Kisor v. Wilkie

Justice KAGAN announced the judgment of the Court and delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Parts I, II-B, III-B, and IV, and an opinion with respect to Parts II-A and III-A, in which Justice GINSBURG, Justice BREYER, and Justice SOTOMAYOR join.

 *2408

 This Court has often deferred to agencies' reasonable readings of genuinely ambiguous regulations. We call that practice

 Auer

 deference, or sometimes

 Seminole Rock

 deference, after two cases in which we employed it. See

 Auer v. Robbins

 ,

 519 U.S. 452

 ,

 117 S.Ct. 905

 ,

 137 L.Ed.2d 79

 (1997) ;

 Bowles v. Seminole Rock & Sand Co.

 ,

 325 U.S. 410

 ,

 65 S.Ct. 1215

 ,

 89 L.Ed. 1700

 (1945). The only question presented here is whether we should overrule those decisions, discarding the deference they give to agencies. We answer that question no.

 Auer

 deference retains an important role in construing agency regulations. But even as we uphold it, we reinforce its limits.

 Auer

 deference is sometimes appropriate and sometimes not. Whether to apply it depends on a range of considerations that we have noted now and again, but compile and further develop today. The deference doctrine we describe is potent in its place, but cabined in its scope. On remand, the Court of Appeals should decide whether it applies to the agency interpretation at issue.

 I

 We begin by summarizing how petitioner James Kisor's case made its way to this Court. Truth be told, nothing recounted in this Part has much bearing on the rest of

 *2409

 our decision. The question whether to overrule

 Auer

 does not turn on any single application, whether right or wrong, of that decision's deference doctrine. But a recitation of the facts and proceedings below at least shows how the question presented arose.

 Kisor is a Vietnam War veteran seeking disability benefits from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). He first applied in 1982, alleging that he had developed post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as a result of his participation in a military action called Operation Harvest Moon. The report of the agency's evaluating psychiatrist noted Kisor's involvement in that battle, but found that he "d[id] not suffer from PTSD." App. 12, 14. The VA thus denied Kisor benefits. There matters stood until 2006, when Kisor moved to reopen his claim. Based on a new psychiatric report, the VA this time agreed that Kisor suffered from PTSD. But it granted him benefits only from the date of his motion to reopen, rather than (as he requested) from the date of his first application.

 The Board of Veterans' Appeals-a part of the VA, represented in Kisor's case by a single administrative judge-affirmed that timing decision, based on its interpretation of an agency rule. Under the VA's regulation, the agency could grant Kisor retroactive benefits if it found there were "relevant official service department records" that it had not considered in its initial denial. See

 38 C.F.R. § 3.156

 (c)(1) (2013). The Board acknowledged that Kisor had come up with two new service records, both confirming his participation in Operation Harvest Moon. But according to the Board, those records were not "relevant" because they did not go to the reason for the denial-that Kisor did not have PTSD. See App. to Pet. for Cert. 43a ("[The] documents were not relevant to the decision in May 1983 because the basis of the denial was that a diagnosis of PTSD was not warranted, not a dispute as to whether or not the Veteran engaged in combat"). The Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims, an independent Article I court that initially reviews the Board's decisions, affirmed for the same reason.

 The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit also affirmed, but it did so based on deference to the Board's interpretation of the VA rule. See

 Kisor v. Shulkin

 ,

 869 F.3d 1360

 , 1368 (2017). Kisor had argued to the Federal Circuit that to count as "relevant," a service record need not (as the Board thought) "counter[ ] the basis of the prior denial"; instead, it could relate to some other criterion for obtaining disability benefits.

 Id.,

 at 1366

 (internal quotation marks omitted). The Federal Circuit found the regulation "ambiguous" as between the two readings.

 Id.,

 at 1367

 . The rule, said the court, does not specifically address "whether 'relevant' records are those casting doubt on the agency's prior [rationale or] those relating to the veteran's claim more broadly."

 Ibid.

 So how to choose between the two views? The court continued: "Both parties insist that the plain regulatory language supports their case, and neither party's position strikes us as unreasonable."

 Id.

 , at 1368. Because that was so, the court believed

 Auer

 deference appropriate: The agency's construction of its own regulation would govern unless "plainly erroneous or inconsistent with the VA's regulatory framework."

 Ibid.

 (internal quotation marks omitted). Applying that standard, the court upheld the Board's reading-and so approved the denial of retroactive benefits.

 We then granted certiorari to decide whether to overrule

 Auer

 and (its predecessor)

 Seminole Rock

 . 586 U. S. ----,

 139 S.Ct. 657

 ,

 202 L.Ed.2d 491

 (2018).

 *2410

 II

 Before addressing that question directly, we spend some time describing what

 Auer

 deference is, and is not, for. You might view this Part as "just background" because we have made many of its points in prior decisions. But even if so, it is background that matters. For our account of why the doctrine emerged-and also how we have limited it-goes a long way toward explaining our view that it is worth preserving.

 A

 Begin with a familiar problem in administrative law: For various reasons, regulations may be genuinely ambiguous. They may not directly or clearly address every issue; when applied to some fact patterns, they may prove susceptible to more than one reasonable reading. Sometimes, this sort of ambiguity arises from careless drafting-the use of a dangling modifier, an awkward word, an opaque construction. But often, ambiguity reflects the well-known limits of expression or knowledge. The subject matter of a rule "may be so specialized and varying in nature as to be impossible"-or at any rate, impracticable-to capture in its every detail.

 SEC v. Chenery Corp.

 ,

 332 U.S. 194

 , 203,

 67 S.Ct. 1760

 ,

 91 L.Ed. 1995

 (1947). Or a "problem[ ] may arise" that the agency, when drafting the rule, "could not [have] reasonably foresee[n]."

 Id.,

 at 202

 ,

 67 S.Ct. 1760

 . Whichever the case, the result is to create real uncertainties about a regulation's meaning.

 Consider these examples:

 • In a rule issued to implement the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the Department of Justice requires theaters and stadiums to provide people with disabilities "lines of sight comparable to those for members of the general public." 28 C.F.R. pt. 36, App. A, p. 563 (1996). Must the Washington Wizards construct wheelchair seating to offer lines of sight over spectators when they rise to their feet? Or is it enough that the facility offers comparable views so long as everyone remains seated? See

 Paralyzed Veterans of Am. v. D. C. Arena L. P.

 ,

 117 F.3d 579

 , 581-582 (CADC 1997).

 • The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) requires that liquids, gels, and aerosols in carry-on baggage be packed in containers smaller than 3.4 ounces and carried in a clear plastic bag. Does a traveler have to pack his jar of truffle pâté in that way? See

 Laba v. Copeland

 ,

 2016 WL 5958241

 , *1 (WDNC, Oct. 13, 2016).

 • The Mine Safety and Health Administration issues a rule requiring employers to report occupational diseases within two weeks after they are "diagnosed."

 30 C.F.R. § 50.20

 (a) (1993). Do chest X-ray results that "scor[e]" above some level of opacity count as a "diagnosis"? What level, exactly? See

 American Min. Congress v. Mine Safety and Health Admin.

 ,

 995 F.2d 1106

 , 1107-1108 (CADC 1993).

 • An FDA regulation gives pharmaceutical companies exclusive rights to drug products if they contain "no active moiety that has been approved by FDA in any other" new drug application.

 21 C.F.R. § 314.108

 (a) (2010). Has a company created a new "active moiety" by joining a previously approved moiety to lysine through a non-ester covalent bond? See

 Actavis Elizabeth LLC v. FDA

 ,

 625 F.3d 760

 , 762-763 (CADC 2010) ; Tr. of Oral Arg. 12, 35.

 1

 *2411

 • Or take the facts of

 Auer

 itself. An agency must decide whether police captains are eligible for overtime under the Fair Labor Standards Act. According to the agency's regulations, employees cannot receive overtime if they are paid on a "salary basis."

 29 C.F.R. § 541.118

 (a) (1996). And in deciding whether an employee is salaried, one question is whether his pay is "subject to reduction" based on performance.

 Ibid.

 A police department's manual informs its officers that their pay might be docked if they commit a disciplinary infraction. Does that fact alone make them "subject to" pay deductions? Or must the department have a practice of docking officer pay, so that the possibility of that happening is more than theoretical?

 519 U.S. at 459 -462

 ,

 117 S.Ct. 905

 .

 In each case, interpreting the regulation involves a choice between (or among) more than one reasonable reading. To apply the rule to some unanticipated or unresolved situation, the court must make a judgment call. How should it do so?

 In answering that question, we have often thought that a court should defer to the agency's construction of its own regulation. For the last 20 or so years, we have referred to that doctrine as

 Auer

 deference, and applied it often.

 2

 But the name is something of a misnomer. Before the doctrine was called

 Auer

 deference, it was called

 Seminole Rock

 deference-for the 1945 decision in which we declared that when "the meaning of [a regulation] is in doubt," the agency's interpretation "becomes of controlling weight unless it is plainly erroneous or inconsistent with the regulation."

 325 U.S. at 414

 ,

 65 S.Ct. 1215

 .

 3

 *2412

 And

 Seminole Rock

 itself was not built on sand. Deference to administrative agencies traces back to the late nineteenth century, and perhaps beyond. See

 United States v. Eaton

 ,

 169 U.S. 331

 , 343,

 18 S.Ct. 374

 ,

 42 L.Ed. 767

 (1898) ("The interpretation given to the regulations by the department charged with their execution ... is entitled to the greatest weight"); see Brief for Administrative Law Scholars as

 Amici Curiae

 5, n. 3 (collecting early cases); Brief for AFL-CIO as

 Amicus Curiae

 8 (same).

 We have explained

 Auer

 deference (as we now call it) as rooted in a presumption about congressional intent-a presumption that Congress would generally want the agency to play the primary role in resolving regulatory ambiguities. See

 Martin v. Occupational Safety and Health Review Comm'n

 ,

 499 U.S. 144

 , 151-153,

 111 S.Ct. 1171

 ,

 113 L.Ed.2d 117

 (1991). Congress, we have pointed out, routinely delegates to agencies the power to implement statutes by issuing rules. See

 id.,

 at 151

 ,

 111 S.Ct. 1171

 . In doing so, Congress knows (how could it not?) that regulations will sometimes contain ambiguities. See

 supra,

 at 2410. But Congress almost never explicitly assigns responsibility to deal with that problem, either to agencies or to courts. Hence the need to presume, one way or the other, what Congress would want. And as between those two choices, agencies have gotten the nod. We have adopted the presumption-though it is always rebuttable-that "the power authoritatively to interpret its own regulations is a component of the agency's delegated lawmaking powers."

 Martin

 ,

 499 U.S. at 151

 ,

 111 S.Ct. 1171

 . Or otherwise said, we have thought that when granting rulemaking power to agencies, Congress usually intends to give them, too, considerable latitude to interpret the ambiguous rules they issue.

 In part, that is because the agency that promulgated a rule is in the "better position [to] reconstruct" its original meaning.

 Id.,

 at 152

 ,

 111 S.Ct. 1171

 . Consider that if you don't know what some text (say, a memo or an e-mail) means, you would probably want to ask the person who wrote it. And for the same reasons, we have thought, Congress would too (though the person is here a collective actor). The agency that "wrote the regulation" will often have direct insight into what that rule was intended to mean.

 Mullins Coal Co. of Va. v. Director, Office of Workers' Compensation Programs

 ,

 484 U.S. 135

 , 159,

 108 S.Ct. 427

 ,

 98 L.Ed.2d 450

 (1987). The drafters will know what it was supposed to include or exclude or how it was supposed to apply to some problem. To be sure, this justification has its limits. It does not work so well, for example, when the agency failed to anticipate an issue in crafting a rule (

 e.g.,

 if the agency never thought about whether and when chest X-rays would count as a "diagnosis"). See

 supra,

 at 2410. Then, the agency will not be uncovering a specific intention; at most (though this is not nothing), it will be offering insight into the analogous issues the drafters considered and the purposes they designed the regulation to serve. And the defense works yet less well when lots of time has passed between the rule's issuance and its interpretation-especially if the interpretation differs from one that has come before. All that said, the point holds good for a significant category of "contemporaneous" readings.

 Lyng v. Payne

 ,

 476 U.S. 926

 , 939,

 106 S.Ct. 2333

 ,

 90 L.Ed.2d 921

 (1986). Want to know what a rule means? Ask its author.

 *2413

 In still greater measure, the presumption that Congress intended

 Auer

 deference stems from the awareness that resolving genuine regulatory ambiguities often "entail[s] the exercise of judgment grounded in policy concerns."

 Thomas Jefferson Univ. v. Shalala

 ,

 512 U.S. 504

 , 512,

 114 S.Ct. 2381

 ,

 129 L.Ed.2d 405

 (1994) (internal quotation marks omitted). Return to our TSA example. See

 supra,

 at 2410. In most of their applications, terms like "liquids" and "gels" are clear enough. (Traveler checklist: Pretzels OK; water not.) But resolving the uncertain issues-the truffle pâtés or olive tapenades of the world-requires getting in the weeds of the rule's policy: Why does TSA ban liquids and gels in the first instance? What makes them dangerous? Can a potential hijacker use pâté jars in the same way as soda cans? Or take the less specialized-seeming ADA example. See

 supra,

 at 2410. It is easy enough to know what "comparable lines of sight" means in a movie theater-but more complicated when, as in sports arenas, spectators sometimes stand up. How costly is it to insist that the stadium owner take that sporadic behavior into account, and is the viewing value received worth the added expense? That cost-benefit calculation, too, sounds more in policy than in law. Or finally, take the more technical "moiety" example. See

 supra,

 at 2410 - 2411. Or maybe, don't. If you are a judge, you probably have no idea of what the FDA's rule means, or whether its policy is implicated when a previously approved moiety is connected to lysine through a non-ester covalent bond.

 And Congress, we have thought, knows just that: It is attuned to the comparative advantages of agencies over courts in making such policy judgments. Agencies (unlike courts) have "unique expertise," often of a scientific or technical nature, relevant to applying a regulation "to complex or changing circumstances."

 Martin

 ,

 499 U.S. at 151

 ,

 111 S.Ct. 1171

 ; see

 Thomas Jefferson

 ,

 512 U.S. at 512

 ,

 114 S.Ct. 2381

 . Agencies (unlike courts) can conduct factual investigations, can consult with affected parties, can consider how their experts have handled similar issues over the long course of administering a regulatory program. See

 Long Island Care at Home, Ltd. v. Coke

 ,

 551 U.S. 158

 , 167-168,

 127 S.Ct. 2339

 ,

 168 L.Ed.2d 54

 (2007). And agencies (again unlike courts) have political accountability, because they are subject to the supervision of the President, who in turn answers to the public. See

 Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Bd.

 ,

 561 U.S. 477

 , 499,

 130 S.Ct. 3138

 ,

 177 L.Ed.2d 706

 (2010) ;

 Pauley v. BethEnergy Mines, Inc.

 ,

 501 U.S. 680

 , 696,

 111 S.Ct. 2524

 ,

 115 L.Ed.2d 604

 (1991) (discussing as a matter of democratic accountability the "proper roles of the political and judicial branches" in filling regulatory gaps). It is because of those features that Congress, when first enacting a statute, assigns rulemaking power to an agency and thus authorizes it to fill out the statutory scheme. And so too, when new issues demanding new policy calls come up within that scheme, Congress presumably wants the same agency, rather than any court, to take the laboring oar.

 Finally, the presumption we use reflects the well-known benefits of uniformity in interpreting genuinely ambiguous rules. We have noted Congress's frequent "preference for resolving interpretive issues by uniform administrative decision, rather than piecemeal by litigation."

 Ford Motor Credit Co. v. Milhollin

 ,

 444 U.S. 555

 , 568,

 100 S.Ct. 790

 ,

 63 L.Ed.2d 22

 (1980). That preference may be strongest when the interpretive issue arises in the context of a "complex and highly technical regulatory

 *2414

 program."

 Thomas Jefferson

 ,

 512 U.S. at 512

 ,

 114 S.Ct. 2381

 . After all, judges are most likely to come to divergent conclusions when they are least likely to know what they are doing. (Is there anything to be said for courts all over the country trying to figure out what makes for a new active moiety?) But the uniformity justification retains some weight even for more accessible rules, because their language too may give rise to more than one eminently reasonable reading. Consider

 Auer

 itself. See

 supra,

 at 2411 - 2412. There, four Circuits held that police captains were "subject to" pay deductions for disciplinary infractions if a police manual said they were, even if the department had never docked anyone. Two other Circuits held that captains were "subject to" pay deductions only if the department's actual practice made that punishment a realistic possibility. See

 Auer

 ,

 519 U.S. at 460

 ,

 117 S.Ct. 905

 . Had the agency issued an interpretation before all those rulings (rather than, as actually happened, in a brief in this Court), a deference rule would have averted most of that conflict and uncertainty. See

 Christopher v. SmithKline Beecham Corp.

 ,

 567 U.S. 142

 , 158, n. 17,

 132 S.Ct. 2156

 ,

 183 L.Ed.2d 153

 (2012) (noting for this reason that

 Auer

 deference imparts "predictability to the administrative process" (internal quotation marks omitted)).

 Auer

 deference thus serves to ensure consistency in federal regulatory law, for everyone who needs to know what it requires.

 B

 But all that said,

 Auer

 deference is not the answer to every question of interpreting an agency's rules. Far from it. As we explain in this section, the possibility of deference can arise only if a regulation is genuinely ambiguous. And when we use that term, we mean it-genuinely ambiguous, even after a court has resorted to all the standard tools of interpretation. Still more, not all reasonable agency constructions of those truly ambiguous rules are entitled to deference. As just explained, we presume that Congress intended for courts to defer to agencies when they interpret their own ambiguous rules. See

 supra,

 at 2411 - 2414. But when the reasons for that presumption do not apply, or countervailing reasons outweigh them, courts should not give deference to an agency's reading, except to the extent it has the "power to persuade."

 Christopher

 ,

 567 U.S. at 159

 ,

 132 S.Ct. 2156

 (quoting

 Skidmore v. Swift & Co.

 ,

 323 U.S. 134

 , 140,

 65 S.Ct. 161

 ,

 89 L.Ed. 124

 (1944) ). We have thus cautioned that

 Auer

 deference is just a "general rule"; it "does not apply in all cases."

