Rock, offered no justification whatever—just
the
ipse dixit that “the administrative interpretation
. . . becomes of controlling weight unless it is plainly
erroneous or inconsistent with the regulation.” 325 U. S., at
414. Our later cases provide two principal explanations, neither of
which has much to be said for it. See generally Stephenson &
Pogoriler,
Seminole Rock’s Domain, 79 Geo. Wash. L. Rev.
1449, 1454–1458 (2011). First, some cases say that the agency, as
the drafter of the rule, will have some special insight into its
intent when enacting it.
E.g., Martin v.
Occupational
Safety and Health Review Comm’n,
499 U.S.
144, 150–153 (1991). The implied premise of this argument—that
what we are looking for is the agency’s
intent in adopting
the rule—is false. There is true of regulations what is true of
statutes. As Justice Holmes put it: “[w]e do not inquire what the
legislature meant; we ask only what the statute means.” The Theory
of Legal Interpretation, 12 Harv. L. Rev. 417, 419 (1899).
Whether governing rules are made by the national legislature or an
administrative agency, we are bound
by what they say, not by
the unexpressed intention of those who made them.
The other rationale our cases provide is that
the agency possesses special expertise in administering its
“ ‘complex and highly technical regulatory program.’ ”
See,
e.g., Thomas Jefferson Univ. v.
Shalala,
512 U.S.
504, 512 (1994). That is true enough, and it leads to the
conclu- sion that agencies and not courts should make regula-
tions. But it has nothing to do with who should interpret
regulations—unless one believes that the purpose of interpretation
is to make the regulatory program work in a fashion that the
current leadership of the agency deems effective. Making regulatory
programs effective is the purpose of
rulemaking, in which
the agency uses its “special expertise” to formulate the best rule.
But the purpose of interpretation is to determine the fair meaning
of the rule—to “say what the law is,”
Marbury v.
Madison, 1 Cranch 137, 177 (1803). Not to make policy, but
to determine what policy has been made and promulgated by the
agency, to which the public owes obedience. Indeed, since the
leadership of agencies (and hence the policy preferences of
agencies) changes with Presidential administrations, an agency head
can only be sure that the application of his “special expertise” to
the issue addressed by a regulation
will be given effect if
we adhere to predictable principles of textual interpretation
rather than defer to the “special expertise” of his successors. If
we take agency enactments as written, the Executive has a stable
background against which to write its rules and achieve the policy
ends it thinks best.
Another conceivable justification for
Auer deference, though not one that is to be found in our
cases, is this: If it is reasonable to defer to agencies regarding
the meaning of statutes that
Congress enacted, as we do per
Chevron, it is
a fortiori reasonable to defer to them
regarding the meaning of regulations
that they themselves
crafted. To give an agency less control over the meaning of its
own regulations than it has over the meaning of a congressionally
enacted statute seems quite odd.
But it is not odd at all. The theory of
Chevron (take it or leave it) is that when Congress gives an
agency authority to administer a statute, including authority to
issue in- terpretive regulations, it implicitly accords the agency
a degree of discretion, which the courts must respect, regarding
the meaning of the statute. See
Smiley v.
Citibank (South
Dakota), N. A.,
517 U.S.
735, 740–741 (1996). While the implication of an agency power
to clarify the statute is reasonable enough, there is surely no
congressional implication that the agency can resolve ambiguities
in its own regulations. For that would violate a fundamental
principle of separation of powers—that the power to write a law and
the power to interpret it cannot rest in the same hands. “When the
legislative and executive powers are united in the same person
. . . there can be no liberty; because apprehensions may
arise, lest the same monarch or senate should enact tyrannical
laws, to execute them in a tyrannical manner.” Montesquieu, Spirit
of the Laws bk. XI, ch. 6, pp. 151–152 (O. Piest ed., T. Nugent
transl. 1949). Congress cannot enlarge its
own power through
Chevron—whatever it leaves vague in the statute will be
worked out
by someone else.
