Full opinion text
Justice Souter delivered the opinion of the Court. The question is whether a tariff classification ruling by the United States Customs Service deserves judicial deference. The Federal Circuit rejected Customs’s invocation of Chevron U S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837 (1984), in support of such a ruling, to which it gave no deference. We agree that a tariff classification has no claim to judicial deference under Chevron, there being no indication that Congress intended such a ruling to carry the force of law, but we hold that under Skidmore v. Swift & Co., 323 U. S. 134 (1944), the ruling is eligible to claim respect according to its persuasiveness. I A Imports are taxed under the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States (HTSUS), 19 U. S. C. § 1202. Title 19 U. S. C. § 1500(b) provides that Customs “shall, under rules and regulations prescribed by the Secretary [of the Treasury,] ... fix the final classification and rate of duty applicable to... merchandise” under the HTSUS. Section 1502(a) provides that “[t]he Secretary of the Treasury shall establish and promulgate such rules and regulations not inconsistent with the law (including regulations establishing procedures for the issuance of binding rulings prior to the entry of the merchandise concerned), and may disseminate such information as may be necessary to secure a just, impartial, and uniform appraisement of imported merchandise and the classification and assessment of duties thereon at the various ports of entry.” See also §1624 (general delegation to Secretary to issue rules and regulations for the admission of goods). The Secretary provides for tariff rulings before the entry of goods by regulations authorizing “ruling letters” setting tariff classifications for particular imports. 19 CFR § 177.8 (2000). A ruling letter “represents the official position of the Customs Service with respect to the particular transaction or issue described therein and is binding on all Customs Service personnel in accordance with the provisions of this section until modified or revoked. In the absence of a change of practice or other modification or revocation which affects the principle of the ruling set forth in the ruling letter, that principle may be cited as authority in the disposition of transactions involving the same circumstances.” § 177.9(a). After the transaction that gives it birth, a ruling letter is to “be applied only with respect to transactions involving articles identical to the sample submitted with the ruling request or to articles whose description is identical to the description set forth in the ruling letter.” § 177.9(b)(2). As a general matter, such a letter is “subject to modification or revocation without notice to any person, except the person to whom the letter wás addressed,” § 177.9(c), and the regulations consequently provide that “no other person should rely on the ruling letter or assume that the principles of that ruling will be applied in connection with any transaction other than the one described in the letter,” ibid. Since ruling letters respond t'o transactions of the moment, they are not subject to notice and comment before being issued, may be published but need only be made “available for public inspection,” 19 U. S. C. § 1625(a), and, at the time this action arose, could be modified without notice and comment under most circumstances, 19 CFR § 177.10(c) (2000). A broader notice-and-comment requirement for modification of prior rulings was added by statute in 1993, Pub. L. 103-182, § 623, 107 Stat. 2186, codified at 19 U. S. C. § 1625(c), and took effect after this case arose. Any of the 46 port-of-entry Customs offices may issue ruling letters, and so may the Customs Headquarters Office, in providing “[a]dvice or guidance as to the interpretation or proper application of the Customs and related laws with respect to a specific Customs transaction [which] may be requested by Customs Service field offices ... at any time, whether the transaction is prospective, current, or completed,” 19 CFR § 177.11(a) (2000). Most ruling letters contain little or no reasoning, but simply describe goods and state the appropriate category and tariff. A few letters, like the Headquarters ruling at issue here, set out a rationale in some detail. B Respondent, the Mead Corporation, imports “day planners,” three-ring binders with pages having room for notes of daily schedules and phone numbers and addresses, together with a calendar and suchlike. The tariff schedule on point falls under the HTSUS heading for “[registers, account books, notebooks, order books, receipt books, letter pads, memorandum pads, diaries and similar articles,” HTSUS subheading 4820.10, which comprises two subcategories. Items in the first, “[d]iaries, notebooks and address books, bound; memorandum pads, letter pads and similar articles,” were subject to a tariff of 4.0% at the time in controversy. 