 Christopher

 ,

 567 U.S. at 155

 ,

 132 S.Ct. 2156

 . And although the limits of

 Auer

 deference are not susceptible to any rigid test, we have noted various circumstances in which such deference is "unwarranted."

 Ibid

 . In particular, that will be so when a court concludes that an interpretation does not reflect an agency's authoritative, expertise-based, "fair[, or] considered judgment."

 Ibid.

 (quoting

 Auer

 ,

 519 U.S. at 462

 ,

 117 S.Ct. 905

 ); cf.

 United States v. Mead Corp.

 ,

 533 U.S. 218

 , 229-231,

 121 S.Ct. 2164

 ,

 150 L.Ed.2d 292

 (2001) (adopting a similar approach to

 Chevron

 deference).

 We take the opportunity to restate, and somewhat expand on, those principles here to clear up some mixed messages we have sent. At times, this Court has applied

 Auer

 deference without significant analysis of the underlying regulation. See,

 e.g.,

 United States v. Larionoff

 ,

 431 U.S. 864

 , 872,

 97 S.Ct. 2150

 ,

 53 L.Ed.2d 48

 (1977) (stating that the Court "need not tarry" over the regulation's language given

 Seminole Rock

 ). At other times, the Court has given

 Auer

 deference without careful attention to the nature and context of the interpretation.

 *2415

 See,

 e.g.,

 Thorpe v. Housing Authority of Durham

 ,

 393 U.S. 268

 , 276, and nn. 22-23,

 89 S.Ct. 518

 ,

 21 L.Ed.2d 474

 (1969) (deferring to an agency's view as expressed in letters to third parties). And in a vacuum, our most classic formulation of the test-whether an agency's construction is "plainly erroneous or inconsistent with the regulation,"

 Seminole Rock

 ,

 325 U.S. at 414

 ,

 65 S.Ct. 1215

 -may suggest a caricature of the doctrine, in which deference is "reflexive."

 Pereira

 v.

 Sessions

 , 585 U. S. ----, ----,

 138 S.Ct. 2105

 , 2120,

 201 L.Ed.2d 433

 (2018) (KENNEDY, J., concurring). So we cannot deny that Kisor has a bit of grist for his claim that

 Auer

 "bestows on agencies expansive, unreviewable" authority. Brief for Petitioner 25. But in fact

 Auer

 does no such thing: It gives agencies their due, while also allowing-indeed, obligating-courts to perform their reviewing and restraining functions. So before we turn to Kisor's specific grievances, we think it worth reinforcing some of the limits inherent in the

 Auer

 doctrine.

 4

 First and foremost, a court should not afford

 Auer

 deference unless the regulation is genuinely ambiguous. See

 Christensen v. Harris County

 ,

 529 U.S. 576

 , 588,

 120 S.Ct. 1655

 ,

 146 L.Ed.2d 621

 (2000) ;

 Seminole Rock

 ,

 325 U.S. at 414

 ,

 65 S.Ct. 1215

 (deferring only "if the meaning of the words used is in doubt"). If uncertainty does not exist, there is no plausible reason for deference. The regulation then just means what it means-and the court must give it effect, as the court would any law. Otherwise said, the core theory of

 Auer

 deference is that sometimes the law runs out, and policy-laden choice is what is left over. See

 supra,

 at 2412 - 2413. But if the law gives an answer-if there is only one reasonable construction of a regulation-then a court has no business deferring to any other reading, no matter how much the agency insists it would make more sense. Deference in that circumstance would "permit the agency, under the guise of interpreting a regulation, to create

 de facto

 a new regulation." See

 Christensen

 ,

 529 U.S. at 588

 ,

 120 S.Ct. 1655

 .

 Auer

 does not, and indeed could not, go that far.

 And before concluding that a rule is genuinely ambiguous, a court must exhaust all the "traditional tools" of construction.

 Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc.

 ,

 467 U.S. 837

 , 843, n. 9,

 104 S.Ct. 2778

 ,

 81 L.Ed.2d 694

 (1984) (adopting the same approach for ambiguous statutes). For again, only when that legal toolkit is empty and the interpretive question still has no single right answer can a judge conclude that it is "more [one] of policy than of law."

 Pauley

 ,

 501 U.S. at 696

 ,

 111 S.Ct. 2524

 . That means a court cannot wave the ambiguity flag just because it found the regulation impenetrable on first read. Agency regulations can sometimes make the eyes glaze over. But hard interpretive conundrums, even relating to complex rules, can often be solved. See

 id.,

 at 707

 ,

 111 S.Ct. 2524

 (SCALIA, J., dissenting) (A regulation is not ambiguous merely because "discerning the only possible interpretation requires a taxing inquiry"). To make that effort, a court must "carefully consider[ ]" the text, structure, history, and purpose of a regulation, in all the ways it would if it had no agency to fall back on.

 Ibid.

 Doing so will resolve many seeming ambiguities out of the box, without resort to

 Auer

 deference.

 If genuine ambiguity remains, moreover, the agency's reading must still be "reasonable."

 Thomas Jefferson

 ,

 512 U.S. at 515

 ,

 114 S.Ct. 2381

 . In other words,

 *2416

 it must come within the zone of ambiguity the court has identified after employing all its interpretive tools. (Note that serious application of those tools therefore has use even when a regulation turns out to be truly ambiguous. The text, structure, history, and so forth at least establish the outer bounds of permissible interpretation.) Some courts have thought (perhaps because of

 Seminole Rock

 's "plainly erroneous" formulation) that at this stage of the analysis, agency constructions of rules receive greater deference than agency constructions of statutes. See,

 e.g.,

 Ohio Dept. of Medicaid v. Price

 ,

 864 F.3d 469

 , 477 (CA6 2017). But that is not so. Under

 Auer

 , as under

 Chevron

 , the agency's reading must fall "within the bounds of reasonable interpretation."

 Arlington v. FCC

 ,

 569 U.S. 290

 , 296,

 133 S.Ct. 1863

 ,

 185 L.Ed.2d 941

 (2013). And let there be no mistake: That is a requirement an agency can fail.

 Still, we are not done-for not every reasonable agency reading of a genuinely ambiguous rule should receive

 Auer

 deference. We have recognized in applying

 Auer

 that a court must make an independent inquiry into whether the character and context of the agency interpretation entitles it to controlling weight. See

 Christopher

 ,

 567 U.S. at 155

 ,

 132 S.Ct. 2156

 ; see also

 Mead

 ,

 533 U.S. at 229-231 , 236-237

 ,

 121 S.Ct. 2164

 (requiring an analogous though not identical inquiry for

 Chevron

 deference). As explained above, we give

 Auer

 deference because we presume, for a set of reasons relating to the comparative attributes of courts and agencies, that Congress would have wanted us to. See

 supra,

 at 2411 - 2414. But the administrative realm is vast and varied, and we have understood that such a presumption cannot always hold. Cf.

 Mead

 ,

 533 U.S. at 236

 ,

 121 S.Ct. 2164

 ("tailor[ing] deference to [the] variety" of administrative action);

 Arlington

 ,

 569 U.S. at 309 -310

 ,

 133 S.Ct. 1863

 (BREYER, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment) (noting that "context-specific[ ] factors" may show that "Congress would [not] have intended the agency to resolve [some] ambiguity"). The inquiry on this dimension does not reduce to any exhaustive test. But we have laid out some especially important markers for identifying when

 Auer

 deference is and is not appropriate.

 To begin with, the regulatory interpretation must be one actually made by the agency. In other words, it must be the agency's "authoritative" or "official position," rather than any more ad hoc statement not reflecting the agency's views.

 Mead

 ,

 533 U.S. at 257 -259

 , and n. 6,

 121 S.Ct. 2164

 (SCALIA, J., dissenting). That constraint follows from the logic of

 Auer

 deference-because Congress has delegated rulemaking power, and all that typically goes with it, to the agency alone. Of course, the requirement of "authoritative" action must recognize a reality of bureaucratic life: Not everything the agency does comes from, or is even in the name of, the Secretary or his chief advisers. So, for example, we have deferred to "official staff memoranda" that were "published in the Federal Register," even though never approved by the agency head.

 Ford Motor Credit

 ,

 444 U.S. at 566, n. 9, 567 , n. 10

 ,

 100 S.Ct. 790

 (declining to "draw a radical distinction between" agency heads and staff for

 Auer

 deference). But there are limits. The interpretation must at the least emanate from those actors, using those vehicles, understood to make authoritative policy in the relevant context. See,

 e.g.,

 Paralyzed Veterans

 ,

 117 F.3d at 587

 (refusing to consider a "speech of a mid-level official" as an "authoritative departmental position");

 N. Y. State Dept. of Social Servs. v. Bowen

 ,

 835 F.2d 360

 , 365-366 (CADC 1987) (rejecting the idea that an

 *2417

 "informal memorandum" recounting a telephone conversation between employees could count as an "authoritative pronouncement");

 Exelon Generation Co. v. Local 15, Int'l Brotherhood of Elec. Workers, AFL-CIO

 ,

 676 F.3d 566

 , 576-578 (CA7 2012) (declining deference when the agency had itself "disclaimed the use of regulatory guides as authoritative"). If the interpretation does not do so, a court may not defer.

 Next, the agency's interpretation must in some way implicate its substantive expertise. Administrative knowledge and experience largely "account [for] the presumption that Congress delegates interpretive lawmaking power to the agency."

 Martin

 ,

 499 U.S. at 153

 ,

 111 S.Ct. 1171

 . So the basis for deference ebbs when "[t]he subject matter of the [dispute is] distan[t] from the agency's ordinary" duties or "fall[s] within the scope of another agency's authority."

 Arlington

 ,

 569 U.S. at 309

 ,

 133 S.Ct. 1863

 (opinion of BREYER, J.). This Court indicated as much when it analyzed a "split enforcement" scheme, in which Congress divided regulatory power between two entities.

 Martin

 ,

 499 U.S. at 151

 ,

 111 S.Ct. 1171

 . To decide "

 whose

 reasonable interpretation" of a rule controlled, we "presum[ed] Congress intended to invest interpretive power" in whichever actor was "best position[ed] to develop" expertise about the given problem.

 Id.

 , at 149, 153,

 111 S.Ct. 1171

 . The same idea holds good as between agencies and courts. "Generally, agencies have a nuanced understanding of the regulations they administer." Brief for Respondent 33. That point is most obvious when a rule is technical; think back to our "moiety" or "diagnosis" examples. See

 supra

 , at 2410 - 2411. But more prosaic-seeming questions also commonly implicate policy expertise; consider the TSA assessing the security risks of pâté or a disabilities office weighing the costs and benefits of an accommodation. See

 ibid.

 Once again, though, there are limits. Some interpretive issues may fall more naturally into a judge's bailiwick. Take one requiring the elucidation of a simple common-law property term, see

 Jicarilla Apache Tribe v. FERC

 ,

 578 F.2d 289

 , 292-293 (CA10 1978), or one concerning the award of an attorney's fee, see

 West Va. Highlands Conservancy, Inc. v. Norton

 ,

 343 F.3d 239

 (CA4 2003). Cf.

 Adams Fruit Co. v. Barrett

 ,

 494 U.S. 638

 , 649-650,

 110 S.Ct. 1384

 ,

 108 L.Ed.2d 585

 (1990) (declining to award

 Chevron

 deference when an agency interprets a judicial-review provision). When the agency has no comparative expertise in resolving a regulatory ambiguity, Congress presumably would not grant it that authority.

 5

 Finally, an agency's reading of a rule must reflect "fair and considered judgment" to receive

 Auer

 deference.

 Christopher

 ,

 567 U.S. at 155

 ,

 132 S.Ct. 2156

 (quoting

 Auer

 ,

 519 U.S. at 462

 ,

 117 S.Ct. 905

 ). That means, we have stated, that a court should decline to defer to a merely "convenient litigating position" or "

 post hoc

 rationalizatio[n] advanced" to "defend past agency action against attack."

 Christopher

 ,

 567 U.S. at 155

 ,

 132 S.Ct. 2156

 (quoting

 Bowen v. Georgetown Univ. Hospital

 ,

 488 U.S. 204

 , 213,

 109 S.Ct. 468

 ,

 102 L.Ed.2d 493

 (1988) and

 Auer

 ,

 519 U.S. at 462

 ,

 117 S.Ct. 905

 ).

 6

 And a court may

 *2418

 not defer to a new interpretation, whether or not introduced in litigation, that creates "unfair surprise" to regulated parties.

 Long Island Care

 ,

 551 U.S. at 170

 ,

 127 S.Ct. 2339

 . That disruption of expectations may occur when an agency substitutes one view of a rule for another. We have therefore only rarely given

 Auer

 deference to an agency construction "conflict[ing] with a prior" one.

 Thomas Jefferson

 ,

 512 U.S. at 515

 ,

 114 S.Ct. 2381

 . Or the upending of reliance may happen without such an explicit interpretive change. This Court, for example, recently refused to defer to an interpretation that would have imposed retroactive liability on parties for longstanding conduct that the agency had never before addressed. See

 Christopher

 ,

 567 U.S. at 155 -156

 ,

 132 S.Ct. 2156

 . Here too the lack of "fair warning" outweighed the reasons to apply

 Auer .

 Id.,

 at 156

 ,

 132 S.Ct. 2156

 (internal quotation marks omitted).

 * * *

 The upshot of all this goes something as follows. When it applies,

 Auer

 deference gives an agency significant leeway to say what its own rules mean. In so doing, the doctrine enables the agency to fill out the regulatory scheme Congress has placed under its supervision. But that phrase "when it applies" is important-because it often doesn't. As described above, this Court has cabined

 Auer

 's scope in varied and critical ways-and in exactly that measure, has maintained a strong judicial role in interpreting rules. What emerges is a deference doctrine not quite so tame as some might hope, but not nearly so menacing as they might fear.

 III

 That brings us to the lone question presented here-whether we should abandon the longstanding doctrine just described. In contending that we should, Kisor raises statutory, policy, and constitutional claims (in that order). But he faces an uphill climb. He must first convince us that

 Auer

 deference is wrong. And even then, he must overcome

 stare decisis

 -the special care we take to preserve our precedents. In the event, Kisor fails at the first step: None of his arguments provide good reason to doubt

 Auer

 deference. And even if that were not so, Kisor does not offer the kind of special justification needed to overrule

 Auer ,

 and

 Seminole Rock ,

 and all our many other decisions deferring to reasonable agency constructions of ambiguous rules.

 A

 Kisor first attacks

 Auer

 as inconsistent with the judicial review provision of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). See

 5 U.S.C. § 706

 . As Kisor notes, Congress enacted the APA in 1946-the year after

 Seminole Rock

 -to serve as "the fundamental charter of the administrative state." Brief for Petitioner 26 (internal quotation marks omitted). Section 706 of the Act, governing judicial review of agency action, states (among other things) that reviewing courts shall "determine the meaning or applicability of the terms of an agency action" (including a regulation). According to Kisor,

 Auer

 violates that edict by thwarting "meaningful judicial review"

 *2419

 of agency rules. Brief for Petitioner 29. Courts under

 Auer

 , he asserts (now in the language of Section 706 ), "abdicate their office of determining the meaning" of a regulation.

 Id.,

 at 27

 (internal quotation marks omitted).

 To begin with, that argument ignores the many ways, discussed above, that courts exercise independent review over the meaning of agency rules. See

 supra,

 at 2415 - 2418. As we have explained, a court must apply all traditional methods of interpretation to any rule, and must enforce the plain meaning those methods uncover. There can be no thought of deference unless, after performing that thoroughgoing review, the regulation remains genuinely susceptible to multiple reasonable meanings and the agency's interpretation lines up with one of them. And even if that is the case, courts must on their own determine whether the nature or context of the agency's construction reverses the usual presumption of deference. Most notably, a court must consider whether the interpretation is authoritative, expertise-based, considered, and fair to regulated parties. All of that figures as "meaningful judicial review." Brief for Petitioner 29.

 And even when a court defers to a regulatory reading, it acts consistently with Section 706. That provision does not specify the standard of review a court should use in "determin[ing] the meaning" of an ambiguous rule.

 5 U.S.C. § 706

 . One possibility, as Kisor says, is to review the issue

 de novo

 . But another is to review the agency's reading for reasonableness. To see the point, assume that a regulatory (say, an employment) statute expressly instructed courts to apply

 Auer

 deference when reviewing an agency's interpretations of its ambiguous rules. Nothing in that statute would conflict with Section 706. Instead, the employment law would simply make clear

 how

 a court is to "determine the meaning" of such a rule-by deferring to an agency's reasonable reading.

 Ibid

 . Of course, that is not the world we know: Most substantive statutes do not say anything about

 Auer

 deference, one way or the other. But for all the reasons spelled out above, we have long presumed (subject always to rebuttal) that the Congress delegating regulatory authority to an agency intends as well to give that agency considerable latitude to construe its ambiguous rules. See

 supra,

 at 2411 - 2414. And that presumption operates just like the hypothesized statute above. Because of it, once again, courts do not violate Section 706 by applying

 Auer .

 To the contrary, they fulfill their duty to "determine the meaning" of a rule precisely by deferring to the agency's reasonable reading. See Sunstein & Vermeule, The Unbearable Rightness of

 Auer

 ,

 84 U. Chi. L. Rev. 297

 , 306 (2017) (If Congress intends "that the meaning of a regulation turns on the agency's interpretation of its meaning," then courts comply with Section 706 's command to " 'determine the meaning' [of the regulation] by deferring to that view"); cf.

 Arlington

 ,

 569 U.S. at 317

 ,

 133 S.Ct. 1863

 (ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting) (similarly addressing why

 Chevron

 deference comports with Section 706 ). Section 706 and

 Auer

 thus go hand in hand.

 That is especially so given the practice of judicial review at the time of the APA's enactment. Section 706 was understood when enacted to "restate[ ] the present law as to the scope of judicial review." See Dept. of Justice, Attorney General's Manual on the Administrative Procedure Act 108 (1947); see also

 Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Corp. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc.

 ,

 435 U.S. 519

 , 546,

 98 S.Ct. 1197

 ,

 55 L.Ed.2d 460

 (1978) (noting that this Court gives some deference to the Manual "because of the role played by the Department of Justice in drafting the legislation"). We have thus interpreted the

 *2420

 APA not to "significantly alter the common law of judicial review of agency action."