Chevron represents a
presumption about who, as between the Executive and the Judiciary,
that someone else will be. (The Executive, by the way—the competing
political branch—is the less congenial repository of the power as
far as Congress is concerned.) So Congress’s incentive is to speak
as clearly as possible on the matters it regards as important.
But when an agency interprets its
own
rules—that is something else. Then the power to prescribe is
augmented by the power to interpret; and the incentive is to speak
vaguely and broadly, so as to retain a “flexibility” that will
enable “clarification” with retroactive effect. “It is per- fectly
understandable” for an agency to “issue vague regula- tions” if
doing so will “maximiz[e] agency power.”
Thomas Jefferson
Univ.,
supra, at 525 (Thomas, J., dissenting). Combining
the power to prescribe with the power to interpret is not a new
evil: Blackstone condemned the practice of resolving doubts about
“the construction of the Roman laws” by “stat[ing] the case to the
emperor in writing, and tak[ing] his opinion upon it.” 1 W.
Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 58 (1765). And our
Constitution did not mirror the British practice of using the House
of Lords as a court of last resort, due in part to the fear that he
who has “agency in passing bad laws” might operate in the “same
spirit” in their interpretation. The Federalist No. 81, pp. 543–544
(J. Cooke ed. 1961).
Auer deference encourages agencies to
be “vague in framing regulations, with the plan of issuing
‘interpretations’ to create the intended new law without observance
of notice and comment procedures.” Anthony, The Supreme Court and
the APA: Sometimes They Just Don’t Get It, 10 Admin. L. J. Am.
U. 1, 11–12 (1996).
Auer is not a logical corollary to
Chevron but a dangerous permission slip for the arrogation
of power. See
Talk America, 564 U. S., at ___ (Scalia,
J., concurring) (slip op., at 2–3); Manning, Constitutional
Structure and Judicial Deference to Agency Interpretations of
Agency Rules, 96 Colum. L. Rev. 612 (1996).
It is true enough that
Auer deference has
the same beneficial pragmatic effect as
Chevron deference:
The country need not endure the uncertainty produced by divergent
views of numerous district courts and courts of appeals as to what
is the fairest reading of the regulation, until a definitive answer
is finally provided, years later, by this Court. The agency’s view
can be relied upon, unless it is, so to speak, beyond the pale. But
the duration of the uncertainty produced by a vague regulation need
not be as long as the uncertainty produced by a vague statute. For
as soon as an interpretation uncongenial to the agency is
pronounced by a district court, the agency can begin the process of
amending the regulation to make its meaning entirely clear. The
circumstances of this case demonstrate the point. While these cases
were being briefed before us, EPA issued a rule designed to respond
to the Court of Appeals judgment we are reviewing. See 77 Fed. Reg.
72974 (2012) (to be codified in 40 CFR pt. 122, sub pt. B). It did
so (by the standards of such things) relatively quickly: The
decision below was handed down in May 2011, and in December 2012
the EPA published an amended rule setting forth in unmistakable
terms the position it ar- gues here. And there is another respect
in which a lack of
Chevron-type deference has less severe
pragmatic consequences for rules than for statutes. In many cases,
when an agency believes that its rule permits conduct that the text
arguably forbids, it can simply exercise its discretion not to
prosecute. That is not possible, of course, when, as here, a party
harmed by the violation has standing to compel enforcement.
In any case, however great may be the efficiency
gains derived from
Auer deference, beneficial effect cannot
jus- tify a rule that not only has no principled basis but
contravenes one of the great rules of separation of powers: He who
writes a law must not adjudge its violation.
II
I would therefore resolve these cases by using
the familiar tools of textual interpretation to decide: Is what the
petitioners did here proscribed by the fairest reading of the
regulations? What they did was to channel stormwater runoff from
logging roads without a permit. To decide whether that was
permissible we must answer one, and possibly two, questions: First,
was the stormwater discharged from a “point source”? If not, no
permit was required. But if so, we face the second question: Were
the stormwater discharges exempt from the permit requirement
because they were not “associated with industrial activity”? The
fairest reading of the statute and regulations is that these
discharges were from point sources, and were associated with
industrial activity.