185 F. 3d 1304, 1305 (CA Fed. 1999) (citing subheading 4820.10.20); see also App. to Pet. for Cert. 46a. Objects in the second, covering “[o]ther” items, were free of duty. HTSUS subheading 4820.10.40; see also App. to Pet. for Cert. 46a. Between 1989 and 1993, Customs repeatedly treated day planners under the “other” HTSUS subheading. In January 1993, however, Customs changed its position, and issued a Headquarters ruling letter classifying Mead’s day planners as “Diaries . . . , bound” subject to tariff under subheading 4820.10.20. That letter was short on explanation, App. to Brief in Opposition 4a-6a, but after Mead’s protest, Customs Headquarters issued a new letter, carefully reasoned but never published, reaching the same conclusion, App. to Pet. for Cert. 28a-47a. This letter considered two definitions of “diary” from the Oxford English Dictionary, the first covering a daily journal of the past day’s events, the second a book including “ ‘printed dates for daily memoranda and jottings; also . . . calendars . . . .’” Id., at 33a-34a (quoting Oxford English Dictionary 321 (Compact ed. 1982)). Customs concluded that “diary” was not confined to the first, in part because the broader definition reflects commercial usage and hence the “commercial identity of these items in the marketplace.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 34a. As for the definition of “bound,” Customs concluded that HTSUS was not referring to “bookbinding,” but to a less exact sort of fastening described in the Harmonized Commodity Description and Coding System Explanatory Notes to Heading 4820, which spoke of binding by “‘reinforcements or fittings of metal, plastics, etc.’ ” Id., at 45a. Customs rejected Mead’s further protest of the second Headquarters ruling letter, and Mead filed suit in the Court of International Trade (CIT). The CIT granted the Government’s motion for summary judgment, adopting Customs’s reasoning without saying anything about deference. 17 F. Supp. 2d 1004 (1998). Mead then went to the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. While the case was pending there this Court decided United States v. Haggar Apparel Co., 526 U. S. 380 (1999), holding that Customs regulations receive the deference described in Chevron U S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837 (1984). The appeals court requested briefing on the impact of Haggar, and the Government argued that classification rulings, like Customs regulations, deserve Chevron deference. The Federal Circuit, however, reversed the CIT and held that Customs classification rulings should not get Chevron deference, owing to differences from the regulations at issue in Haggar. Rulings are not preceded by notice and comment as under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), 5 U. S. C. § 553, they “do not carry the force of law and are not, like regulations, intended to clarify the rights and obligations of importers beyond the specific case under review.” 185 F. 3d, at 1307. The appeals court thought classification rulings had a weaker Chevron claim even than Internal Revenue Service interpretive rulings, to which that court gives no deference; unlike rulings by the IRS, Customs rulings issue from many locations and need not be published. 185 F. 3d, at 1307-1308. The Court of Appeals accordingly gave no deference at all to the ruling classifying the Mead day planners and rejected the agency’s reasoning as to both “diary” and “bound.” It thought that planners were not diaries because they had no space for “relatively extensive notations about events, observations, feelings, or thoughts” in the past. Id., at 1310. And it concluded that diaries “bound” in subheading 4810.10.20 presupposed “unbound” diaries, such that treating ring-fastened diaries as “bound” would leave the “unbound diary” an empty category. Id., at 1311. We granted certiorari, 530 U. S. 1202 (2000), in order to consider the limits of Chevron deference owed to administrative practice in applying a statute. We hold that administrative implementation of a particular statutory provision qualifies for