 Heckler v. Chaney

 ,

 470 U.S. 821

 , 832,

 105 S.Ct. 1649

 ,

 84 L.Ed.2d 714

 (1985) (internal quotation marks omitted). That pre-APA common law included

 Seminole Rock

 itself (decided the year before) along with prior decisions foretelling that ruling. See

 supra,

 at 2411. Even assume that the deference regime laid out in those cases had not yet fully taken hold. At a minimum, nothing in the law of that era required all judicial review of agency interpretations to be

 de novo

 . Cf. Manning, Constitutional Structure and Judicial Deference to Agency Interpretations of Agency Rules,

 96 Colum. L. Rev. 612

 , 635-636 (1996) (arguing that courts before the APA used "flexible, common law methods to review administrative action"). And so nothing suggests that Section 706 imposes that requirement. Or otherwise said: If Section 706 did not change the law of judicial review (as we have long recognized), then it did not proscribe a deferential standard then known and in use.

 Kisor next claims that

 Auer

 circumvents the APA's rulemaking requirements. Section 553, as Kisor notes, mandates that an agency use notice-and-comment procedures before issuing legislative rules. See

 5 U.S.C. §§ 553

 (b), (c). But the section allows agencies to issue "interpret[ive]" rules without notice and comment. See § 553(b)(A). A key feature of those rules is that (unlike legislative rules) they are not supposed to "have the force and effect of law"-or, otherwise said, to bind private parties.

 Perez v.

 Mortgage Bankers Assn.

 ,

 575 U. S. 92

 , ----,

 135 S.Ct. 1199

 , 1204,

 191 L.Ed.2d 186

 (2015) (internal quotation marks omitted). Instead, interpretive rules are meant only to "advise the public" of how the agency understands, and is likely to apply, its binding statutes and legislative rules.

 Ibid.

 But consider, Kisor argues, what happens when a court gives

 Auer

 deference to an interpretive rule. The result, he asserts, is to make a rule that has never gone through notice and comment binding on the public. See Brief for Petitioner 21, 29. Or put another way, the interpretive rule ends up having the "force and effect of law" without ever paying the procedural cost.

 Mortgage Bankers

 , 575 U. S., at ----,

 135 S.Ct., at 1204

 .

 But this Court rejected the identical argument just a few years ago, and for good reason. In

 Mortgage Bankers

 , we held that interpretive rules, even when given

 Auer

 deference, do

 not

 have the force of law. See 575 U. S., at ----, and n. 4,

 135 S.Ct., at 1208

 , and n. 4. An interpretive rule itself never forms "the basis for an enforcement action"-because, as just noted, such a rule does not impose any "legally binding requirements" on private parties.

 National Min. Assn. v. McCarthy

 ,

 758 F.3d 243

 , 251 (CADC 2014). An enforcement action must instead rely on a legislative rule, which (to be valid) must go through notice and comment. And in all the ways discussed above, the meaning of a legislative rule remains in the hands of courts, even if they sometimes divine that meaning by looking to the agency's interpretation. See

 supra,

 at 2415 - 2418. Courts first decide whether the rule is clear; if it is not, whether the agency's reading falls within its zone of ambiguity; and even if the reading does so, whether it should receive deference. In short, courts retain the final authority to approve-or not-the agency's reading of a notice-and-comment rule. See

 Mortgage Bankers,

 575 U. S., at ----, n. 4,

 135 S.Ct., at 1208, n. 4

 ("[I]t is the court that ultimately decides whether a given regulation means what the agency says"). No binding of anyone occurs merely by the agency's say-so.

 And indeed, a court deciding whether to give

 Auer

 deference must heed the same procedural values as Section 553 reflects.

 *2421

 Remember that a court may defer to only an agency's authoritative and considered judgments. See

 supra,

 at 2416 - 2418. No

 ad hoc

 statements or

 post hoc

 rationalizations need apply. And recall too that deference turns on whether an agency's interpretation creates unfair surprise or upsets reliance interests. See

 supra,

 at 2417 - 2418. So an agency has a strong incentive to circulate its interpretations early and widely. In such ways, the doctrine of

 Auer

 deference reinforces, rather than undermines, the ideas of fairness and informed decisionmaking at the core of the APA.

 To supplement his two APA arguments, Kisor turns to policy, leaning on a familiar claim about the incentives

 Auer

 creates. According to Kisor,

 Auer

 encourages agencies to issue vague and open-ended regulations, confident that they can later impose whatever interpretation of those rules they prefer. See Brief for Petitioner 37-41. That argument received its fullest elaboration in a widely respected law review article pre-dating

 Auer

 . See Manning, 96 Colum. L. Rev., at 654-669. More recently, the concern about such self-delegation has appeared in opinions from this Court, starting with several from Justice SCALIA calling for

 Auer

 's reconsideration. See,

 e.g.,

 Christopher,

 567 U.S. at 158

 ,

 132 S.Ct. 2156

 (citing Manning,

 supra,

 at 655-668 );

 Decker v. Northwest Environmental Defense Center

 ,

 568 U.S. 597

 , 620-621,

 133 S.Ct. 1326

 ,

 185 L.Ed.2d 447

 (2013) (SCALIA, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) (citing Manning,

 supra

 );

 Talk America, Inc. v. Michigan Bell Telephone Co.

 ,

 564 U.S. 50

 , 69,

 131 S.Ct. 2254

 ,

 180 L.Ed.2d 96

 (2011) (SCALIA, J., concurring) (principally relying on Manning,

 supra

 ).

 But the claim has notable weaknesses, empirical and theoretical alike. First, it does not survive an encounter with experience. No real evidence-indeed, scarcely an anecdote-backs up the assertion. As two noted scholars (one of whom reviewed thousands of rules during four years of government service) have written: "[W]e are unaware of, and no one has pointed to, any regulation in American history that, because of

 Auer

 , was designed vaguely." Sunstein & Vermeule, 84 U. Chi. L. Rev., at 308. And even the argument's theoretical allure dissipates upon reflection. For strong (almost surely stronger) incentives and pressures cut in the opposite direction. "[R]egulators want their regulations to be effective, and clarity promotes compliance." Brief for Administrative Law Scholars as

 Amici Curiae

 18-19. Too, regulated parties often push for precision from an agency, so that they know what they can and cannot do. And ambiguities in rules pose risks to the long-run survival of agency policy. Vagueness increases the chance of adverse judicial rulings. And it enables future administrations, with different views, to reinterpret the rules to their own liking. Add all of that up and Kisor's ungrounded theory of incentives contributes nothing to the case against

 Auer

 .

 Finally, Kisor goes big, asserting (though fleetingly) that

 Auer

 deference violates "separation-of-powers principles." See Brief for Petitioner 43. In his view, those principles prohibit "vest[ing] in a single branch the law-making and law-interpreting functions."

 Id.,

 at 45. If that objection is to agencies' usurping the interpretive role of courts, this opinion has already met it head-on. Properly understood and applied,

 Auer

 does no such thing. In all the ways we have described, courts retain a firm grip on the interpretive function. See

 supra,

 at 2415 - 2418;

 Mortgage Bankers,

 575 U. S., at ----, n. 4,

 135 S.Ct., at 1208 , n. 4

 . If Kisor's objection is instead to the supposed commingling of functions (that is, the legislative and judicial) within an agency, this Court has answered it often before. See,

 *2422

 e.g.,

 Withrow v. Larkin

 ,

 421 U.S. 35

 , 54,

 95 S.Ct. 1456

 ,

 43 L.Ed.2d 712

 (1975) (permitting such a combination of functions);

 FTC v. Cement Institute

 ,

 333 U.S. 683

 , 702,

 68 S.Ct. 793

 ,

 92 L.Ed. 1010

 (1948) (same). That sort of mixing is endemic in agencies, and has been "since the beginning of the Republic."

 Arlington

 ,

 569 U.S. at 304-305 , n. 4

 ,

 133 S.Ct. 1863

 . It does not violate the separation of powers, we have explained, because even when agency "activities take 'legislative' and 'judicial' forms," they continue to be "exercises of[ ] the 'executive Power' "-or otherwise said, ways of executing a statutory plan.

 Ibid.

 (quoting U. S. Const., Art. II, § 1, cl. 1 ). So Kisor's last argument to dispatch

 Auer

 deference fails as roundly as the rest.

 B

 If all that were not enough,

 stare decisis

 cuts strongly against Kisor's position. "Overruling precedent is never a small matter."

 Kimble

 v.

 Marvel Entertainment, LLC

 , 576 U. S. ----, ----,

 135 S.Ct. 2401

 , 2409,

 192 L.Ed.2d 463

 (2015). Adherence to precedent is "a foundation stone of the rule of law."

 Michigan v. Bay Mills Indian Community

 ,

 572 U.S. 782

 , 798,

 134 S.Ct. 2024

 ,

 188 L.Ed.2d 1071

 (2014). "[I]t promotes the evenhanded, predictable, and consistent development of legal principles, fosters reliance on judicial decisions, and contributes to the actual and perceived integrity of the judicial process."

 Payne v. Tennessee

 ,

 501 U.S. 808

 , 827,

 111 S.Ct. 2597

 ,

 115 L.Ed.2d 720

 (1991). To be sure,

 stare decisis

 is "not an inexorable command."

 Id.,

 at 828

 ,

 111 S.Ct. 2597

 . But any departure from the doctrine demands "special justification"-something more than "an argument that the precedent was wrongly decided."

 Halliburton Co. v. Erica P. John Fund, Inc.

 ,

 573 U.S. 258

 , 266,

 134 S.Ct. 2398

 ,

 189 L.Ed.2d 339

 (2014).

 And that is even more than usually so in the circumstances here. First, Kisor asks us to overrule not a single case, but a "long line of precedents"-each one reaffirming the rest and going back 75 years or more.

 Bay Mills

 ,

 572 U.S. at 798

 ,

 134 S.Ct. 2024

 ; see nn. 2, 3,

 supra

 . This Court alone has applied

 Auer

 or

 Seminole Rock

 in dozens of cases, and lower courts have done so thousands of times. Deference to reasonable agency interpretations of ambiguous rules pervades the whole corpus of administrative law. Second, because that is so, abandoning

 Auer

 deference would cast doubt on many settled constructions of rules. As Kisor acknowledged at oral argument, a decision in his favor would allow relitigation of any decision based on

 Auer

 , forcing courts to "wrestle [with] whether or not

 Auer

 " had actually made a difference. Tr. of Oral Arg. 30; see

 id.,

 at 47 (Solicitor General agreeing that "every single regulation that's currently on the books whose interpretation has been established under

 Seminole Rock

 now [would have] to be relitigated anew"). It is the rare overruling that introduces so much instability into so many areas of law, all in one blow.

 And third, even if we are wrong about

 Auer

 , "Congress remains free to alter what we have done."

 Patterson v. McLean Credit Union

 ,

 491 U.S. 164

 , 172-173,

 109 S.Ct. 2363

 ,

 105 L.Ed.2d 132

 (1989) (stating that when that is so, "[c]onsiderations of

 stare decisis

 have special force"). In a constitutional case, only we can correct our error. But that is not so here. Our deference decisions are "balls tossed into Congress's court, for acceptance or not as that branch elects."

 Kimble

 , 576 U. S., at ----, 135 S.Ct., at 2409. And so far, at least, Congress has chosen acceptance. It could amend the APA or any specific statute to require the sort of

 de novo

 review of regulatory interpretations

 *2423

 that Kisor favors. Instead, for approaching a century, it has let our deference regime work side-by-side with both the APA and the many statutes delegating rulemaking power to agencies. It has done so even after we made clear that our deference decisions reflect a presumption about congressional intent. See

 Martin

 ,

 499 U.S. at 151

 ,

 111 S.Ct. 1171

 ;

 supra

 , at 2411 - 2412. And it has done so even after Members of this Court began to raise questions about the doctrine. See,

 e.g.,

 Talk America

 ,

 564 U.S. at 67 -69

 ,

 131 S.Ct. 2254

 (SCALIA, J., concurring). Given that history-and Congress's continuing ability to take up Kisor's arguments-we would need a particularly "special justification" to now reverse

 Auer .

 Kisor offers nothing of that ilk. Nearly all his arguments about abandoning precedent are variants of his merits claims. We hear again, if in different parts of his briefs, that

 Auer

 deference frustrates "the policies embodied in the APA" and violates the separation of powers. Reply Brief 13, and n. 5; Brief for Petitioner 47-48. More generally, we learn that

 Seminole Rock

 was "wrong on its own terms" and "badly reasoned."

 Id.,

 at 47 (internal quotation marks omitted). Of course, it is good-and important-for our opinions to be right and well-reasoned. But that is not the test for overturning precedent. Kisor does not claim that

 Auer

 deference is "unworkable," a traditional basis for overruling a case.

 Patterson

 ,

 491 U.S. at 173

 ,

 109 S.Ct. 2363

 . Nor does he point to changes in legal rules that make

 Auer

 a "doctrinal dinosaur."

 Kimble

 , 576 U. S., at ----, 135 S.Ct., at 2411. All he can muster is that "[t]he administrative state has evolved substantially since 1945." Brief for Petitioner 53. We do not doubt the point (although we note that

 Auer

 and other key deference decisions came along after most of that evolution took place). Still more, we agree with Kisor that administrative law doctrines must take account of the far-reaching influence of agencies and the opportunities such power carries for abuse. That is one reason we have taken care today to reinforce the limits of

 Auer

 deference, and to emphasize the critical role courts retain in interpreting rules. But it is no answer to the growth of agencies for courts to take over their expertise-based, policymaking functions. Who knows? Maybe in 1945, the FDA was not thinking about "active moieties." See

 supra,

 at 2410 - 2411. But still, today-just as

 Seminole Rock

 and

 Auer

 held-it should have leeway to say what that term means.

 IV

 With that, we can finally return to Kisor's own case. You may remember that his retroactive benefits depend on the meaning of the term "relevant" records in a VA regulation. See

 supra,

 at 2408 - 2409. The Board of Veterans' Appeals, through a single judge's opinion, understood records to be relevant only if they relate to the basis of the VA's initial denial of benefits. By contrast, Kisor argued that records are relevant if they go to any benefits criterion, even one that was uncontested. The Federal Circuit upheld the Board's interpretation based on

 Auer

 deference.

 Applying the principles outlined in this opinion, we hold that a redo is necessary for two reasons. First, the Federal Circuit jumped the gun in declaring the regulation ambiguous. We have insisted that a court bring all its interpretive tools to bear before finding that to be so. See

 supra,

 at 2415 - 2416. It is not enough to casually remark, as the court did here, that "[b]oth parties insist that the plain regulatory language supports their case, and neither party's position strikes us as unreasonable."

 869 F.3d at

 1368 ; see

 supra,

 at 2415 - 2416. Rather, the court must

 *2424

 make a conscientious effort to determine, based on indicia like text, structure, history, and purpose, whether the regulation really has more than one reasonable meaning. The Solicitor General argued in this Court that the Board's reading is the only reasonable one. See Brief for Respondent 49-50. Perhaps Kisor will make the converse claim below. Before even considering deference, the court must seriously think through those positions.

 And second, the Federal Circuit assumed too fast that

 Auer

 deference should apply in the event of genuine ambiguity. As we have explained, that is not always true. A court must assess whether the interpretation is of the sort that Congress would want to receive deference. See

 supra,

 at 2416 - 2418. The Solicitor General suggested at oral argument that the answer in this case might be no. He explained that all 100 or so members of the VA Board act individually (rather than in panels) and that their roughly 80,000 annual decisions have no "precedential value." Tr. of Oral Arg. 64. He thus questioned whether a Board member's ruling "reflects the considered judgment of the agency as a whole."

 Ibid.

 ; cf.

 Mead

 ,

 533 U.S. at 233

 ,

 121 S.Ct. 2164

 (declining to give

 Chevron

 deference to rulings "being churned out at a rate of 10,000 a year at an agency's 46 scattered offices"). We do not know what position the Government will take on that issue below. But the questions the Solicitor General raised are exactly the kind the court must consider in deciding whether to award

 Auer

 deference to the Board's interpretation.

 We accordingly vacate the judgment below and remand the case for further proceedings.

 It is so ordered.

 Chief Justice ROBERTS, concurring in part.

 I join Parts I, II-B, III-B, and IV of the Court's opinion. We took this case to consider whether to overrule

 Auer v. Robbins

 ,

 519 U.S. 452

 ,

 117 S.Ct. 905

 ,

 137 L.Ed.2d 79

 (1997), and

 Bowles v. Seminole Rock & Sand Co.

 ,

 325 U.S. 410

 ,

 65 S.Ct. 1215

 ,

 89 L.Ed. 1700

 (1945). For the reasons the Court discusses in Part III-B, I agree that overruling those precedents is not warranted. I also agree with the Court's treatment in Part II-B of the bounds of

 Auer

 deference.

 I write separately to suggest that the distance between the majority and Justice GORSUCH is not as great as it may initially appear. The majority catalogs the prerequisites for, and limitations on,

 Auer

 deference: The underlying regulation must be genuinely ambiguous; the agency's interpretation must be reasonable and must reflect its authoritative, expertise-based, and fair and considered judgment; and the agency must take account of reliance interests and avoid unfair surprise. Justice GORSUCH, meanwhile, lists the reasons that a court might be persuaded to adopt an agency's interpretation of its own regulation: The agency thoroughly considered the problem, offered a valid rationale, brought its expertise to bear, and interpreted the regulation in a manner consistent with earlier and later pronouncements. Accounting for variations in verbal formulation, those lists have much in common.

 That is not to say that

 Auer

 deference is just the same as the power of persuasion discussed in

 Skidmore v. Swift & Co.

 ,

 323 U.S. 134

 ,

 65 S.Ct. 161

 ,

 89 L.Ed. 124

 (1944) ; there is a difference between holding that a court ought to be persuaded by an agency's interpretation and holding that it should defer to that interpretation under certain conditions. But it is to say that the

 *2425

 cases in which

 Auer

 deference is warranted largely overlap with the cases in which it would be unreasonable for a court not to be persuaded by an agency's interpretation of its own regulation.

 One further point: Issues surrounding judicial deference to agency interpretations of their own regulations are distinct from those raised in connection with judicial deference to agency interpretations of statutes enacted by Congress. See

 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). I do not regard the Court's decision today to touch upon the latter question.

 Justice GORSUCH, with whom Justice THOMAS joins, with whom Justice KAVANAUGH joins as to Parts I, II, III, IV, and V, and with whom Justice ALITO joins as to Parts I, II, and III, concurring in the judgment.