A
The Clean Water Act generally prohibits
discharging pollution without a permit from what it calls a “point
source.” 33 U. S. C. §1311(a). A “point source” is
defined as “any discernible, confined and discrete conveyance,
including but not limited to any pipe, ditch, channel, tunnel,
conduit,” and several other things. §1362(14). The stormwater here
was discharged from logging roads through a series of pipes,
ditches, and channels—all items expressly named in the
definition.
EPA argues that the Silvicultural Rule, 40 CFR
§122.27(b)(1) (2006),
excludes from the definition of
“[s]ilvicultural point source” “harvesting operations
. . . from which there is natural runoff.” This is
relevant, says the agency, because that rule specifies that only
“[s]ilvicultural point sources, as defined in this section,” are
“point sources subject to the . . . permit program.”
§122.27(a). In EPA’s view, the stormwater here is “natural
runoff.”
But are stormwater discharges “natural runoff”
when they are channeled through manmade pipes and ditches, and
carry with them manmade pollutants from manmade forest roads? It is
not obvious that this is so—as the agency agrees. See Brief for
United States as
Amicus Curiae 19 (the rule’s “reference to
‘natural runoff’ associated with logging roads neither clearly
encompasses nor clearly excludes the sort of channeled runoff that
is at issue in this case”). In my view, giving the term the
agency’s interpretation would contradict the statute’s definition
of “point source,” which explicitly includes any “pipe, ditch,
channel, tunnel, [and] conduit.” Applying the interpretive
presumption of validity—the canon that we are to “prefe[r] the
meaning that preserves to the meaning that destroys,”
Panama
Refining Co. v.
Ryan,
293 U.S.
388, 439 (1935) (Cardozo, J., dissenting)—I would hold that the
regulation’s exclusion of “natural runoff” does not reach the
situation here. The stormwater discharges came from point sources,
because they flowed out of artificial “pipe[s],” “ditch[es],” and
“channel[s],” 33 U. S. C. §1362(14), and were thus not
“
natural runoff” from a logging opera- tion, 40 CFR
§122.27(b)(1) (emphasis added).
B
Many point-source stormwater discharges are
nonetheless exempt from the usual permitting requirement. See 33
U. S. C. §1342(p). This exemption, however, does not
reach discharges “associated with industrial activity.”
Ibid. EPA has enacted a rule defining what it means for
stormwater discharges to be “associated with” industrial activity,
and what activities count as “industrial.” 40 CFR
§122.26(b)(14).
The regulation sets out eleven “categories of
industries”; as to those industries, discharges are “associated
with industrial activity” if they come from sites used for
“transportation” of “any raw material.”
Ibid. The forest
roads at issue here are used to transport raw material (logs); the
only question is whether logging is a “categor[y] of industr[y]”
enumerated in the definition. It is: The second of the listed
“categories of facilities” is “[f]acilities classified as Standard
Industrial Classifications 24 (except 2434).” §122.26(b)(14)(ii).
Opening one’s hymnal to Standard Industrial Classification 24
(“Lumber and Wood Products, Except Furniture”), one finds that the
first industry group listed, No. 2411, is “Logging”—defined as
“[e]stablish- ments primarily engaged in cutting timber.” 2 App.
64. (As if that were not clear enough, an illustrative product of
this industry is helpfully listed: “Logs.”) That, I would think, is
that.
EPA disagrees, and the Court gives the agency’s
position
Auer deference, but that reading is certainly not
the most natural one. The Court relies heavily on the fact that the
definition of “[s]torm water discharge associ- ated with industrial
activity” requires that the discharge be “directly related to
manufacturing, processing or raw materials storage areas at an
industrial plant,” §122.26(b)(14). The crucial question this
definition presents is whether the concluding phrase “at an
industrial plant” limits only the last noun phrase (“raw materials
storage areas”) or also the two preceding nouns (“manufacturing”
and “processing”). The canon of interpretation known as the rule of
the last antecedent states that “a limiting clause or phrase
. . . should ordinarily be read as modifying only the
noun or phrase that it immediately follows.”