Chevron deference when it appears that Congress delegated authority to the agency generally to make rules carrying the force of law, and that the agency interpretation claiming deference was promulgated in the exercise of that authority. Delegation of such authority may be shown in a variety of ways, as by an agency’s power to engage in adjudication or notice-and-comment rulemaking, or by some other indication of a comparable congressional intent. The Customs ruling at issue here fails to qualify, although the possibility that it deserves some deference under Skidmore leads us to vacate and remand. II A When Congresshas “explicitly left a gap for an agency to fill, there is an express delegation of authority to the agency to elucidate a specific provision of the statute by regulation,” Chevron, 467 U. S., at 843-844, and any ensuing regulation is binding in the courts unless procedurally defective, arbitrary or capricious in substance, or manifestly contrary to the statute. See id., at 844; United States v. Morton, 467 U. S. 822, 834 (1984); APA, 5 U. S. C. §§706(2)(A), (D). But whether or not they enjoy any express delegation of authority on a particular question, agencies charged with applying a statute necessarily make all sorts of interpretive choices, and while not all of those choices bind judges to follow them, they certainly may influence courts facing questions the agencies have already answered. “[T]he well-reasoned views of the agencies implementing a statute ‘constitute a body of experience and informed judgment to which courts and litigants may properly resort for guidance,’ ” Bragdon v. Abbott, 524 U. S. 624,642 (1998) (quoting Skidmore, 323 U. S., at 139-140), and “[w]e have long recognized that considerable weight should be accorded to an executive department’s construction of a statutory scheme it is entrusted to administer . . . Chevron, supra, at 844 (footnote omitted); see also Ford Motor Credit Co. v. Milhollin, 444 U. S. 555, 565 (1980); Zenith Radio Corp. v. United States, 437 U. S. 443, 450 (1978). The fair measure of deference to an agency administering its own statute has been understood to vary with circumstances, and courts have looked to the degree of the agency’s care, its consistency, formality, and relative expertness, and to the persuasiveness of the agency’s position, see Skidmore, supra, at 139-140. The approach has produced a spectrum of judicial responses, from great respect at one end, see, e. g., Aluminum Co. of America v. Central Lincoln Peoples’ Util. Dish, 467 U. S. 380, 389-390 (1984) (“ 'substantial deference’ ” to administrative construction), to near indifference at the other, see, e. g., Bowen v. Georgetown Univ. Hospital, 488 U. S. 204, 212-213 (1988) (interpretation advanced for the first time in a litigation brief). Justice Jackson summed things up in Skidmore v. Swift & Co.: “The weight [accorded to an administrative] judgment in a particular case will depend upon 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, if lacking power to control.” 323 U. S., at 140. Since 1984, we have identified a category of interpretive choices distinguished by an additional reason for judicial deference. This Court in Chevron recognized that Congress not only engages in express delegation of specific interpretive authority, but that “[s]ometimes the legislative delegation to an agency on a particular question is implicit.” 467 U. S., at 844. Congress, that is, may not have expressly delegated authority or responsibility to implement a particular provision or fill a particular gap. Yet it can still be apparent from the agency’s generally conferred authority and other statutory circumstances that Congress would expect the agency to be able to speak with the force of law when it addresses ambiguity in the statute or fills a space in the enacted law, even one about which “Congress did not actually have an intent” as to a particular result. Id,., at 845. When circumstances implying such an expectation exist, a reviewing court has no business rejecting an agency’s exercise of its generally conferred authority to resolve a particular statutory ambiguity simply because the agency’s chosen resolution seems unwise, see id., at 845-846, but is obliged to accept the agency’s position if Congress has not previously spoken to the point at issue and the agency’s interpretation is reasonable, see id., at 842-845; cf. 5 U. S. C. §706(2) (a reviewing court shall set aside agency action, findings, and conclusions found to be “arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law”). We have recognized a very good indicator of delegation meriting Chevron treatment in express congressional authorizations to engage in the process of rulemaking or adjudication that produces regulations or rulings for which deference is claimed. See, e. g., EEOC v. Arabian American Oil Co., 499 U. S. 244, 257 (1991) (no Chevron deference to agency guideline where congressional delegation did not include the power to “ ‘promulgate rules or regulations’ ” (quoting General Elec. Co. v. Gilbert, 429 U. S. 125, 141 (1976))); see also Christensen v. Harris County, 529 U. S. 576, 596-597 (2000) (Breyer, J., dissenting) (where it is in doubt that Congress actually intended to delegate particular interpretive authority to an agency, Chevron is “inapplicable”). It is fair to assume generally that Congress contemplates administrative action with the effect of law when it provides for a relatively formal administrative procedure tending to foster the fairness and deliberation that should underlie a pronouncement of such force. Cf. Smiley v. Citibank (South Dakota), N. A., 517 U. S. 735, 741 (1996) (APA notice and comment “designed to assure due deliberation”). Thus, the overwhelming number of our cases applying Chevron deference have reviewed the fruits of notice-and-comment rulemaking or formal adjudication. That said, and as significant as notice-and-comment is in pointing to Chevron authority, the want of that procedure here does not decide the case, for we have sometimes found reasons for Chevron deference even when no such administrative formality was required and none was afforded, see, e. g., NationsBank of N. C., N. A. v. Variable Annuity Life Ins. Co., 513 U. S. 251, 256-257, 263 (1995). The fact that the tariff classification here was not a product of such formal process does not alone, therefore, bar the application of Chevron. There are, nonetheless, ample reasons to deny Chevron deference here. The authorization for classification rulings, and Customs’s practice in making them, present a case far removed not only from notice-and-comment process, but from any other circumstances reasonably suggesting that Congress ever thought of classification rulings as deserving the deference claimed for them here. B No matter which angle we choose for viewing the Customs ruling letter in this case, it fails to qualify under Chevron. On the face of the statute, to begin with, the terms of the congressional delegation give no indication that Congress meant to delegate authority to Customs to issue classification rulings with the force of law. We are not, of course, here making any global statement about Customs’s authority, for it is true that the general rulemaking power conferred on Customs, see 19 U. S. C. § 1624, authorizes some regulation with the force of law, or “legal norms,” as we put it in Haggar, 526 U. S., at 391. It is true as well that Congress had classification rulings in mind when it explicitly authorized, in a parenthetical, the issuance of “regulations establishing procedures for the issuance of binding rulings prior to the entry of the merchandise concerned,” 19 U. S. C. § 1502(a). The reference to binding classifications does not, however, bespeak the legislative type of activity that would naturally bind more than the parties to the ruling, once the goods classified are admitted into this country. And though the statute’s direction to disseminate “information” necessary to “secure” uniformity, ibid., seems to assume that a ruling may be precedent in later transactions, precedential value alone does not add up to Chevron entitlement; interpretive rules may sometimes function as precedents, see Strauss, The Rulemaking Continuum, 41 Duke L. J. 1463, 1472-1473 (1992), and they enjoy no Chevron status as a class. In any event, any precedential claim of a classification ruling is counterbalanced by the provision for independent review of Customs classifications by the CIT, see 28 U. S. C. §§2638-2640; the scheme for CIT review includes a provision that treats classification rulings on par with the Secretary’s rulings on “valuation, rate of duty, marking, restricted merchandise, entry requirements, drawbacks, vessel repairs, or similar matters,” § 1581(h); see § 2639(b). It is hard to imagine a congressional understanding more at odds with the Chevron regime. It is difficult, in fact, to see in the agency practice itself any indication that Customs ever set out with a lawmaking pretense in mind when it undertook to make classifications