 It should have been easy for the Court to say goodbye to

 Auer

 v.

 Robbins

 .

 1

 In disputes involving the relationship between the government and the people,

 Auer

 requires judges to accept an executive agency's interpretation of its own regulations even when that interpretation doesn't represent the best and fairest reading. This rule creates a "systematic judicial bias in favor of the federal government, the most powerful of parties, and against everyone else."

 2

 Nor is

 Auer

 's biased rule the product of some congressional mandate we are powerless to correct: This Court invented it, almost by accident and without any meaningful effort to reconcile it with the Administrative Procedure Act or the Constitution. A legion of academics, lower court judges, and Members of this Court-even

 Auer

 's author-has called on us to abandon

 Auer

 . Yet today a bare majority flinches, and

 Auer

 lives on.

 Still, today's decision is more a stay of execution than a pardon. The Court cannot muster even five votes to say that

 Auer

 is lawful or wise. Instead, a majority retains

 Auer

 only because of

 stare decisis

 . And yet, far from standing by that precedent, the majority proceeds to impose so many new and nebulous qualifications and limitations on

 Auer

 that THE CHIEF JUSTICE claims to see little practical difference between keeping it on life support in this way and overruling it entirely. So the doctrine emerges maimed and enfeebled-in truth, zombified.

 Respectfully, we owe our colleagues on the lower courts more candid and useful guidance than this. And judges owe the people who come before them nothing less than a fair contest, where every party has an equal chance to persuade the court of its interpretation of the law's demands. One can hope that THE CHIEF JUSTICE is right, and that whether we formally overrule

 Auer

 or merely neuter it, the results in most cases will prove the same. But means, not just ends, matter, and retaining even this debilitated version of

 Auer

 threatens to force litigants and lower courts to jump through needless and perplexing new hoops and in the process deny the people the independent judicial decisions they deserve. All to what end? So that we may

 pretend

 to abide

 stare decisis

 ?

 Consider this case. Mr. Kisor is a Marine who lost out on benefits for post-traumatic stress disorder when the court of appeals deferred to a regulatory interpretation

 *2426

 advanced by the Department of Veterans Affairs. The court of appeals was guilty of nothing more than faithfully following

 Auer

 . But the majority today invokes

 stare decisis

 , of all things, to vacate that judgment and tell the court of appeals to try again using its newly retooled, multi-factored, and far less determinate version of

 Auer

 . Respectfully, I would stop this business of making up excuses for judges to abdicate their job of interpreting the law, and simply allow the court of appeals to afford Mr. Kisor its best independent judgment of the law's meaning.

 The Court's failure to be done with

 Auer

 , and its decision to adorn

 Auer

 with so many new and ambiguous limitations, all but guarantees we will have to pass this way again. When that day comes, I hope this Court will find the nerve it lacks today and inter

 Auer

 at last. Until then, I hope that our judicial colleagues on other courts will take courage from today's ruling and realize that it has transformed

 Auer

 into a paper tiger.

 I. How We Got Here

 Where did

 Auer

 come from? Not from the Constitution, some ancient common law tradition, or even a modern statute. Instead, it began as an unexplained aside in a decision about emergency price controls at the height of the Second World War. Even then, the dictum sat on the shelf, little noticed, for years. Only in the last few decades of the 20th century did lawyers and courts really begin to dust it off and shape it into the reflexive rule of deference to regulatory agencies we know today. And they did so without ever pausing to consider whether a rule like that could be legally justified or even made sense.

 Auer

 is really little more than an accident.

 A

 Before the mid-20th century, few federal agencies engaged in extensive rulemaking, and those that did rarely sought deference for their regulatory interpretations.

 3

 But when the question arose, this Court did not hesitate to say that judges reviewing administrative action should decide all questions of law, including questions concerning the meaning of regulations. As Justice BRANDEIS put it, "[t]he inexorable safeguard which the due process clause assures is ... that there will be opportunity for a court to determine whether the applicable rules of law ... were observed."

 4

 Unsurprisingly, the government's early, longstanding, and consistent interpretation of a statute, regulation, or other legal instrument could count as powerful

 evidence

 of its original public meaning.

 5

 But courts respected executive interpretations only because and to the extent "they embodied understandings made roughly contemporaneously with ... enactment and stably maintained and practiced since that time," not "because they were executive as such."

 6

 *2427

 Writing for four Members of the Court, Justice KAGAN suggests that

 Auer

 's very different approach to the interpretation of agency regulations was foreshadowed as early as this Court's 1898 decision in

 United States

 v.

 Eaton

 .

 7

 Ante

 , at ----. But this is mistaken. The question in that case was whether Mr. Eaton's appointment as temporary vice-consul to Siam was consistent with State Department regulations. After several pages of careful and independent legal analysis, the Court held that the regulations did authorize the appointment. That conclusion, the Court explained, was "rendered necessary by a consideration of the text."

 8

 Only

 after

 reaching this conclusion did the Court observe that the State Department had previously adopted the same construction, noting along the way that the Department's views were "entitled to the greatest weight" and that the Court saw "no reason in this case to doubt [their] correctness."

 9

 Eaton

 thus simply followed the well-worn path of acknowledging that an agency's interpretation of a regulation can supply

 evidence

 of its meaning.

 10

 Nowhere did the Court even hint that it would have deferred to the State Department's views about the meaning of the law if its own independent textual analysis had not led it to the same conclusion.

 All this is borne out by the Court's later teachings in

 Skidmore

 v.

 Swift & Co.

 in 1944.

 11

 The question there was whether the time overnight employees spent waiting to respond to fire alarms could amount to compensable overtime under the Fair Labor Standards Act. The lower courts had held as a matter of law that it could not. In an opinion by Justice JACKSON, this Court reversed. The Court first held, based on its own independent analysis, that "no principle of law found either in the statute or in Court decisions precludes waiting time from also being working time."

 12

 Only then did the Court consider "what, if any, deference courts should pay" to the views of the Administrator of the Labor Department's Wage and Hour Division.

 13

 And on that question the Court reaffirmed the traditional rule that an agency's interpretation of the law is "not controlling upon the courts" and is entitled only to a weight proportional to "the thoroughness evident in its consideration, the validity of its reasoning, its consistency with earlier and later pronouncements, and all those factors which give it power to persuade."

 14

 At the time, the influential

 *2428

 administrative law scholar Kenneth Culp Davis considered this "[a]n entirely reliable statement" of the law.

 15

 B

 In truth, the seeds of the

 Auer

 doctrine were first planted only in 1945, in

 Bowles

 v.

 Seminole Rock & Sand Co.

 16

 That case involved regulations issued by the Office of Price Administration (OPA), which Congress had tasked with stabilizing the national economy during the Second World War through the use of emergency price controls. It was in that context that the Court declared-for the first time and without citing any authority-that "if the meaning of [the regulation were] in doubt," the agency's interpretation would merit "controlling weight unless it is plainly erroneous or inconsistent with the regulation."

 17

 Yet even then it was far from clear how much weight the Court really placed on the agency's interpretation. As it had in

 Eaton

 , the Court in

 Seminole Rock

 began with an extended discussion of "the plain words of the regulation," which led it to conclude that the text "clearly" supported the government's position.

 18

 Only after reaching that conclusion based on its own independent analysis did the Court proceed to add that "[a]ny doubts ... are removed by reference to the administrative construction."

 19

 So confused was all this that readers at the time didn't perceive

 Seminole Rock

 's dictum as changing anything. Professor Davis observed that the Court's discussion about giving "controlling weight" to the agency's interpretation was an unexplained aside that made no difference to the case's outcome.

 20

 The dictum, too, was readily explained as reflecting the unusual factual context in which the case arose, involving an emergency government program created to deal with "unique circumstances of war and economic depression."

 21

 And the Court decided

 Seminole Rock

 the same Term it issued

 Skidmore

 , where it reaffirmed the traditional rule that an agency's views about the law may

 persuade

 a court but can never

 control

 its judgment. In fact, the Court in

 Seminole Rock

 was careful to note that the OPA interpretation before it bore many of the characteristics

 Skidmore

 would have recognized as increasing its persuasive force: It had been announced concurrently with the regulation, disseminated widely to the regulated community, and adhered to consistently by the agency.

 22

 *2429

 No wonder, then, that for many years after the decision, courts "connected

 Seminole Rock

 more closely with the deference framework ... under

 Skidmore

 " and generally engaged in a

 Skidmore

 -type analysis, accepting the agency's interpretation "only after independently examining the regulation and concluding that the agency interpretation was sound."

 23

 If

 Seminole Rock

 's "controlling weight" dictum was afforded any force, it was usually only in the price control context; even then it was ordinarily extended only to "official" agency interpretations that were published contemporaneously with the regulation and widely distributed.

 24

 The Fourth Circuit exemplified the early understanding of

 Seminole Rock

 when it observed-citing both

 Seminole Rock

 and

 Skidmore

 -that "under settled principles" an official agency interpretation in an opinion letter was entitled only to "respectful consideration."

 25

 The letter, the court stressed, did not "have the effect of law," and "[i]t would be absurd to hold that the courts must subordinate their judgment as to the meaning of a ... regulation to the mere unsupported opinion of an associate counsel in an administrative department."

 26

 C

 This Court did not cite

 Seminole Rock

 's "controlling weight" dictum again until 1965, in

 Udall

 v.

 Tallman

 .

 27

 And though

 Tallman

 "did very little to advance the jurisprudential understanding of

 Seminole Rock

 ," it certainly helped fuel the expansion of so-called "

 Seminole Rock

 deference."

 28

 From the 1960s on, this Court and lower courts began to cite the

 Seminole Rock

 dictum with increasing frequency and in a wider variety of circumstances, but still without much explanation. They also increasingly divorced

 Seminole Rock

 from

 Skidmore

 .

 29

 Auer

 represents the apotheosis of this line of cases. In the name of what some now call the

 Auer

 doctrine, courts have in recent years "mechanically applied and reflexively treated"

 Seminole Rock

 's dictum "as a constraint upon the careful inquiry that one might ordinarily expect of courts engaged in textual analysis."

 30

 Under

 Auer

 , judges are forced to subordinate their own views about what the law means to those of a political actor, one who may even be a party to the litigation before the court. After all, if the court agrees that the agency's reading is the best one,

 Auer

 does no real work; the doctrine matters only when a court would conclude that the agency's interpretation is

 not

 the best or fairest reading of the regulation.

 To be sure, Justice KAGAN paints a very different picture of

 Auer

 , asking us to imagine it riding to the rescue only in cases where the scales of justice are evenly balanced between two equally persuasive readings. But that's a fantasy: "If nature knows of such equipoise in legal arguments,

 *2430

 the courts at least do not."

 31

 In the real world the judge uses his traditional interpretive toolkit, full of canons and tiebreaking rules, to reach a decision about the best and fairest reading of the law. Of course, there are close cases and reasonable judges will sometimes disagree. But every day, in courts throughout this country, judges manage with these traditional tools to reach conclusions about the meaning of statutes, rules of procedure, contracts, and the Constitution. Yet when it comes to interpreting federal regulations,

 Auer

 displaces this process and requires judges instead to treat the agency's interpretation as controlling even when it is "not ... the best one."

 32

 If that were not troubling enough,

 Auer

 has also become "a doctrine of uncertain scope and application."

 33

 This Court has never offered meaningful guidance on how to decide whether the agency's reading is "reasonable" enough to demand judicial deference-and lower courts have drawn that line in wildly different places.

 34

 Deepening the confusion, this Court and lower courts have, over time, tried to soften

 Auer

 's rigidity by declaring that it "might" not apply in some ill-defined circumstances, such as when the agency's interpretation "conflicts with a prior interpretation" or reflects a "convenient litigating position" or a "

 post hoc

 rationalization" for past agency action.

 35

 All this has resulted in "widespread confusion" about when and how to apply

 Auer

 deference.

 36

 In light of

 Auer

 's many problems, it should come as no surprise that several Members of this Court,

 37

 along with a great many lower court judges

 38

 and

 *2431

 members of the legal academy,

 39

 have questioned

 Auer

 's validity and pleaded with this Court to reconsider it.

 D

 That's where things stood when James Kisor asked the Department of Veterans Affairs to reopen his disability benefits claim. Mr. Kisor served as a United States Marine from 1962 through 1966 and saw combat in Vietnam. In the early 1980s, a VA counselor observed that Mr. Kisor was battling depression and suicidal thoughts and suggested he might be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. In light of this, Mr. Kisor filed a claim for disability benefits in 1982. But, in the end, the VA denied the claim.

 In 2006, Mr. Kisor sought to reopen the matter. In connection with that request, he presented new evidence, including a psychiatrist's report diagnosing him with PTSD and additional records documenting his service in Vietnam. The VA reopened Mr. Kisor's claim and granted him disability benefits effective June 5, 2006, the date he had submitted his new request. Mr. Kisor argued that a VA regulation entitled him to an earlier effective date for disability benefits, one tracing back to his original submission in 1982. But the Board of Veterans Appeals concluded that the applicable regulation didn't authorize that relief.

 Mr. Kisor appealed the Board's ruling all the way to the Federal Circuit, arguing that the Board had misinterpreted the relevant regulation. The Federal Circuit affirmed. Relying on the

 Auer

 doctrine, the court held that it had no choice but to treat the Board's interpretation as " 'controlling' " unless that interpretation was " 'plainly erroneous or inconsistent with the regulatio[n].' "

 40

 Without even trying to determine who had the better reading of the regulation, the Board or Mr. Kisor, the court declared that "[t]he Board's interpretation does not strike us as either plainly erroneous or inconsistent with the VA's regulatory framework."

 41

 Case closed.

 Mr. Kisor sought and was denied rehearing en banc. Three judges dissented and joined those who have questioned "the logic behind continued adherence to the [

 Auer

 ] doctrine"; they argued that, without

 Auer

 deference, Mr. Kisor's reading of the regulation would likely prevail.

 42

 Mr. Kisor then asked us to grant certiorari to reconsider

 Auer

 . Thinking it past time to do so, we granted the petition.

 43

 *2432

 II. The Administrative Procedure Act

 When this Court speaks about the rules governing judicial review of federal agency action, we are not (or shouldn't be) writing on a blank slate or exercising some common-law-making power. We are supposed to be applying the Administrative Procedure Act. The APA is a "seminal" statute that Congress wrote to define the relationship between courts and agencies.

 44

 Some have even described it as a kind of constitution for our "administrative state." Yet, remarkably, until today this Court has never made any serious effort to square the

 Auer

 doctrine with the APA. Even now, only four Justices make the attempt. And for at least two reasons, their arguments are wholly unpersuasive.

 A

 The first problem lies in § 706. That provision instructs reviewing courts to "decide all relevant questions of law" and "set aside agency action ... found to be ... not in accordance with law."

 45

 Determining the meaning of a statute or regulation, of course, presents a classic legal question. But in case these directives were not clear enough, the APA further directs courts to "determine the meaning" of any relevant "agency action," including any rule issued by the agency.

 46

 The APA thus requires a reviewing court to resolve for itself any dispute over the proper interpretation of an agency regulation. A court that, in deference to an agency, adopts something other than the best reading of a regulation isn't "decid[ing]" the relevant "questio[n] of law" or "determin[ing] the meaning" of the regulation. Instead, it's allowing the agency to dictate the answer to that question. In doing so, the court is abdicating the duty Congress assigned to it in the APA.

 47

 Justice KAGAN seeks to address the glaring inconsistency between our judge-made rule and the controlling statute this way. On her account, the APA tells a reviewing court to "determine the meaning" of regulations, but it does not tell the court "

 how

 " to do that. Thus, we are told, reading the regulation for itself and deferring to the agency's reading are just two equally valid ways for a court to fulfill its statutory duty to "determine the meaning" of the regulation.

 Ante

 , at 2419 - 2420.

 But the APA isn't as anemic as that. Its unqualified command requires the court to determine legal questions-including questions about a regulation's meaning-by its own lights, not by those of political appointees or bureaucrats who may even be self-interested litigants in the case at hand. Nor can there be any doubt that, when Congress wrote the APA, it knew perfectly well how to require judicial deference to an agency when it wished-in fact, Congress repeatedly specified deferential standards for judicial review

 elsewhere

 in the statute.

 48

 But when it comes to the business of

 *2433

 interpreting regulations, no such command exists; instead, Congress told courts to "determine" those matters for themselves. Though one hardly needs to be an academic to recognize the point, "commentators in administrative law have 'generally acknowledged' that Section 706 seems to require de novo review on questions of law."

 49

 What the statutory language suggests, experience confirms. If

 Auer

 deference were really just another way for courts to "determine the meaning" of regulations under § 706, you might expect that a final judicial "determination" would at least settle, as a matter of precedent, the question of what the regulation "means." Of course, even after one court has spoken on a regulation's meaning, that court or another might properly give weight to a new agency interpretation as part of the court's own decision-making process. See

 supra

 , at 6. But in light of

 National Cable & Telecommunications Assn.

 v.

 Brand X Internet Services

 ,

 50

 courts have interpreted

 Auer

 as forbidding a court from ever "determin[ing] the meaning" of a regulation with the force that normally attaches to precedent, because an agency is always free to adopt a different view and insist on judicial deference to its new judgment.

 51

 And if an agency can not only control the court's initial decision but also revoke that decision at any time, how can anyone honestly say the court, rather than the agency, ever really "determine[s]" what the regulation means?

 To test the point further, consider a statute that tells a court to "determin[e]" an appropriate sentence in a criminal case.

 52

 If the judge said he was sending a defendant to prison for longer than he believed appropriate only in deference to the government's "reasonable" sentencing recommendation, would anyone really think that complied with the law? Or take a statute that instructs a court to "determine" whether a consent judgment proposed by the government in a civil antitrust

 *2434

 case "is in the public interest."

 53

 If a court thought the proposed judgment harmful to the public but decided to defer to the government's "reasonable" contrary view anyway, would anyone suggest the court had complied with Congress's instruction?

 Nor does Justice KAGAN's reading of § 706 offer any logical stopping point. If courts can "determine the meaning" of a regulation by deferring to any "reasonable" agency reading, then why not by deferring to

 any

 agency reading? If it were really true that the APA has nothing to say about

 how

 courts decide what regulations mean, then it would follow that the APA tolerates a rule that "the agency is always right." And if you find yourself in a place as absurd as that, you might want to consider whether you've taken a wrong turn along the way.

