Administrative Law – deference — jurisdiction

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U.S. Supreme Court

Civil

Administrative Law – deference — jurisdiction

Courts must apply the Chevron framework to an agency’s interpretation of a statutory ambiguity that concerns the scope of the agency’s own jurisdiction.

United States v. Mead Corp., 533 U. S. 218, requires that, for Chevron deference to apply, the agency must have received congressional authority to determine the particular matter at issue in the particular manner adopted. But Mead denied Chevron deference to action, by an agency with rulemaking authority, that was not rulemaking. There is no case in which a general conferral of rulemaking or adjudicative authority has been held insufficient to support Chevron deference for an exercise of that authority within the agency’s substantive field. A general conferral of rulemaking authority validates rules for all the matters the agency is charged with administering. It suffices to decide this case that the preconditions to deference under Chevron are satisfied because Congress has unambiguously vested the FCC with general authority to administer the Communications Act through rulemaking and adjudication, and the agency interpretation at issue was promulgated in the exercise of that authority.

668 F. 3d 229, affirmed.

11-1545 Arlington v. FCC

Scalia, J.; Breyer, J., concurring in part; Roberts, C.J., dissenting.