like these. Customs does not generally engage in notice- and-comment practice when issuing them, and their treatment by the agency makes it clear that a letter’s binding character as a ruling stops short of third parties; Customs has regarded a classification as conclusive only as between itself and the importer to whom it was issued, 19 CFR § 177.9(c) (2000), and even then only until Customs has given advance notice of intended change, §§ 177.9(a), (c). Other importers are in fact warned against assuming any right of detrimental reliance. § 177.9(c). Indeed, to claim that classifications have legal force is to ignore the reality that 46 different Customs offices issue 10,000 to 15,000 of them each year, see Brief for Respondent 5; CITBA Brief 6 (citing Treasury Advisory Committee on the Commercial Operations of the United States Customs Service, Report of the COAC Subcommittee on OR&R, Exhs. 1, 3 (Jan. 26, 2000) (reprinted in App. to CITBA Brief 20a-21a)). Any suggestion that rulings intended to have the force of law are being churned out at a rate of 10,000 a year at an agency’s 46 scattered offices is simply self-refuting. Although the circumstances are less startling here, with a Headquarters letter in issue, none of the relevant statutes recognizes this category of rulings as separate or different from others; there is thus no indication that a more potent delegation might have been understood as going to Headquarters even when Headquarters provides developed reasoning, as it did in this instance. Nor do the amendments to the statute made effective after this case arose disturb our conclusion. The new law requires Customs to provide notice-and-comment procedures only when modifying or revoking a prior classification ruling or modifying the treatment accorded to substantially identical transactions, 19 U. S. C. § 1625(c); and under its regulations, Customs sees itself obliged to provide notice-and-comment procedures only when “changing a practice” so as to produce a tariff increase, or in the imposition of a restriction or prohibition, or when Customs Headquarters determines that “the matter is of sufficient importance to involve the interests of domestic industry,” 19 CFR §§ 177.10(c)(1), (2) (2000). The statutory changes reveal no new congressional objective of treating classification decisions generally as rulemaking with force of law, nor do they suggest any intent to create a Chevron patchwork of classification rulings, some with force of law, some without. In sum, classification rulings are best treated like “interpretations contained in policy statements, agency manuals, and enforcement guidelines.” Christensen, 529 U. S., at 587. They are beyond the Chevron pale. C To agree with the Court of Appeals that Customs ruling letters do not fall within Chevron is not, however, to place them outside the pale of any deference whatever. Chevron did nothing to eliminate Skidmore’s holding that an agency’s interpretation may merit some deference whatever its form, given the “specialized experience and broader investigations and information” available to the agency, 328 U. S., at 139, and given the value of uniformity in its administrative and judicial understandings of what a national law requires, id., at 140. See generally Metropolitan Stevedore Co. v. Rambo, 521 U. S. 121, 136 (1997) (reasonable agency interpretations carry “at least some added persuasive force” where Chevron is inapplicable); Reno v. Koray, 515 U. S. 50, 61 (1995) (according “some deference” to an interpretive rule that “do[es] not require notice and comment”); Martin v. Occupational Safety and Health Review Comm’n, 499 U. S. 144, 157 (1991) (“some weight” is due to informal interpretations though not “the same deference as norms that derive from the exercise of... delegated lawmaking powers”). There is room at least to raise a Skidmore claim here, where the regulatory scheme is highly detailed, and Customs can bring the benefit of specialized experience to bear on the subtle questions in this case: whether the daily planner with room for brief daily entries falls under “diaries,” when diaries are grouped with “notebooks and address books, bound; memorandum pads, letter pads and similar articles,” HTSUS subheading 4820.10.20; and whether a planner with a ring binding should qualify as “bound,” when a binding may be typified by a book, but also may have “reinforcements or fittings of metal, plastics, etc.,” Harmonized Commodity Description and Coding System Explanatory Notes to Heading 4820, p. 687 (cited in Customs Headquarters letter, App. to Pet. for Cert. 45a. A classification ruling in this situation may therefore at least seek a respect proportional to its “power to persuade,” Skidmore, supra, at 140; see also Christensen, 529 U. S., at 587; id., at 595 (Stevens, J., dissenting); id., at 596-597 (Breyer, J., dissenting). Such a ruling may surely claim the merit of its writer’s thoroughness, logic, and expertness, its fit with prior interpretations, and any other sources of weight. D Underlying the position we take here, like the position expressed by Justice Scalia in dissent, is a choice about the best way to deal with an inescapable feature of the body of congressional legislation authorizing administrative action. That feature is the great variety of ways in which the laws invest the Government’s administrative arms with discretion, and with procedures for exercising it, in giving meaning to Acts of Congress. Implementation of a statute may occur in formal adjudication or the choice to defend against judicial challenge; it may occur in a central board or office or in dozens of enforcement agencies dotted across the country; its institutional lawmaking may be confined to the resolution of minute detail or extend to legislative rulemaking on matters intentionally left by Congress to be worked out at the agency level. Although we all accept the position that the Judiciary should defer to at least some of this multifarious administrative action, we have to decide how to take account of the great range of its variety. If the primary objective is to simplify the judicial process of giving or withholding deference, then the diversity of statutes authorizing discretionary administrative action must be declared irrelevant or minimized. If, on the other hand, it is simply implausible that Congress intended such a broad range of statutory authority to produce only two varieties of administrative action, demanding either Chevron deference or none at all, then the breadth of the spectrum of possible agency action must be taken into account. Justice Scalia’^ first priority over the years has been to limit and simplify. The Court’s choice has been to tailor deference to variety. This accept-anee of the range of statutory variation has led the Court to recognize more than one variety of judicial deference, just as the Court has recognized a variety of indicators that Congress would expect Chevron deference. Our respective choices are repeated today. Justice Scalia would pose the question of deference as an either- or choice. On his view that Chevron rendered Skidmore anachronistic, when courts owe any deference it is Chevron deference that they owe, post, at 250. Whether courts do owe deference in a given case turns, for him, on whether the agency action (if reasonable) is “authoritative,” post, at 257. The character of the authoritative derives, in turn, not from breadth of delegation or the agency’s procedure in implementing it, but is defined as the “official” position of an agency, ibid., and may ultimately be a function of administrative persistence alone, ante, at 258. The Court, on the other hand, said nothing in Chevron to eliminate Skidmore’s recognition of various justifications for deference depending on statutory circumstances and agency action; Chevron was simply a case recognizing that even without express authority to fill a specific statutory gap, circumstances pointing to implicit congressional delegation present a particularly insistent call for deference. Indeed, in holding here that Chevron left Skidmore intact and applicable where statutory circumstances indicate no intent to delegate general authority to make rules with force of law, or where such authority was not invoked, we hold nothing more than we said last Term in response to the particular statutory circumstances in Christensen, to which Justice Scalia then took exception, see 529 U. S., at 589, just as he does again today. We think, in sum, that Justice Scalia’s efforts to simplify ultimately run afoul of Congress’s indications that different statutes present different reasons for considering respect for the exercise of administrative authority or deference to it. Without being at odds with congressional intent much of the time, we believe that judicial responses to administrative action must continue to differentiate between Chevron and Skidmore, and that continued recognition of Skidmore is necessary for just the reasons Justice Jackson gave when that ease was decided. * * * Since the Skidmore assessment called for here ought to be made in the first instance by the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit or the CIT, we go no further than to vacate the judgment and remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. It is so ordered. The statutory term “ruling” is defined by regulation as “a written statement. . . that interprets and applies the provisions of the Customs and related laws to a specific set of facts.” 