 B

 The problems don't end there.

 Auer

 is also incompatible with the APA's instructions in § 553. That provision requires agencies to follow notice-and-comment procedures when issuing or amending legally binding regulations (what the APA calls "substantive rules"), but not when offering mere interpretations of those regulations.

 54

 An agency wishing to adopt or amend a binding regulation thus must publish a proposal in the Federal Register, give interested members of the public an opportunity to submit written comments on the proposal, and consider those comments before issuing the final regulation. Under the APA, that regulation then carries the force of law unless and until it is amended or repealed.

 55

 By contrast, an agency can announce an interpretation of an existing substantive regulation without advance warning and in pretty much whatever form it chooses.

 Auer

 effectively nullifies the distinction Congress drew here. Under

 Auer

 , courts must treat as "controlling" not only an agency's duly promulgated rules but also its mere interpretations-even ones that appear only in a legal brief, press release, or guidance document issued without affording the public advance notice or a chance to comment. For all practical purposes, "the new interpretation might as well be a new regulation."

 56

 Auer

 thus obliterates a distinction Congress thought vital and supplies agencies with a shortcut around the APA's required procedures for issuing and amending substantive rules that bind the public with the full force and effect of law.

 57

 Think of it this way. We've held that the Constitution's specification of a "single, finely wrought" procedure for the enactment of statutes (bicameralism and presentment) necessarily implies that Congress cannot amend an enacted statute without following that procedure-say, by allowing a single House to change what the law requires.

 58

 By the same logic, Congress's specification in the APA of procedures for the creation of new substantive rules (like notice and comment) necessarily implies that an agency cannot amend a substantive

 *2435

 rule without following those procedures. To hold otherwise, as

 Auer

 demands, subverts the APA's design.

 Certain

 amici

 contend this argument is "out of place" in this particular case because the VA happened to issue the interpretation challenged here in an adjudicative proceeding.

 59

 But the premise on which they proceed-that the APA permits agencies to issue "controlling" amendments to their regulations in adjudicative proceedings-is not correct. Once an agency issues a substantive rule through notice and comment, it can amend that rule only by following the same notice-and-comment procedures.

 60

 Whether an agency issues its interpretation in a press release or something it chooses to call an "adjudication," all we have is the agency's opinion about what an existing rule means, something that the APA tells us is

 not

 binding in a court of law or on the American people.

 If that won't work, Justice KAGAN tries an alternative argument from nearly the opposite direction. She replies that affording

 Auer

 deference to an agency's interpretation of its own rules never offends the APA because the agency's interpretation lacks "the force of law" associated with substantive rules. Agency interpretations lack this force, we are told, because a court always retains the power to decide at least whether the interpretation is entitled to deference.

 Ante

 , at 2420 - 2421. But this argument rests on an implausibly narrow understanding of what it means for an agency action to bear the force of law. Under Justice KAGAN's logic, even a binding substantive rule would lack the force of law because a court retains the power to decide whether the rule is arbitrary and capricious and thus invalid under the APA. But no one believes that. While an agency interpretation, just like a substantive rule, "must meet certain conditions before it gets deference," "once it does so [

 Auer

 makes it] every bit as binding as a substantive rule."

 61

 To suggest that

 Auer

 does not make an agency's interpretive guidance "binding o[n] anyone,"

 ante

 , at 2420 - 2421, is linguistic hocus-pocus.

 C

 If

 Auer

 cannot be squared with the text of the APA, Justice KAGAN suggests it at least conforms to a reasonable "presumption about congressional intent."

 Ante

 , at 2412. The theory seems to be that whenever Congress grants an agency "rulemaking power," it

 also

 implicitly gives the agency " 'the power authoritatively to interpret' " whatever rules the agency chooses to adopt.

 Ante

 , at 2412. But against the clear statutory commands Congress gave us in the APA, what sense does it make to "presume" that Congress really, secretly, wanted courts to treat agency interpretations as binding? Normally, this Court does not allow hidden legislative intentions to "muddy" such plainly expressed statutory directives.

 62

 Even on its own terms, too, this argument proves pretty muddy. It goes something like this: The drafters of the APA did not intend to " 'significantly alter' " established law governing judicial review of agency action as of 1946; the

 Auer

 doctrine was part of that established law; therefore, the APA implicitly requires

 *2436

 courts to afford agencies

 Auer

 deference.

 Ante

 , at 2419 - 2420. But neither of this syllogism's essential premises stands on solid ground.

 Take the major premise-that those who adopted the APA intended to work no change in the established law of judicial review of agency action. Justice KAGAN is right, of course, that Attorney General Clark claimed as much shortly after the APA's passage.

 Ante

 , at 2419 - 2420. But his view, which reflected the interests of the executive branch, was far from universally shared. Others, including many members of Congress, thought the APA would clarify, if not expand, the scope of judicial review. For example, Senator McCarran, the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, wrote that it would be "hard ... for anyone to argue that this Act did anything other than cut down the 'cult of discretion' so far as federal law is concerned."

 63

 And both the House and Senate reports on the APA said it was intended to "provid[e] that questions of law are for courts rather than agencies to decide in the last analysis."

 64

 Just five years after the APA's passage, this Court seemed to side with those who thought the APA was intended to do more than just summarize existing law. In an opinion by Justice FRANKFURTER, the Court opined that the APA required courts to assume "

 more

 responsibility" for reviewing agency decisions "than some courts ha[d] shown in the past."

 65

 One early commentator likewise observed that the APA seemed designed to eliminate all doubt that questions of law "shall be decided by the reviewing Court for itself, and in the exercise of its own independent judgment"; "[m]ore explicit words to impose this mandate," he thought, "could hardly be found."

 66

 Justice KAGAN's syllogism runs into even more trouble with its minor premise-that the

 Auer

 doctrine was a well-established part of the common law background when Congress enacted the APA in 1946. As we've seen, this Court planted the seeds of

 Auer

 deference for the first time in dictum in

 Seminole Rock

 , just a year before Congress passed the APA. See Part I-B,

 supra

 . And that dictum did not somehow immediately become an entrenched part of the common law: For years following

 Seminole Rock

 , courts and "commentators largely ignored" it,

 67

 and those who took notice weren't sure what to make of it. Professor Davis, for example, doubted that the dictum could be "taken at face value" given that it seemed "irreconcilable" with the Court's approach in other cases.

 68

 In truth, when Congress passed the APA the law of judicial review of agency action was in a confused state. During

 *2437

 the congressional hearings on the bill, one witness's suggestion that Congress should leave the scope of judicial review "as it now is" drew this fair reply from Representative Walter, chairman of the House Subcommittee on Administrative Law and author of the House Report on the APA: "You say 'as it now is.' Frankly, I do not know what it now is .... [T]he Supreme Court apparently changes its mind daily."

 69

 III. The Constitution

 Not only is

 Auer

 incompatible with the APA; it also sits uneasily with the Constitution. Article III, § 1 provides that the "judicial Power of the United States" is vested exclusively in this Court and the lower federal courts. A core component of that judicial power is " 'the duty of interpreting [the laws] and applying them in cases properly brought before the courts.' "

 70

 As Chief Justice MARSHALL put it, "[i]t is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is."

 71

 And never, this Court has warned, should the "judicial power ... be shared with [the] Executive Branch."

 72

 Yet that seems to be exactly what

 Auer

 requires.

 A

 Our Nation's founders were painfully aware of the dangers of executive and legislative intrusion on judicial decision-making. One of the abuses of royal power that led to the American Revolution was King George's attempt to gain influence over colonial judges.

 73

 Colonial legislatures, too, had interfered with the courts' independence "at the behest of private interests and factions."

 74

 These experiences had taught the founders that " 'there is no liberty if the power of judgment be not separated from the legislative and executive powers.' "

 75

 They knew that when political actors are left free not only to adopt and enforce written laws, but also to control the interpretation of those laws, the legal rights of "litigants with unpopular or minority causes or ... who belong to despised or suspect classes" count for little.

 76

 *2438

 Maybe the powerful, well-heeled, popular, and connected can wheedle favorable outcomes from a system like that-but what about everyone else? They are left always a little unsure what the law is, at the mercy of political actors and the shifting winds of popular opinion, and without the chance for a fair hearing before a neutral judge. The rule of law begins to bleed into the rule of men.

 Experiencing all this in their own time, the founders sought to ensure that those who came after them would not. Believing that "[n]o maxim was better established" than "that the power of making ought to be kept distinct from that of expounding, the laws,"

 77

 they designed a judiciary that would be able to interpret the laws "free from potential domination by other branches of government."

 78

 To that end, they resisted proposals that would have subjected judicial decisions to review by political actors.

 79

 And they rejected the British tradition of using the upper house of the legislature as a court of last resort, out of fear that a body with "even a partial agency in passing bad laws" would operate under the "same spirit" in "interpreting them."

 80

 Instead, they gave federal judges life tenure, subject only to removal by impeachment; and they guaranteed that the other branches could not reduce judges' compensation so long as they remained in office.

 The founders afforded these extraordinary powers and protections not for the comfort of judges, but so that an independent judiciary could better guard the people from the arbitrary use of governmental power. And sitting atop the judicial branch, this Court has always carried a special duty to "jealously guar[d]" the Constitution's promise of judicial independence.

 81

 So we have long resisted any effort by the other branches to " 'usurp a court's power to interpret and apply the law to the circumstances before it.' "

 82

 The judicial power to interpret the law, this Court has held, "can no more be shared with another branch than the Chief Executive, for example, can share with the Judiciary the veto power, or the Congress share with the Judiciary the power to override a Presidential veto."

 83

 Auer

 represents no trivial threat to these foundational principles. Under the APA, substantive rules issued by federal agencies through notice-and-comment procedures bear "the 'force and effect of law' "

 84

 and are part of the body of federal

 *2439

 law, binding on private individuals, that the Constitution charges federal judges with interpreting. Yet

 Auer

 tells the judge that he must interpret these binding laws to mean not what he thinks they mean, but what an executive agency says they mean. Unlike Article III judges, executive officials are not, nor are they supposed to be, "wholly impartial."

 85

 They have their own interests, their own constituencies, and their own policy goals-and when interpreting a regulation, they may choose to "press the case for the side [they] represen[t]" instead of adopting the fairest and best reading.

 86

 Auer

 thus means that, far from being "kept distinct," the powers of making, enforcing, and interpreting laws are united in the same hands-and in the process a cornerstone of the rule of law is compromised.

 Consider an analogy. The Court has long held that Congress cannot " 'indirectly control the action of the courts, by requiring of them a construction of the law according to its own views.' "

 87

 If Congress disagrees with how courts are interpreting an existing statute, it is free to amend the statute to establish a different rule going forward. What it cannot do is issue "a mandate ... to compel the courts to construe and apply [existing law], not according to the judicial, but according to the legislative judgment."

 88

 As early as 1804, when a lawyer argued before this Court that an Act of the North Carolina legislature could not control the Court's construction of an earlier North Carolina statute because "[t]o declare what the law is, or has been, is a judicial power," not a legislative power, the Court stopped him, deeming the point too plain for argument.

 89

 But if the legislature can't control a judge's interpretation of an existing statute, how can an executive agency control a judge's interpretation of an existing and equally binding regulation?

 Auer

 allows an agency to do exactly what this Court has always said a legislature cannot do: "compel the courts to construe and apply" a law on the books, "not according to the judicial ... judgment," but according to the judgment of another branch.

 90

 When we defer to an agency interpretation that differs from what we believe to be the best interpretation of the law, we compromise our judicial independence and deny the people who come before us the impartial judgment that the Constitution guarantees them. And we mislead those whom we serve by placing a judicial

 imprimatur

 on what is, in fact, no more than an exercise of raw political executive power.

 91

 B

 What do our colleagues have to say about these concerns? A majority has

 *2440

 nothing to offer, and Justice KAGAN dismisses them out of hand. In fact, she barely mentions the Constitution, other than to assure us that

 Auer

 does not allow agencies to "usur[p] the interpretive role of courts" because "courts retain a firm grip on the interpretive function" through their ability to decide whether

 Auer

 deference applies.

 Ante

 , at 2421. But that is no assurance at all. The judicial power has always been understood to provide the people with a neutral arbiter who bears the responsibility and duty to "expound and interpret" the governing law, not just the power to say whether

 someone else's

 interpretation, let alone the interpretation of a self-interested political actor, is "reasonable."

 92

 To be sure, it's conceivable that Congress might seek to limit the ability of judges to remedy an adverse agency action. It might, for example, provide that a court shall have power to set aside agency action pursuant to a regulation only if the action was based on an unreasonable interpretation of the regulation. But even assuming the constitutionality of a hypothetical statute like that,

 Auer

 is different. It does not

 limit

 the scope of the judicial power; instead, it seeks to

 coopt

 the judicial power by requiring an Article III judge to decide a case before him according to principles that he believes do not accurately reflect the law. Under

 Auer

 , a judge is required to lay aside his independent judgment and declare affirmatively that a regulation

 means

 what the agency

 says

 it means-and, thus, that the law

 is

 what the agency

 says

 it is. Then the judge is compelled to exercise his judicial authority to adjust private rights and obligations based on the agency's (mis)understanding of the law. If

 Auer

 were a statute, it would not be an exercise of Congress's "power (within limits) to tell the courts what

 classes

 of cases they may decide," or what relief they may supply, but a forbidden attempt "to prescribe or superintend

 how

 they decide those cases."

 93

 And in the absence of any statute like that, this Court surely should not so freely give away to the executive branch its assigned responsibility to interpret the laws. "Abdication of responsibility is not part of the constitutional design."

 94

 In the end, Justice KAGAN's only real reply is this: However misguided it may be to hand over our interpretive powers to executive agencies, at least there isn't a mountain of empirical evidence showing that agencies have used this power to deliberately write "vague and open-ended" regulations to maximize their interpretive leeway.

 Ante

 , at 2421. But even this misses the point. Whether or not regulations are " 'designed' " to be vague,

 ibid.

 , many can be read in different ways, especially when new and unanticipated applications arise; cases like that come before the courts all the time. Without

 Auer

 's shadow hanging over them, parties would receive a fair hearing before an impartial judge. The agency's interpretation would sometimes be rejected; and that, in turn, might lead it to solicit public comment on possible amendments to the regulation, which would provide an opportunity for public input that might produce better policy. But with

 Auer

 , there is no fair hearing and no need for the agency to amend the regulation through notice and comment. Whether purposeful or not, the agency's failure to write a clear regulation winds up increasing

 *2441

 its power, allowing it to both write and interpret rules that bear the force of law-in the process uniting powers the Constitution deliberately separated and denying the people their right to an independent judicial determination of the law's meaning.

 IV. Policy Arguments

 Lacking support elsewhere, Justice KAGAN is forced to resort to policy arguments to defend

 Auer

 . But even the most sensible policy argument would not empower us to ignore the plain language of the APA or the demands of the Constitution. And as we've seen, those documents reflect a very different "policy" judgment by the people and their representatives. Besides, the policy arguments offered today are not just unpersuasive, they are troubling.

 Take the first and boldest offering. Justice KAGAN suggests that determining the meaning of a regulation is largely a matter of figuring out what the "person who wrote it ... intended."

 Ante

 , at 2412. In this way, we're told, a legally binding regulation isn't all that different from "a memo or an e-mail"-if you "[w]ant to know what [it] means," you'd better "[a]sk its author."

 Ante

 , at 2412 - 2413. But the federal government's substantive rules are not like memos or e-mails; they are binding edicts that carry the force of law for all citizens. And if the rule of law means anything, it means that we are governed by the public meaning of the words found in statutes and regulations, not by their authors' private intentions. This is a vital part of what it means to have "a government of laws, and not of men."

 95

 When judges interpret a regulation, what we are trying to get at, as Justice HOLMES explained long ago, is not the "particular intent" of those who wrote it, but "what [its] words would mean [to] a normal speaker of English ... in the circumstances in which they were used."

 96

 If the best reading of the regulation turns out to be something other than what the agency claims to have intended, the agency is free to rewrite the regulation; but its secret intentions are not the law.

 Nor does Justice KAGAN's account of the interpretive process even wind up supporting

 Auer

 . If a court's goal in interpreting a regulation really were to determine what its author "intended,"

 Auer

 would be an almost complete mismatch with the goal. Agency personnel change over time, and an agency's policy priorities may shift dramatically from one presidential administration to another. Yet

 Auer

 tells courts that they must defer to the agency's

 current

 view of what the regulation ought to mean, which may or may not correspond to the views of those who actually wrote it. If interpreting a regulation really were just like reading an e-mail,

 Auer

 would be like seeking guidance about the e-mail's meaning, years or decades later, from the latest user of the computer from which the e-mail was sent. We've repeatedly rejected that approach in the context of statutory interpretation. While Members of this Court sometimes disagree about the usefulness of

 pre-enactment

 legislative history, we all agree that legislators' statements about the meaning of an already-enacted statute are not "a legitimate tool of statutory interpretation,' " much less a

 *2442

 controlling one.

 97

 So why on earth would we give "controlling weight" to an agency's statements about the meaning of an already-promulgated regulation?

 Proceeding farther down this doubtful path, Justice KAGAN asserts that resolving ambiguities in a regulation "sounds more in policy than in law" and is thus a task more suited to executive officials than judges.

 Ante

 , at 2413. But this claim, too, contradicts a basic premise of our legal order: that we are governed not by the shifting whims of politicians and bureaucrats, but by written laws whose meaning is fixed and ascertainable-if not by all members of the public, then at least by lawyers who can advise them and judges who must apply the law to individual cases guided by the neutral principles found in our traditional tools of interpretation. The text of the regulation is treated

 as

 the law, and the agency's policy judgment has the force of law

 only

 insofar as it is embodied in the regulatory text. If "new issues demanding new policy calls" arise that aren't addressed in existing regulations,

 ante

 , at 2413, the solution is for the agency to promulgate new regulations using the notice-and-comment procedures set forth in the APA. But an agency has no warrant to compel judges to change the law to conform with the agency's current policy preferences.

 To be sure, during the period of

 Auer

 's ascendancy some suggested that the meaning of written law is always "radically indeterminate" and that judges expounding it are "for the most part, guided by policy-not text."