Barnhart v.
Thomas,
540 U.S.
20, 26 (2003). If a statute provides that “it shall be unlawful
to possess a grenade launcher, a fully-automatic weapon, or a
shotgun with a barrel shorter than 12 inches,” that does not mean
that a grenade launcher with a barrel
longer than 12 inches
is legal. Application of the canon would mean that “at an
industrial plant” modifies only “raw materials storage areas,” and
therefore that “manufacturing” and “processing”
anywhere,
including in the forest, would be “associated with industrial
activity.” (Standard Industrial Classification 24 categorizes
logging as a manufacturing business, and these discharges are
therefore “directly related to manufacturing.”)
Like all canons of interpretation, the rule of
the last antecedent can be overcome by textual indication of
contrary meaning. But that does not exist here. To the contrary,
the enumerated categories of industries to which the term
“industrial activity” applies reinforce the proposition that “at an
industrial plant” does not modify “manufacturing” or “processing.”
The term includes (in addition to logging) “active or inactive
mining operations,” §122.26(b)(14)(iii); “[l]andfills” and “open
dumps,” §122.26(b)(14)(v); “automobile junkyards,”
§122.26(b)(14)(vi); and “[c]onstruction activity including
clearing, grading and excavation,” §122.26(b)(14)(x).
Those
industries and activities (while related to manufacturing and
processing) virtually never take place at anything like what one
might describe as a “plant.” The rule of the last antecedent is
therefore confirmed as the correct guide to meaning here: “at an
industrial plant” limits only “raw materials storage areas.”
EPA also insists, Brief for United States as
Amicus Curiae 24, that the regulation reaches only
“ ‘traditional’ ” sources of industrial stormwater, such
as sawmills. But Standard Industrial Classification 24
has a
specific subcategory (No. 242) that is “Sawmills and Planing
Mills.” 2 App. 64. The rule is not so limited, reaching by its
terms “Standard Industrial Classificatio[n] 24 (except 2434).”
§122.26(b)(14)(ii). The explicit carving-out of No. 2434 is
telling: Why EPA chose to exclude “establishments primarily engaged
in manufacturing wood kitchen cabinet and wood bathroom vanities”
from the definition of industrial stormwater, I do not know—but the
picayune nature of the exclusion gives lie to the idea that the
rule’s scope ought to be decided by a rough sense of its gestalt.
If EPA had meant to reach only sawmills, it quite obviously knew
how to do so.
Finally, the Court believes that Standard
Industrial Classification 24’s reference to “establishments”
“suggest[s] industrial sites more fixed and permanent than outdoor
timber-harvesting operations.”
Ante, at 13. Not so. The
Standard Industrial Classification uses “es- tablishments”
throughout to refer to business entities in general; for example,
Classification 2411 refers to “[e]stablishments primarily engaged
in cutting timber,” which includes “producing wood chips in the
field.” 2 App. 64. I cannot imagine what kind of “fixed and
permanent” industrial site the Court and EPA imagine will be
“producing wood chips in the field.” And the Court’s final point,
ante, at 13—that the regulatory definition of “industrial
activity” uses the word “facilities”—cuts the other way: EPA
regulations define “facility” to include “any . . .
‘point source.’ ” 40 CFR §122.2; see,
e.g.,
§122.26(b)(14)(iii) (referring to mines as “facilities”).
The agency also assures us that its
intent (Brief for United States as
Amicus Curiae 25)
was to reach a more limited subset of logging activities, an intent
that it believes can essentially float free from the text of the
relevant rule. In the end, this is the real meat of the matter: EPA
states that it simply did not mean to require permits for the
discharges at issue here. And the Court is willing to credit that
intent, even given what I think has been amply demonstrated to be a
contrary text.
* * *
Because the fairest reading of the agency’s
rules proscribes the conduct at issue in these cases, I would
affirm the judgment below. It is time for us to presume (to coin a
phrase) that an agency says in a rule what it means, and means in a
rule what it says there.