19 CFR § 177.1(d)(1) (2000). The opinion of the Federal Circuit in this case noted that § 177.10(c) provides some notice-and-comment procedures for rulings that have the ‘“effect of changing a practice.’” 185 F. 3d 1304, 1307, n. 1 (1999). The appeals court noted that this ease does not involve such a ruling, and specifically excluded such rulings from the reach of its holding. Ibid. As amended by legislation effective after Customs modified its classification ruling in this case, 19 U. S. C. § 1625(c) provides that a ruling or decision that would “modify ... or revoke a prior interpretive ruling or decision which has been in effect for at least 60 days” or would “have the effect of modifying the treatment previously accorded by the Customs Service to substantially identical transactions” shall be “published in the Customs Bulletin. The Secretary shall give interested parties an opportunity to submit, during not less than the 30-day period after the date of such publication, comments on the correctness of the proposed ruling or decision. After consideration of any comments received, the Secretary shall publish a final ruling or decision in the Customs Bulletin within 30 days after the closing of the comment period. The final ruling or decision shall become effective 60 days after the date of its publication.” Brief for Customs and International Trade Bar Association as Amicus Curiae 5 (CITBA Brief). I. e., “a Customs location having a full range of cargo processing functions, including inspections, entry, collections, and verification.” 19 CFR §101.1 (2000). Assuming in each case, of course, that the agency’s exercise of authority is constitutional, see 5 U. S. C. § 706(2)(B), and does not exceed its jurisdiction, see §706(2)(C). See, e. g., General Elec. Co. v. Gilbert, 429 U. S. 125, 142 (1976) (courts consider the “‘thoroughness evident in [the agency’s] consideration’” (quoting Skidmore v. Swift & Co., 323 U. S. 134, 140 (1944))). See, e.g., Good Samaritan Hospital v. Shalala, 508 U. S. 402, 417 (1993) (“[T]he consistency of an agency’s position is a factor in assessing the weight that position is due”). See, e. g., Reno v. Koray, 515 U. S. 50, 61 (1995) (internal agency guideline that is not “subject to the rigors of the [APA], including public notice and comment,” is entitled only to “some deference” (internal quotation marks omitted)). See, e. g., Aluminum Co. of America v. Central Lincoln Peoples’ Util. Disk, 467 U. S. 380, 390 (1984). See Merrill & Hickman, Chevron’s Domain, 89 Geo. L. J. 833,872 (2001) (“[I]f Chevron rests on a presumption about congressional intent, then Chevron should apply only where Congress would want Chevron to apply. In delineating the types of delegations of agency authority that trigger Chevron deference, it is therefore important to determine whether a plausible case can be made that Congress would want such a delegation to mean that agencies enjoy primary interpretational authority”). For rulemaking cases, see, e. g., Shalala v. Illinois Council on Long Term Care, Inc., 529 U. S. 1, 20-21 (2000); United States v. Haggar Apparel Co., 526 U. S. 380 (1999); AT&T Corp. v. Iowa Utilities Bd., 525 U. S. 366 (1999); Atlantic Mut. Ins. Co. v. Commissioner, 523 U. S. 382 (1998); Regions Hospital v. Shalala, 522 U. S. 448 (1998); United States v. O’Hagan, 521 U. S. 642 (1997); Smiley v. Citibank (South Dakota), N. A., 517 U. S. 735 (1996); Babbitt v. Sweet Home Chapter, Communities for Great Ore., 515 U. S. 687 (1995); ICC v. Transcon Lines, 513 U. S. 138 (1995); PUD No. 1 of Jefferson Cty. v. Washington Dept. of Ecology, 511 U. S. 700 (1994); Good Samaritan Hospital v. Shalala, supra; American Hospital Assn. v. NLRB, 499 U. S. 606 (1991); Sullivan v. Everhart, 494 U. S. 83 (1990); Sullivan v. Zebley, 493 U. S. 521 (1990); Massachusetts v. Morash, 490 U. S. 107 (1989); K mart Corp. v. Cartier, Inc., 486 U. S. 281 (1988); Atkins v. Rivera, 477 U. S. 154 (1986); United States v. Fulton, 475 U. S. 657 (1986); United States v. Riverside Bayview Homes, Inc., 474 U. S. 121 (1985). For adjudication