 98

 And in an environment like that it was perhaps thought a small step to conclude that, if legal disputes are going to be resolved on political grounds, then they ought to be resolved by real politicians in the executive branch rather than ersatz politicians on the bench. But the proposed cure proved worse than the disease. Arguments like these surrendered the judgment embodied in our Constitution and the APA that courts owe the people they serve their independent legal judgment about the law's meaning. Besides, we've long since come to realize that the real cure doesn't lie in turning judges into rubber stamps for politicians, but in redirecting the judge's interpretive task back to its roots, away from open-ended policy appeals and speculation about legislative intentions and toward the traditional tools of interpretation judges have employed for centuries to elucidate the law's original public meaning. Today it is even said that we judges are, to one degree or another, "all textualists now."

 99

 Pursuing a more modest tack, Justice KAGAN next suggests that

 Auer

 is justified by the respect due agencies' "technical" expertise.

 Ante

 , at 2413 - 2414. But no one doubts that courts should pay close attention to an expert agency's views on technical questions in its field. Just as a court "would want to know what John Henry Wigmore said about an issue of evidence law [or] what Arthur Corbin thought about a matter of contract law," so too should courts carefully consider what the Food and Drug Administration thinks about how its prescription drug safety regulations operate.

 100

 The fact remains, however,

 *2443

 that even agency experts "can be wrong; even Homer nodded."

 101

 Skidmore

 and the traditional approach it embodied recognized both of these facts of life long ago, explaining that, while courts should of course afford respectful consideration to the expert agency's views, they must remain open to competing expert and other evidence supplied in an adversarial setting. Respect for an agency's technical expertise demands no more.

 Justice KAGAN's final policy argument is that

 Auer

 promotes "consistency" and "uniformity" in the interpretation of regulations.

 Ante

 , at 2413 - 2414. If we let courts decide what regulations mean, she warns, they might disagree, and it might take some time for higher courts to resolve those disagreements. But consistency and uniformity are hardly grounds on which

 Auer

 's advocates should wish to fight. The judicial process is how we settle disputes about the meaning of written law, and our judicial system is more than capable of producing a single, uniform, and stable interpretation that will last until the regulation is amended or repealed. Meanwhile, under

 Auer

 courts often disagree about whether deference is warranted, see

 supra

 , at 2430 - 2431, and a regulation's "meaning" can be transformed with the stroke of a pen any time there is a new presidential administration. "Consistency," "uniformity," and stability in the law are hardly among

 Auer

 's crowning achievements.

 V.

 Stare Decisis

 In the end, a majority declines to endorse Justice KAGAN's arguments and insists only that, even if

 Auer

 is not "right and well-reasoned," we're stuck with it because of the respect due precedent.

 Ante

 , at 2423.

 But notice: While pretending to bow to

 stare decisis

 , the majority goes about reshaping our precedent in new and experimental ways. True, the majority admits, this Court has in the past accorded

 Auer

 deference " 'reflexive[ly],' " "without significant analysis of the underlying regulation" or "careful attention to [its] nature and context," and encouraged lower courts to do the same.

 Ante

 , at 2414. But no more. From now on, the majority says, not only must judges "exhaust all the 'traditional tools' of construction" to decide whether the agency's interpretation is "reasonable," they must also make "an independent inquiry into whether the character and context of the agency interpretation" justifies deference.

 Ante

 , at 2416. The majority candidly admits that it finds it impossible to "reduce" this new inquiry "to any exhaustive test," so it settles for laying out some "markers."

 Ante

 , at 2416 - 2417. What are the markers? We are told that courts should often-but not always-withhold deference from an interpretation offered by mid-level agency staff; often-but not always-withhold deference from a nontechnical, "prosaic-seeming" interpretation; often-but not always-withhold deference from an interpretation advanced for the first time in an

 amicus

 brief; and often-but not always-withhold deference from an interpretation that conflicts with an earlier one. See

 ante

 , at 2416 - 2418. The only certainty in all this is that the majority isn't really much moved by

 stare decisis

 ; everyone recognizes, to one degree or another, that

 Auer

 cannot stand. And between our remaining choices-continuing to make up new deference rules, or returning to the text of the APA and the approach to judicial review that prevailed for most of our history-the answer should have been easy.

 A

 There are serious questions about whether

 stare decisis

 should apply here at

 *2444

 all. To be sure,

 Auer

 's narrow holding about the meaning of the regulation at issue in that case may be entitled to

 stare decisis

 effect. The same may be true for the specific holdings in other cases where this Court has applied

 Auer

 deference. But does

 stare decisis

 extend beyond those discrete holdings and bind future Members of this Court to apply

 Auer

 's broader deference framework?

 It seems doubtful that

 stare decisis

 demands that much. We are not dealing with a precedent that purported to settle the meaning of a single statute or regulation or resolve a particular case. The

 Auer

 doctrine claims to do much more than that-to prescribe an interpretive methodology governing every future dispute over the meaning of every regulation. In other contexts, we do not regard statements in our opinions about such generally applicable interpretive methods, like the proper weight to afford historical practice in constitutional cases or legislative history in statutory cases, as binding future Justices with the full force of horizontal

 stare decisis

 .

 102

 Why, then, should we regard as binding

 Auer

 's statements about the weight to afford agencies' interpretations in regulatory cases? To the extent

 Auer

 purports to dictate "the interpretive inferences that future Justices must draw in construing statutes and regulations that the Court has never engaged," it may well "exceed the limits of stare decisis."

 103

 Even if our past expressions of support for

 Auer

 deference bear

 some

 precedential force, they certainly are not entitled (as the majority suggests,

 ante

 , at 2422 - 2423) to the special, heightened form of

 stare decisis

 we reserve for narrow statutory decisions. In contrast to precedents that fix the meaning of

 particular

 statutes and generate reliance interests in the process, the

 Auer

 doctrine is an abstract default rule of interpretive methodology that settles nothing of its own force. And this Court has recognized that it is "inconsistent with the Court's proper role" to insist that Congress exercise its legislative power to overturn such erroneous and judicially invented "default rule[s]."

 104

 That should be especially so here because

 Auer

 's default rule undermines judicial independence, which this Court has a special responsibility to defend.

 Nor is it entirely clear that Congress

 could

 overturn the

 Auer

 doctrine legislatively. The majority describes

 Auer

 as a "presumption" about how courts should interpret statutes granting rulemaking power to agencies.

 Ante

 , at 2414 -1215. Congress can, of course,

 rebut

 the presumption on a statute-by-statute basis, or even for all past statutes. But can Congress

 eliminate

 the

 Auer

 presumption for future statutes? Perhaps-but legislation like that would raise questions, which the majority does not address, about the ability of one Congress to entrench its preferences by attempting to control the interpretation of legislation enacted by future Congresses.

 105

 *2445

 We should not be in the business of tossing " 'balls ... into Congress's court,' "

 ante

 , at 2422, that would explode with constitutional questions if Congress tried to pick them up.

 B

 Even assuming for argument's sake that standard

 stare decisis

 considerations apply, they still do not require us to retain

 Auer

 . Even the majority implicitly recognizes this much, as it proceeds to vacate a lower court judgment that faithfully applied

 Auer

 and instruct that court to try again using the majority's new directions. If

 stare decisis

 allows us so freely to remodel

 Auer

 , it's hard to see on what account it might require us to retain it.

 We do not lightly overturn precedents, and we seek always to honor the thoughtful guidance of those who have preceded us. At the same time, everyone agrees that

 stare decisis

 is not an " 'inexorable command,' "

 106

 and this Court should not always remain bound to decisions whose "rationale no longer withstands 'careful analysis.' "

 107

 Recognizing the need for balance in this area, the Court has, over time, fashioned principles to guide our treatment of precedent. Those principles call on us to consider factors such as "the quality of [the precedent's] reasoning, the workability of the rule it established, its consistency with other related decisions, developments since the decision was handed down, and reliance on the decision."

 108

 As applied to

 Auer

 , all of these considerations weigh strongly in favor of bidding farewell to the doctrine rather than keeping it on life support.

 First

 , we've already seen that no persuasive rationale supports

 Auer

 . From its humble origins as an unexplained bit of dictum in a wartime case about emergency price controls, the

 Auer

 doctrine evolved into a rigid rule of deference-all without any serious attempt by this Court to rationalize it or reconcile it with the APA, the Constitution, or traditional modes of judicial review. See Part I,

 supra

 . Even its fiercest defenders acknowledge that "

 Auer

 deference has not remained static over time" and urge the Court to continue to "shape" and "refin[e]" the doctrine.

 109

 Today's decision attempts just such a "refinement" by hedging

 Auer

 with new qualifications and limitations. See

 ante

 , at 2414 - 2418. This shifting ground "undermin[es] the force of

 stare decisis

 ."

 110

 Second

 , today's ruling all but admits that

 Auer

 has not proved to be a workable standard. Even before this latest overhaul, uncertainty surrounding

 Auer

 's scope and application had caused many to question whether there was any "practical benefit" in continuing to apply

 Auer

 "rather than a less deferential but more flexible and

 *2446

 open-ended standard like

 Skidmore

 ."

 111

 See

 supra

 , at 2430 - 2431. Nor does the majority's kinder, gentler version of

 Auer

 promise to solve the problem. On the contrary, its newly mandated inquiry into the "character and context of the agency interpretation," which it admits cannot be reduced "to any exhaustive test,"

 ante

 , at 2416, seems destined only to compound the confusion. See

 supra

 , at 2444 - 2445. Many words come to mind to describe the tasks we assign lower court judges today, but "workable" is not among them.

 Third

 , the

 Auer

 doctrine is, as we have also already seen, out of step with how courts normally interpret written laws. When we interpret a regulation, we typically (at least when there is no agency say-so) proceed in the same way we would when interpreting any other written law: We "begin our interpretation of the regulation with its text" and, if the text is unclear, we "turn to other canons of interpretation" and tie-breaking rules to resolve the ambiguity.

 112

 And when we interpret an ambiguous

 statute

 , we never ask what current members of Congress think it means; in fact, we've held unanimously that legislators' post-enactment views about a statute's meaning are not even a " 'legitimate tool of statutory interpretation.' "

 113

 Affording "controlling weight" to regulators' post-promulgation views about the meaning of an ambiguous regulation is hard to square with these usual judicial practices.

 114

 Fourth

 , the explosive growth of the administrative state over the last half-century has exacerbated

 Auer

 's potential for mischief. When the Court first uttered its dictum in

 Seminole Rock

 , the administrative state was new and the APA was only a gleam in Congress's eye. Even 20 years later, when the Court began reviving the

 Seminole Rock

 dictum and turning it into a new deference doctrine, it was not yet apparent how pervasive the administrative state would become in the lives of ordinary Americans. Now, in the 21st century, "[t]he administrative state wields vast power and touches almost every aspect of daily life."

 115

 Among other things, it produces " 'reams of regulations' "

 116

 -so

 *2447

 many that they dwarf the statutes enacted by Congress. As of 2018, the Code of Federal Regulations filled 242 volumes and was about 185,000 pages long, almost quadruple the length of the most recent edition of the U. S. Code.

 117

 And agencies add thousands more pages of regulations every year. Whether you think this administrative fecundity is a good or a bad thing, it surely means that the cost of continuing to deny citizens an impartial judicial hearing on the meaning of disputed regulations has increased dramatically since this Court started down this road.

 Fifth

 ,

 Auer

 has generated no serious reliance interests. The only parties that might have relied on

 Auer

 's promise of deference are agencies that use

 post hoc

 interpretations to bypass the APA's notice-and-comment procedures. But this Court has never suggested that the convenience of government officials should count in the balance of

 stare decisis

 , especially when weighed against the interests of citizens in a fair hearing before an independent judge and a stable and knowable set of laws. In short, " '[t]he fact that [agencies] may view [

 Auer

 deference] as an entitlement does not establish the sort of reliance interest that could outweigh the countervailing interest' " of all citizens " 'in having their constitutional rights fully protected.' "

 118

 Coming closer to the mark, the majority worries that "abandoning

 Auer

 deference would cast doubt on many settled constructions" of regulations on which regulated parties might have relied.

 Ante

 , at 2406. But, again, decisions construing particular regulations might retain

 stare decisis

 effect even if the Court announced that it would no longer adhere to

 Auer

 's interpretive methodology. After all, decisions construing particular statutes continue to command respect even when the interpretive methods that led to those constructions fall out of favor. Besides, if the majority is correct that abandoning

 Auer

 would require revisiting regulatory constructions that were upheld based on

 Auer

 deference, the majority's revision of

 Auer

 will yield exactly the same result. There are innumerable lower court decisions that have followed this Court's lead and afforded

 Auer

 deference mechanically, without conducting the inquiry the Court now holds is required. Today's ruling casts no less doubt on the continuing validity of those decisions than we would if we simply moved on from

 Auer

 .

 *

 Overruling

 Auer

 would have taken us directly back to

 Skidmore

 , liberating courts to decide cases based on their independent judgment and "follow [the] agency's [view] only to the extent it is persuasive."

 119

 By contrast, the majority's attempt to remodel

 Auer

 's rule into a multi-step, multi-factor inquiry guarantees more uncertainty and much litigation. Proceeding in this convoluted way burdens our colleagues on the lower courts, who will have to spend time debating

 *2448

 deference that they could have spent interpreting disputed regulations. It also continues to deny the people who come before us the neutral forum for their disputes that they rightly expect and deserve.

 But this cloud may have a silver lining: The majority leaves

 Auer

 so riddled with holes that, when all is said and done, courts may find that it does not constrain their independent judgment any more than

 Skidmore

 . As reengineered,

 Auer

 requires courts to "exhaust all the 'traditional tools' of construction" before they even consider deferring to an agency.

 Ante

 , at 2415 - 2416. And those tools include all sorts of tie-breaking rules for resolving ambiguity even in the closest cases. Courts manage to make do with these tools in many other areas of the law, so one might hope they will hardly ever find them inadequate here. And if they do, they will now have to conduct a further inquiry that includes so few firm guides and so many cryptic "markers" that they will rarely, if ever, have to defer to an agency regulatory interpretation that differs from what they believe is the best and fairest reading.

 But whatever happens, this case hardly promises to be this Court's last word on

 Auer

 . If today's opinion ends up reducing

 Auer

 to the role of a tin god-officious, but ultimately powerless-then a future Court should candidly admit as much and stop requiring litigants and lower courts to pay token homage to it. Alternatively, if

 Auer

 proves more resilient, this Court should reassert its responsibility to say what the law is and afford the people the neutral forum for their disputes that they expect and deserve.

 Justice KAVANAUGH, with whom Justice ALITO joins, concurring in the judgment.

 I agree with Justice GORSUCH's conclusion that the

 Auer

 deference doctrine should be formally retired. I write separately to emphasize two points.

 First

 , I agree with THE CHIEF JUSTICE that "the distance between the majority and Justice GORSUCH is not as great as it may initially appear."

 Ante,

 at 2424 (opinion concurring in part). The majority's approach in Part II-B of its opinion closely resembles the argument advanced by the Solicitor General to "clarif[y] and narro[w]"

 Auer

 . Brief for Respondent 15. Importantly, the majority borrows from footnote 9 of this Court's opinion in

 Chevron

 to say that a reviewing court must "exhaust all the 'traditional tools' of construction" before concluding that an agency rule is ambiguous and deferring to an agency's reasonable interpretation.

 Ante,

 at 2443 (quoting

 Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc.

 ,

 467 U.S. 837

 , 843, n. 9,

 104 S.Ct. 2778

 ,

 81 L.Ed.2d 694

 (1984) ). If a reviewing court employs all of the traditional tools of construction, the court will almost always reach a conclusion about the best interpretation of the regulation at issue. After doing so, the court then will have no need to adopt or defer to an agency's contrary interpretation. In other words, the footnote 9 principle, taken seriously, means that courts will have no reason or basis to put a thumb on the scale in favor of an agency when courts interpret agency regulations.

 Formally rejecting

 Auer

 would have been a more direct approach, but rigorously applying footnote 9 should lead in most cases to the same general destination. Umpires in games at Wrigley Field do not defer to the Cubs manager's in-game interpretation of Wrigley's ground rules. So too here.

 To be sure, some cases involve regulations that employ broad and open-ended terms like "reasonable," "appropriate," "feasible," or "practicable." Those kinds of terms afford agencies broad policy discretion,

 *2449

 and courts allow an agency to reasonably exercise its discretion to choose among the options allowed by the text of the rule. But that is more

 State Farm

 than

 Auer

 . See

 Motor Vehicle Mfrs. Assn. of United States, Inc. v. State Farm Mut. Automobile Ins. Co.

 ,

 463 U.S. 29

 ,

 103 S.Ct. 2856

 ,

 77 L.Ed.2d 443

 (1983).

 In short, after today's decision, a judge should engage in appropriately rigorous scrutiny of an agency's interpretation of a regulation, and can simultaneously be appropriately deferential to an agency's reasonable policy choices within the discretion allowed by a regulation.

 Second

 , I also agree with THE CHIEF JUSTICE that "[i]ssues surrounding judicial deference to agency interpretations of their own regulations are distinct from those raised in connection with judicial deference to agency interpretations of statutes enacted by Congress."

 Ante,

 at 2425. Like THE CHIEF JUSTICE, "I do not regard the Court's decision" not to formally overrule

 Auer

 "

 to touch upon the latter question."

 Ibid.

 1

 In case you're wondering, the regulatory definition of active moiety is "[t]he molecule or ion, excluding those appended portions of the molecule that cause the drug to be an ester, salt (including a salt with hydrogen or coordination bonds), or the noncovalent derivative (such as a complex, chelate, or clathrate) of the molecule, responsible for the physiological or pharmacological action of the drug substance."

 21 C.F.R. § 314.3

 (b) (2018).

 2

 See,

 e.g.

 ,

 PLIVA, Inc. v. Mensing

 ,

 564 U.S. 604

 , 613,

 131 S.Ct. 2567

 ,

 180 L.Ed.2d 580

 (2011) ;

 Chase Bank USA, N. A. v. McCoy

 ,

 562 U.S. 195

 , 208-210,

 131 S.Ct. 871

 ,

 178 L.Ed.2d 716

 (2011) ;

 Coeur Alaska, Inc. v. Southeast Alaska Conservation Council

 ,

 557 U.S. 261

 , 274-275,

 129 S.Ct. 2458

 ,

 174 L.Ed.2d 193

 (2009) ;

 Riegel v. Medtronic, Inc.

 ,

 552 U.S. 312

 , 328,

 128 S.Ct. 999

 ,

 169 L.Ed.2d 892

 (2008) ;

 Long Island Care at Home, Ltd. v. Coke

 ,

 551 U.S. 158

 , 171,

 127 S.Ct. 2339

 ,

 168 L.Ed.2d 54

 (2007) ;

 Washington State Dept. of Social and Health Servs. v. Guardianship Estate of Keffeler

 ,

 537 U.S. 371

 , 387-388,

 123 S.Ct. 1017

 ,

 154 L.Ed.2d 972

 (2003).

 3

 Our (pre-

 Auer

 ) decisions applying

 Seminole Rock

 deference are legion. See,

 e.g.

 ,

 Shalala v. Guernsey Memorial Hospital

 ,

 514 U.S. 87

 , 94-95,

 115 S.Ct. 1232

 ,

 131 L.Ed.2d 106

 (1995) ;

 Thomas Jefferson Univ. v. Shalala

 ,

 512 U.S. 504

 , 512,

 114 S.Ct. 2381

 ,

 129 L.Ed.2d 405

 (1994) ;

 Stinson v. United States

 ,

 508 U.S. 36

 , 44-45,

 113 S.Ct. 1913

 ,

 123 L.Ed.2d 598

 (1993) ;

 INS v. National Center for Immigrants' Rights, Inc.

 ,

 502 U.S. 183

 , 189-190,

 112 S.Ct. 551

 ,

 116 L.Ed.2d 546

 (1991) ;

 Robertson v. Methow Valley Citizens Council

 ,

 490 U.S. 332

 , 358-359,

 109 S.Ct. 1835

 ,

 104 L.Ed.2d 351

 (1989) ;

 Mullins Coal Co. of Va. v. Director, Office of Workers' Compensation Programs

 ,

 484 U.S. 135

 , 159,

 108 S.Ct. 427

 ,

 98 L.Ed.2d 450

 (1987) ;

 Lyng v. Payne

 ,

 476 U.S. 926

 , 939,

 106 S.Ct. 2333

 ,

 90 L.Ed.2d 921

 (1986) ;

 Fidelity Fed. Sav. & Loan Assn. v. de la Cuesta

 ,

 458 U.S. 141

 , 158, n. 13,

 102 S.Ct. 3014

 ,

 73 L.Ed.2d 664

 (1982) ;

 Blanding v. DuBose

 ,

 454 U.S. 393

 , 401,

 102 S.Ct. 715

 ,

 70 L.Ed.2d 576

 (1982) (

 per curiam

 );

 Ford Motor Credit Co. v. Milhollin

 ,

 444 U.S. 555

 , 566,

 100 S.Ct. 790

 ,

 63 L.Ed.2d 22

 (1980) ;

 United States v. Larionoff

 ,

 431 U.S. 864

 , 872,

 97 S.Ct. 2150

 ,

 53 L.Ed.2d 48

 (1977) ;

 Northern Indiana Public Service Co. v. Porter County Chapter of Izaak Walton League of America, Inc.

 ,

 423 U.S. 12

 , 15,

 96 S.Ct. 172

 ,

 46 L.Ed.2d 156

 (1975) (

 per curiam

 );

 Ehlert v. United States

 ,

 402 U.S. 99

 , 105,

 91 S.Ct. 1319

 ,

 28 L.Ed.2d 625

 (1971) ;

 INS v. Stanisic

 ,

 395 U.S. 62

 , 72,

 89 S.Ct. 1519

 ,

 23 L.Ed.2d 101

 (1969) ;

 Thorpe v. Housing Authority of Durham

 ,

 393 U.S. 268

 , 276,

 89 S.Ct. 518

 ,

 21 L.Ed.2d 474

 (1969) ;

 Udall v. Tallman

 ,

 380 U.S. 1

 , 16-17,

 85 S.Ct. 792

 ,

 13 L.Ed.2d 616

 (1965).

 4

 The proper understanding of the scope and limits of the

 Auer

 doctrine is, of course, not set out in any of the opinions that concur only in the judgment.

 5

 For a similar reason, this Court has denied

 Auer

 deference when an agency interprets a rule that parrots the statutory text. See

 Gonzales v. Oregon

 ,

 546 U.S. 243

 , 257,

 126 S.Ct. 904

 ,

 163 L.Ed.2d 748

 (2006). An agency, we explained, gets no "special authority to interpret its own words when, instead of using its expertise and experience to formulate a regulation, it has elected merely to paraphrase the statutory language."

 Ibid.

 6

 The general rule, then, is not to give deference to agency interpretations advanced for the first time in legal briefs. See

 Bowen

 ,

 488 U.S. at 212 -213

 ,

 109 S.Ct. 468

 . But we have not entirely foreclosed that practice.

 Auer

 itself deferred to a new regulatory interpretation presented in an

 amicus curiae

 brief in this Court. There, the agency was not a party to the litigation, and had expressed its views only in response to the Court's request. "[I]n the circumstances," the Court explained, "[t]here [was] simply no reason to suspect that the interpretation [did] not reflect the agency's fair and considered judgment on the matter in question."

 Auer

 ,

 519 U.S. at 462

 ,

 117 S.Ct. 905

 .

 1

 519 U.S. 452

 ,

 117 S.Ct. 905

 ,

 137 L.Ed.2d 79

 (1997).

 2

 Larkin & Slattery, The World After

 Seminole Rock

 and

 Auer

 ,

 42 Harv. J. L. & Pub. Pol'y 625

 , 641 (2019) (internal quotation marks omitted).

 3

 See Knudsen & Wildermuth, Unearthing the Lost History of

 Seminole Rock

 ,

 65 Emory L. J. 47

 , 55, 65, 68 (2015) (Lost History).

 4

 St. Joseph Stock Yards Co. v. United States

 ,

 298 U.S. 38

 , 73,

 56 S.Ct. 720

 ,

 80 L.Ed. 1033

 (1936) (concurring opinion). See also

 FTC v. Gratz

 ,

 253 U.S. 421

 , 427,

 40 S.Ct. 572

 ,

 64 L.Ed. 993

 (1920) ;

 ICC v. Union Pacific R. Co.

 ,

 222 U.S. 541

 , 547,

 32 S.Ct. 108

 ,

 56 L.Ed. 308

 (1912) ;

 Belden v. Chase

 ,

 150 U.S. 674

 , 698,

 14 S.Ct. 264

 ,

 37 L.Ed. 1218

 (1893) ;

 Decatur v. Paulding

 ,

 14 Pet. 497

 , 515,

 39 U.S. 497

 ,

 10 L.Ed. 559

 (1840) ; accord, Woolhandler, Judicial Deference to Administrative Action-A Revisionist History,

 43 Admin. L. Rev. 197

 , 206-207 (1991).

 5

 Bamzai, The Origins of Judicial Deference to Executive Interpretation,

 126 Yale L. J. 908

 , 930-947 (2017) (Origins).

 6

 Id.

 , at 943, 962; cf.

 NLRB v. Noel Canning

 ,

 573 U.S. 513

 , 572-573,

 134 S.Ct. 2550

 ,

 189 L.Ed.2d 538

 (2014) (SCALIA, J., concurring in judgment) (an "open, widespread, and unchallenged" governmental practice can "guide [courts'] interpretation" of an ambiguous text, but it cannot "alter" the meaning of that text);

 Edward's Lessee

 v.

 Darby

 ,

 12 Wheat. 206

 , 210,

 6 L.Ed. 603

 (1827) ("In the construction of a doubtful and ambiguous law, the cotemporaneous construction of those who were called upon to act under the law, and were appointed to carry its provisions into effect, is entitled to very great respect").

 7

 169 U.S. 331

 ,

 18 S.Ct. 374

 ,

 42 L.Ed. 767

 .

 8

 Id.

 , at 342,

 18 S.Ct. 374

 .

 9

 Id.

 , at 342-343,

 18 S.Ct. 374

 .

 10

 Cf. Newman, How Courts Interpret Regulations,

 35 Cal. L. Rev. 509

 , 521, and n. 78 (1947) (noting that

 Eaton

 suggested administrative interpretations could be " 'persuasive' but not binding").

 11

 323 U.S. 134

 ,

 65 S.Ct. 161

 ,

 89 L.Ed. 124

 .

 12

 Id.

 , at 136-137,

 65 S.Ct. 161

 . Much of the legal analysis supporting this conclusion was contained in the companion case,

 Armour & Co. v. Wantock

 ,

 323 U.S. 126

 ,

 65 S.Ct. 165

 ,

 89 L.Ed. 118

 (1944), which made no mention of any administrative interpretations.

 Id.

 , at 129-134,

 65 S.Ct. 165

 ; see

 Skidmore

 , 323 U.S. at 136 ,

 65 S.Ct. 161

 (citing the "reasons set forth in the

 Armour

 case decided herewith").

 13

 Id.

 , at 139,

 65 S.Ct. 161

 .

 14

 Id.

 , at 140,

 65 S.Ct. 161

 ; see also

 id.

 , at 139,

 65 S.Ct. 161

 (the agency's views "are not, of course, conclusive, even in the cases with which they directly deal" and do not "bin[d] a district court's processes, as an authoritative pronouncement of a higher court might do").

 15

 Davis, Administrative Rules-Interpretative, Legislative, and Retroactive,

 57 Yale L. J. 919

 , 936-939, and n. 86 (1948) ; see also K. Davis, Administrative Law § 249, p. 901 (1951) ("[S]ubstitution of judicial judgment on the content of interpretative rules is always permissible, even though the reviewing court may give 'weight' or 'great weight' to the rule. The best guide may be the Court's formula in

 Skidmore

 ...").

 16

 325 U.S. 410

 ,

 65 S.Ct. 1215

 ,

 89 L.Ed. 1700

 .

 17

 Id.

 , at 414,

 65 S.Ct. 1215

 .

 18

 Id.

 , at 414-417,

 65 S.Ct. 1215

 .

 19

 Id.

 , at 417,

 65 S.Ct. 1215

 .

 20

 See Davis, Scope of Review of Federal Administrative Action,

 50 Colum. L. Rev. 559

 , 597 (1950).

 21

 Lost History 60; see also Anthony, The Supreme Court and the APA: Sometimes They Just Don't Get It, 10 Admin. L. J. Am. U. 1, 12 (1996).

 22

 325 U.S. at 417 -418

 ,

 65 S.Ct. 1215

 ; see Pojanowski, Revisiting

 Seminole Rock

 , 16 Geo. J. L. & Pub. Pol'y 87, 88 (2018) ("A closer look at

 Seminole Rock

 suggests an unremarkable application of the less-deferential standard of review of

 Skidmore

 ").

 23

 Lost History 94-97; see Pojanowski,

 supra

 , at 92-96.

 24

 Lost History 65-68.

 25

 Southern Goods Corp. v. Bowles

 ,

 158 F.2d 587

 , 590 (1946).

 26

 Ibid.

 27

 380 U.S. 1

 , 4, 17-18,

 85 S.Ct. 792

 ,

 13 L.Ed.2d 616

 (accepting a regulatory interpretation by the Secretary of the Interior that was consistent, widely disseminated, and heavily relied upon, while not suggesting any disagreement with the Secretary's interpretation).

 28

 Lost History 80.

 29

 See generally

 id.

 , at 68-92, 98.

 30

 Id.

 , at 53,

 85 S.Ct. 792

 .

 31

 Scalia, Judicial Deference to Administrative Interpretations of Law,

 1989 Duke L. J. 511

 , 520.

 32

 Decker v. Northwest Environmental Defense Center

 ,

 568 U.S. 597

 , 613,

 133 S.Ct. 1326

 ,

 185 L.Ed.2d 447

 (2013) ; see

 Pauley v. BethEnergy Mines, Inc.

 ,

 501 U.S. 680

 , 702,

 111 S.Ct. 2524

 ,

 115 L.Ed.2d 604

 (1991) (the agency's interpretation "need not be the best or most natural one by grammatical or other standards").

 33

 Hickman & Thomson, The

 Chevron

 ization of

 Auer

 , 103 Minn. L. Rev. Headnotes 103, 105 (2019).

 34

 See Kavanaugh, Fixing Statutory Interpretation,

 129 Harv. L. Rev. 2118

 , 2134-2144 (2016).

 35

 Christopher v. SmithKline Beecham Corp.

 ,

 567 U.S. 142

 , 155,

 132 S.Ct. 2156

 ,

 183 L.Ed.2d 153

 (2012) (alterations and internal quotation marks omitted).

 36

 Leske, Splits in the

 Rock

 : The Conflicting Interpretations of the

 Seminole Rock

 Deference Doctrine by the U. S. Courts of Appeals,

 66 Admin. L. Rev. 787

 , 832 (2014) ; see Hickman & Thomson,

 supra

 , at 111 (noting a "glut of recent cases in which members of the same court are openly divided on the proper application of

 Auer

 ").

 37

 See

 Perez

 v.

 Mortgage Bankers Assn.

 ,

 575 U. S. 92

 , ---- - ----,

 135 S.Ct. 1199

 , 1210-1211,

 191 L.Ed.2d 186

 (2015) (ALITO, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment);

 id.

 , at ---- - ----, 135 S.Ct. at 1211-1213 (SCALIA, J., concurring in judgment);

 id.

 , at ---- - ----, 135 S.Ct. at 1216-1225 (THOMAS, J., concurring in judgment) ;

 Decker

 ,

 568 U.S. at 615 -616

 ,

 133 S.Ct. 1326

 (ROBERTS, C. J., joined by ALITO, J., concurring);

 id.

 , at 616-621,

 133 S.Ct. 1326

 (SCALIA, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part);

 Talk America, Inc. v. Michigan Bell Telephone Co.

 ,

 564 U.S. 50

 , 67-69,

 131 S.Ct. 2254

 ,

 180 L.Ed.2d 96

 (2011) (SCALIA, J., concurring); see also Kavanaugh, Keynote Address: Justice Scalia and Deference 19:06 (June 2, 2016), http://vimeo.com/169758593 (predicting ''that

 Auer

 will someday be overruled and that Justice SCALIA's dissent in

 Decker

 will be the law of the land").

 38

 See,

 e.g.

 ,

 Forrest Gen. Hospital v. Azar

 ,

 926 F.3d 221

 , ----,

 2019 WL 2417409

 , *7 (CA5 2019) ;

 San Diego Gas & Elec. Co. v. FERC

 ,

 913 F.3d 127

 , 145, n. 4 (CADC 2019) (RANDOLPH, J., dissenting);

 United States v. Havis

 ,

 907 F.3d 439

 , 450-452 (CA6 2018) (THAPAR, J., concurring), vacated,

 921 F.3d 628

 , on reh'g en banc,

 927 F.3d 382

 ,

 2019 WL 2376070

 (CA6 2019) ;

 Marsh v. J. Alexander's LLC

 ,

 905 F.3d 610

 , 652-653 (CA9 2018) (IKUTA, J., dissenting);

 Egan v. Delaware River Port Auth.

 ,

 851 F.3d 263

 , 279 (CA3 2017) (JORDAN, J., concurring in judgment);

 Perez v. Loren Cook Co.

 ,

 803 F.3d 935

 , 938, n. 2 (CA8 2015) (en banc);

 Johnson v. McDonald

 ,

 762 F.3d 1362

 , 1366-1368 (CA Fed. 2014) (O'MALLEY, J., concurring);

 Exelon Generation Co. v. Local 15, Int'l Brotherhood of Elec. Workers, AFL-CIO

 ,

 676 F.3d 566

 , 576, n. 5 (CA7 2012).

 39

 See,

 e.g.

 , Hickman & Thomson,

 supra

 , at 111-113; Adler,

 Auer

 Evasions, 16 Geo. J. L. & Pub. Pol'y 1, 26 (2018) ; Pojanowski, 16 Geo. J. L. & Pub. Pol'y, at 99 ; Knudsen & Wildermuth, Lessons From the Lost History of

 Seminole Rock

 ,

 22 Geo. Mason L. Rev. 647

 , 667 (2015) ; Leske,

 supra

 , at 789-793; Molot, The Judicial Perspective in the Administrative State: Reconciling Modern Doctrines of Deference with the Judiciary's Structural Role,

 53 Stan. L. Rev. 1

 , 108-110 (2000) ; Anthony, 10 Admin. L. J., at 4-12 ; Manning, Constitutional Structure and Judicial Deference to Agency Interpretations of Agency Rules,

 96 Colum. L. Rev. 612

 , 696 (1996).

 40

 Kisor v. Shulkin

 ,

 869 F.3d 1360

 , 1367 (2017).

 41

 Id.

 , at 1368.

 42

 Kisor v. Shulkin

 ,

 880 F.3d 1378

 , 1379 (CA Fed. 2018) (opinion of O'MALLEY, J.).

 43

 586 U. S. ----,

 139 S.Ct. 657

 ,

 202 L.Ed.2d 491

 (2018).

 44

 Abbott Laboratories v. Gardner

 ,

 387 U.S. 136

 , 140,

 87 S.Ct. 1507

 ,

 18 L.Ed.2d 681

 (1967).

 45

 5 U.S.C. § 706

 .

 46

 Ibid.

 ; see § 551(13) (defining "agency action").

 47

 The case before us doesn't arise under the APA, but the statute that governs here is plainly modeled on the APA and contains essentially the same commands. It directs a reviewing court to "decide all relevant questions of law" and to "set aside any regulation or any interpretation thereof " that is "not in accordance with law."

 38 U.S.C. § 7292

 (d)(1).

 48

 See,

 e.g.

 , § 706(2)(A) (arbitrary and capricious, abuse of discretion); § 706(2)(E) (substantial evidence); see also

 Universal Camera Corp. v. NLRB

 ,

 340 U.S. 474

 , 482, n. 14,

 71 S.Ct. 456

 ,

 95 L.Ed. 456

 (1951) (noting that as originally proposed, the APA's judicial review provision would have included an explicit requirement for courts to accord "due weight" to "the experience, technical competence, specialized knowledge, and legislative policy of the agency involved as well as the discretionary authority conferred upon it" (internal quotation marks omitted)).

 49

 Duffy, Administrative Common Law in Judicial Review,

 77 Texas L. Rev. 113

 , 194-195 (1998) ; see Merrill, Capture Theory and the Courts: 1967-1983,

 72 Chi.-Kent L. Rev. 1039

 , 1085-1086 (1997) (noting the "embarrassing" fact that "the APA appears to compel th[e] conclusion" that "courts should decide all questions of law de novo"). See also,

 e.g.

 , Origins 985; Mashaw, Rethinking Judicial Review of Administrative Action: A Nineteenth Century Perspective,

 32 Cardozo L. Rev. 2241

 , 2243 (2011) ; Garrett, Legislating Chevron,

 101 Mich. L. Rev. 2637

 , 2640 (2003) ; Molot, Reexamining

 Marbury

 in the Administrative State: A Structural and Institutional Defense of Judicial Power over Statutory Interpretation,

 96 Nw. U. L. Rev. 1239

 , 1249 (2002) ; Anthony, 10 Admin. L. J. Am. U., at 9-10 ; Farina, Statutory Interpretation and the Balance of Power in the Administrative State,

 89 Colum. L. Rev. 452

 , 473, and n. 85 (1989) ; Starr, Sunstein, Willard, & Morrison, Judicial Review of Administrative Action in a Conservative Era,

 39 Admin. L. Rev. 353

 , 368 (1987) (remarks of Prof. Sunstein); Pierce & Shapiro, Political and Judicial Review of Agency Action,

 59 Texas L. Rev. 1175

 , 1182 (1981) ; 4 K. Davis, Administrative Law § 30.01, pp. 190-191 (1958).

 50

 545 U.S. 967

 ,

 125 S.Ct. 2688

 ,

 162 L.Ed.2d 820

 (2005).

 51

 See,

 e.g.

 ,

 In re Lovin

 ,

 652 F.3d 1349

 , 1353-1354 (CA Fed. 2011) ;

 Levy v. Sterling Holding Co.

 ,

 544 F.3d 493

 , 502-503 (CA3 2008).

 52

 18 U.S.C. § 3553

 (a).

 53

 15 U.S.C. § 16

 (e)(1).

 54

 See

 Perez

 , 575 U. S., at ---- - ----, 135 S.Ct., at 1203-1204 .

 55

 United States v. Nixon

 ,

 418 U.S. 683

 , 695-696,

 94 S.Ct. 3090

 ,

 41 L.Ed.2d 1039

 (1974).

 56

 Perez

 , 575 U. S., at ----, 135 S.Ct., at 1221 (THOMAS, J., concurring in judgment).

 57

 Ibid.

 ; see

 id.

 , at ----, 135 S.Ct., at 1211-1212 (SCALIA, J., concurring in judgment) (

 Auer

 lets agencies "use [interpretive] rules not just to advise the public, but also to bind them").

 58

 See

 INS v. Chadha

 ,

 462 U.S. 919

 , 951, 954,

 103 S.Ct. 2764

 ,

 77 L.Ed.2d 317

 (1983).

 59

 Brief for Administrative Law Scholars as

 Amici Curiae

 9-10, n. 4.

 60

 See

 Perez

 , 575 U. S., at ----, 135 S.Ct., at 1206 -1207 ;

 Marseilles Land & Water Co. v. FERC

 ,

 345 F.3d 916

 , 920 (CADC 2003).

 61

 Perez

 , 575 U. S., at ----, 135 S.Ct., at 1211-1212 (SCALIA, J., concurring in judgment).

 62

 Milner v. Department of Navy

 ,

 562 U.S. 562

 , 572,

 131 S.Ct. 1259

 ,

 179 L.Ed.2d 268

 (2011).

 63

 McCarran, Improving "Administrative Justice": Hearings and Evidence; Scope of Judicial Review,

 32 A. B. A. J. 827

 , 893 (1946).

 64

 H. R. Rep. No. 1980, 79th Cong., 2d Sess., 44 (1946); accord, S. Rep. No. 752, 79th Cong., 1st Sess., 28 (1945); 92 Cong. Rec. 5654 (1946) (statement of Rep. Walter). See also Shepherd, Fierce Compromise: The Administrative Procedure Act Emerges from New Deal Politics,

 90 Nw. U. L. Rev. 1557

 , 1662-1666 (1996).

 65

 Universal Camera

 ,

 340 U.S. at 490

 ,

 71 S.Ct. 456

 (emphasis added).

 66

 Dickinson, Administrative Procedure Act: Scope and Grounds of Broadened Judicial Review,

 33 A. B. A. J. 434

 , 516 (1947). See also Origins 990-991 (critiquing the Attorney General's characterization of the APA as "inherently question begging" and unsupported by any analysis).

 67

 Adler, 16 Geo. J. L. & Pub. Pol'y, at 7 ; see Lost History 63; Pojanowski, 16 Geo. J. L. & Pub. Pol'y, at 95-96.

 68

 Davis, 50 Colum. L. Rev., at 597-598; see also Davis, 57 Yale L. J., at 936, n. 72 ; Newman, 35 Cal. L. Rev., at 521-522.

 69

 Hearings on H. R. 184 et al. before the House Committee on the Judiciary, 79th Cong., 1st Sess., 38 (1945); see Origins 988-989.

 70

 Patchak

 v.

 Zinke

 , 583 U. S. ----, ----,

 138 S.Ct. 897

 , 904,

 200 L.Ed.2d 92

 (2018) (plurality opinion) (quoting

 Massachusetts v. Mellon

 ,

 262 U.S. 447

 , 488,

 43 S.Ct. 597

 ,

 67 L.Ed. 1078

 (1923) ).

 71

 Marbury v. Madison

 ,

 1 Cranch 137

 , 177,

 2 L.Ed. 60

 (1803) ; see also

 Wayman v. Southard

 ,

 10 Wheat. 1

 , 46,

 6 L.Ed. 253

 (1825) ("[T]he legislature makes, the executive executes, and the judiciary construes the law"); The Federalist No. 78, p. 467 (C. Rossiter ed. 1961) (A. Hamilton).

 72

 Miller v. Johnson

 ,

 515 U.S. 900

 , 922,

 115 S.Ct. 2475

 ,

 132 L.Ed.2d 762

 (1995).

 73

 See Declaration of Independence ¶11.

 74

 Plaut v. Spendthrift Farm, Inc.

 ,

 514 U.S. 211

 , 220-221,

 115 S.Ct. 1447

 ,

 131 L.Ed.2d 328

 (1995).

 75

 The Federalist No. 78, at 466.

 76

 Palmore v. United States

 ,

 411 U.S. 389

 , 412,

 93 S.Ct. 1670

 ,

 36 L.Ed.2d 342

 (1973) (DOUGLAS, J., dissenting); see

 Oil States Energy Services

 ,

 LLC

 v.

 Greene's Energy Group

 ,

 LLC

 , 584 U. S. ----, ----,

 138 S.Ct. 1365

 , 1381,

 200 L.Ed.2d 671

 (2018) (GORSUCH, J., dissenting) ("[W]hen an independent judiciary gives ground to bureaucrats in the adjudication of cases, the losers will often prove the unpopular and vulnerable");

 United States v. Hatter

 ,

 532 U.S. 557

 , 568-569,

 121 S.Ct. 1782

 ,

 149 L.Ed.2d 820

 (2001) (quoting John Marshall's admonition that a judge who may be called on to decide a dispute " 'between the most powerful individual in the community, and the poorest and most unpopular' " must be " 'perfectly and completely independent, with nothing to influence or control him but God and his conscience' " (alterations omitted)); Jackson, The Meaning of Statutes: What Congress Says or What the Court Says,

 34 A. B. A. J. 535

 , 536 (1948) ("[T]he interpretation of [the laws'] fair meaning ... should be made by judges as independent of politics as humanly possible and not serving the interests of the class for whom, or a majority by whom, legislation is enacted").

 77

 2 Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, p. 75 (M. Farrand ed. 1911); see also Manning, 96 Colum. L. Rev., at 640-648.

 78

 United States v. Will

 ,

 449 U.S. 200

 , 218,

 101 S.Ct. 471

 ,

 66 L.Ed.2d 392

 (1980).

 79

 See The Federalist No. 81, at 482 (A. Hamilton).

 80

 Id.

 , at 483.

 81

 Northern Pipeline Constr. Co. v. Marathon Pipe Line Co.

 ,

 458 U.S. 50

 , 60,

 102 S.Ct. 2858

 ,

 73 L.Ed.2d 598

 (1982) (plurality opinion).

 82

 Bank Markazi

 v.

 Peterson

 , 578 U. S. ----, ----,

 136 S.Ct. 1310

 , 1323,

 194 L.Ed.2d 463

 (2016) (alterations omitted).

 83

 Stern v. Marshall

 ,

 564 U.S. 462

 , 483,

 131 S.Ct. 2594

 ,

 180 L.Ed.2d 475

 (2011) (internal quotation marks omitted).

 84

 Perez

 , 575 U. S., at ----, 135 S.Ct., at 1203 -1204 ; see

 Chrysler Corp. v. Brown

 ,

 441 U.S. 281

 , 295-296,

 99 S.Ct. 1705

 ,

 60 L.Ed.2d 208

 (1979). To be sure, our precedent allowing executive agencies to issue legally binding regulations to govern private conduct may raise constitutional questions of its own. See,

 e.g.

 ,

 Department of Transportation

 v.

 Association of American Railroads

 ,

 575 U. S. 43

 , ---- - ----,

 135 S.Ct. 1225

 , 1240,

 191 L.Ed.2d 153

 (2015) (THOMAS, J., concurring in judgment).

 85

 Cox, Judge Learned Hand and the Interpretation of Statutes,

 60 Harv. L. Rev. 370

 , 390 (1947).

 86

 Id.

 , at 390-391, and n. 58; see also Kavanaugh, 129 Harv. L. Rev., at 2151 (in pursuing their policy goals, "[e]xecutive branch agencies often think they can take a particular action unless it is

 clearly forbidden

 ").

 87

 Plaut

 , 514 U.S. at 225 ,

 115 S.Ct. 1447

 (quoting T. Cooley, Constitutional Limitations 95 (1868)).

 88

 Id.

 , at 95; see also

 Bank Markazi

 , 578 U. S., at ----, n. 17,

 136 S.Ct., at 1323 , n. 17

 .

 89

 Ogden v. Blackledge

 ,

 2 Cranch 272

 , 277,

 2 L.Ed. 276

 .

 90

 Cooley,

 supra

 , at 95.

 91

 Cf.

 Cary v. Curtis

 ,

 3 How. 236

 , 253, 257,

 11 L.Ed. 576

 (1845) (STORY, J., dissenting) (if the "right to interpret the laws" is taken away from courts and "confided to an executive functionary," then "the judicial power, designed by the Constitution to be the final and appellate jurisdiction to interpret our laws, is superseded in its most vital and important functions").

 92

 Marbury

 ,

 1 Cranch at 177

 .

 93

 Arlington v. FCC

 ,

 569 U.S. 290

 , 297,

 133 S.Ct. 1863

 ,

 185 L.Ed.2d 941

 (2013) (emphasis added).

 94

 Clinton v. City of New York

 ,

 524 U.S. 417

 , 452,

 118 S.Ct. 2091

 ,

 141 L.Ed.2d 393

 (1998) (KENNEDY, J., concurring).

 95

 Marbury

 ,

 1 Cranch at 163

 .

 96

 Holmes, The Theory of Legal Interpretation,

 12 Harv. L. Rev. 417

 , 417-418 (1899) ; see

 INS v. Cardoza-Fonseca

 ,

 480 U.S. 421

 , 452-453,

 107 S.Ct. 1207

 ,

 94 L.Ed.2d 434

 (1987) (SCALIA, J., concurring in judgment) ("Judges interpret laws rather than reconstruct legislators' intentions"); H. Hart & A. Sacks, The Legal Process 1375 (1994) ("Unenacted intentions or wishes cannot be given effect as law").

 97

 United States v. Woods

 ,

 571 U.S. 31

 , 48,

 134 S.Ct. 557

 ,

 187 L.Ed.2d 472

 (2013).

 98

 O'Scannlain, "We Are All Textualists Now": The Legacy of Justice Antonin Scalia,

 91 St. John's L. Rev. 303

 , 304-305 (2017) (contesting the radical indeterminacy of legal texts).

 99

 Id.

 , at 313; see Siegel, Textualism and Contextualism in Administrative Law,

 78 B. U. L. Rev. 1023

 , 1057 (1998).

 100

 Larkin & Slattery, 42 Harv. J. L. & Pub. Pol'y, at 647.

 101

 Ibid.

 102

 See Criddle & Staszewski, Against Methodological Stare Decisis,

 102 Geo. L. J. 1573

 , 1577, and n. 12 (2014) ; C. Oldfather, Methodological Stare Decisis and Constitutional Interpretation, in Precedent in the United States Supreme Court 135, 135-136 (C. Peters ed. 2013).

 103

 Kozel, Statutory Interpretation, Administrative Deference, and the Law of Stare Decisis,

 97 Texas L. Rev. 1125

 , 1159 (2019) ; see Raso & Eskridge,

 Chevron

 as a Canon, Not a Precedent: An Empirical Study of What Motivates Justices in Agency Deference Cases,

 110 Colum. L. Rev. 1727

 , 1765-1766 (2010) (concluding that in practice, this Court has not treated administrative-deference regimes such as

 Chevron

 and

 Auer

 as binding precedents).

 104

 South Dakota

 v.

 Wayfair

 ,

 Inc.

 , 585 U. S. ----, ----,

 138 S.Ct. 2080

 , 2096,

 201 L.Ed.2d 403

 (2018).

 105

 See,

 e.g.

 , Alexander & Prakash, Mother May I? Imposing Mandatory Prospective Rules of Statutory Interpretation,

 20 Const. Comment. 97

 (2003) ; Elhauge, Preference-Estimating Statutory Default Rules,

 102 Colum. L. Rev. 2027

 , 2109-2110, and nn. 231-233 (2002).

 106

 Pearson v. Callahan

 ,

 555 U.S. 223

 , 233,

 129 S.Ct. 808

 ,

 172 L.Ed.2d 565

 (2009).

 107

 Arizona v. Gant

 ,

 556 U.S. 332

 , 348,

 129 S.Ct. 1710

 ,

 173 L.Ed.2d 485

 (2009) (quoting

 Lawrence v. Texas

 ,

 539 U.S. 558

 , 577,

 123 S.Ct. 2472

 ,

 156 L.Ed.2d 508

 (2003) ).

 108

 Janus v.

 State

 ,

 County

 ,

 and Municipal Employees

 , 585 U. S. ----, ---- - ----,

 138 S.Ct. 2448

 , 2478-2479,

 201 L.Ed.2d 924

 (2018).

 109

 Brief for Administrative Law Scholars as

 Amici Curiae

 13.

 110

 Knick

 v

 .

 Township of Scott

 , --- U.S. ----, ----,

 139 S.Ct. 2162

 , ----, --- L.Ed.2d ----,

 2019 WL 2552486

 (2019)

 ante

 , at 2178 - 2179 ; see

 Janus

 , 585 U. S., at ----, 138 S.Ct., at 2472-2473. See also Lost History 54-92; Knudsen & Wildermuth, 22 Geo. Mason L. Rev., at 658-664.

 111

 Hickman & Thomson, 103 Minn. L. Rev. Headnotes, at 110.

 112

 Green

 v.

 Brennan

 , 578 U. S. ----, ----,

 136 S.Ct. 1769

 , 1776,

 195 L.Ed.2d 44

 (2016) ; see,

 e.g.

 ,

 National Assn. of Home Builders v. Defenders of Wildlife

 ,

 551 U.S. 644

 , 668-669,

 127 S.Ct. 2518

 ,

 168 L.Ed.2d 467

 (2007) (construing regulation in light of text, history, and canon against surplusage).

 113

 Woods

 ,

 571 U.S. at 48

 ,

 134 S.Ct. 557

 ; see also

 Bruesewitz v. Wyeth LLC

 ,

 562 U.S. 223

 , 242,

 131 S.Ct. 1068

 ,

 179 L.Ed.2d 1

 (2011) ;

 Jones v. United States

 ,

 526 U.S. 227

 , 238,

 119 S.Ct. 1215

 ,

 143 L.Ed.2d 311

 (1999) ;

 United States v. Mine Workers

 ,

 330 U.S. 258

 , 281-282,

 67 S.Ct. 677

 ,

 91 L.Ed. 884

 (1947).

 114

 To be sure, 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), we sometimes defer to an agency's construction of a

 statute

 . But there are serious questions, too, about whether

 that

 doctrine comports with the APA and the Constitution. See,

 e.g.

 ,

 Pereira

 v.

 Sessions

 , 585 U. S. ----, ---- - ----,

 138 S.Ct. 2105

 , 2120-2121,

 201 L.Ed.2d 433

 (2018) (KENNEDY, J., concurring);

 Michigan

 v.

 EPA

 , 576 U. S. ----, ---- - ----,

 135 S.Ct. 2699

 , 2713-2714,

 192 L.Ed.2d 674

 (2015) (THOMAS, J., concurring);

 Perez

 , 575 U. S., at ---- - ----, 135 S.Ct., at 1211-1213 (SCALIA, J., concurring in judgment). Regardless, it would be a mistake to suppose that

 Auer

 is in any way a "logical corollary to

 Chevron

 ."

 Decker

 ,

 568 U.S. at 620

 ,

 133 S.Ct. 1326

 (SCALIA, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part).

 115

 Arlington

 ,

 569 U.S. at 313

 ,

 133 S.Ct. 1863

 (ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting) (internal quotation marks omitted).

 116

 Federal Maritime Comm'n v. South Carolina Ports Authority

 ,

 535 U.S. 743

 , 755,

 122 S.Ct. 1864

 ,

 152 L.Ed.2d 962

 (2002).

 117

 See Office of the Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations: Total Pages 1938-1949, and Total Volumes and Pages 1950-2018, http://www.federalregister.gov/uploads/2019/04/C.F.R.TotalPages2018.pdf;

 United States v. Secretary, Fla. Dept. of Corrections

 ,

 778 F.3d 1223

 , 1225 (CA11 2015).

 118

 Janus

 , 585 U. S., at ----, 138 S.Ct. at 2484 (quoting

 Gant

 ,

 556 U.S. at 349

 ,

 129 S.Ct. 1710

 ).

 119

 Gonzales v. Oregon

 ,

 546 U.S. 243

 , 269,

 126 S.Ct. 904

 ,

 163 L.Ed.2d 748

 (2006) ; see

 Christopher

 ,

 567 U.S. at 159

 ,

 132 S.Ct. 2156

 (applying

 Skidmore

 after concluding that agency's interpretation did not merit

 Auer

 deference).