cases, see, e. g., INS v. Aguirre-Aguirre, 526 U. S. 415, 423-425 (1999); Federal Employees v. Department of Interior, 526 U. S. 86, 98-99 (1999); Holly Farms Corp. v. NLRB, 517 U. S. 392 (1996); ABF Freight System, Inc. v. NLRB, 510 U. S. 317, 824-325 (1994); National Railroad Passenger Corporation v. Boston & Maine Corp., 503 U. S. 407, 417-418 (1992); Norfolk & Western R. Co. v. Train Dispatchers, 499 U. S. 117, 128 (1991); Fort Stewart Schools v. FLRA, 495 U. S. 641, 644-645 (1990); Department of Treasury, IRS v. FLRA, 494 U. S. 922 (1990). In NationsBank of N. C., N. A v. Variable Annuity Life Ins. Co., 513 U. S., at 256-257 (internal quotation marks omitted), we quoted longstanding precedent concluding that “[t)he Comptroller of the Currency is charged with the enforcement of banking laws to an extent that warrants the invocation of [the rule of deference] with respect to his deliberative conclusions as to the meaning of these laws.” See also 1 M. Malloy, Banking Law and Regulation § 1.3.1, p. 1.41 (1996) (stating that the Comptroller is given “personal authority” under the National Bank Act). Cf. Adams Fruit Co. v. Barrett, 494 U. S. 638, 649-650 (1990) (although Congress required the Secretary of Labor to promulgate standards implementing certain provisions of the Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act, and “agency determinations within the scope of delegated authority are entitled to deference,” the Secretary’s interpretation of the Act’s enforcement provisions is not entitled to Chevron deference because “[n]o such delegation regarding [those] provisions is evident in the statute”). The ruling in question here, however, does not fall within that category. Although Customs’s decision “is presumed to be correct” on review, 28 U. S. C. § 2639(a)(1), the CIT “may consider any new ground” even if not raised below, § 2638, and “shall make its determinations upon the basis of the record made before the court,” rather than that developed by Customs, § 2640(a); see generally Haggar Apparel, 526 U. S., at 391. Compare Christensen v. Harris County, 529 U.S. 576, 587 (2000) (“Interpretations such as those in opinion letters — like interpretations contained in policy statements, agency manuals, and enforcement guidelines, all of which lack the force of law — do not warrant Chevron-style deference”), and EEOC v. Arabian American Oil Co., 499 U. S. 244, 257-258 (1991) (applying Skidmore analysis where Congress did not confer upon the agency authority to promulgate rules or regulations), with Christensen, supra, at 589-591 (Scalia, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment) (urging Chevron treatment); EEOC v. Arabian American Oil Co., supra, at 259-260 (SCALIA, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment) (urging Chevron treatment); see also INS v. Cardoza-Fonseca, 480 U. S. 421, 453-455 (1987) (Scalia, J., concurring in judgment) (urging broader application of Chevron). It is, of course, true that the limit of Chevron deference is not marked by a hard-edged rule. But Chevron itself is a good example showing when Chevron deference is warranted, while this is a good case showing when it is not. Judges in other, perhaps harder, cases will make reasoned choices between the two examples, the way courts have always done. Surely Justice Jackson’s practical criteria, along with Chevron’s concern with congressional understanding, provide more reliable guideposts than conclusory references to the “authoritative” or “official.” Even if those terms provided a true criterion, there would have to be something wrong with a standard that accorded the status of substantive law to every one of 10,000 “official” customs classifications rulings turned out each year from over 46 offices placed around the country at the Nation’s entryways. Justice Scalia tries to avoid that result by limiting what is “authoritative” or “official” to a pronouncement that expresses the “judgment of central agency management, approved at the highest levels,” as distinct from the pronouncements of “underlings,” post, at 259, n. 6. But that analysis would not entitle a Headquarters ruling to Chevron deference; the “highest level” at Customs is the source of the regulation at issue in Haggar, the Commissioner of Customs with the approval of the Secretary of the Treasury. 526 U. S., at 386. The Commissioner did not issue the Headquarters ruling. What Justice Scalia has in mind here is that because the Secretary approved the Government’s position in its brief to this Court, Chevron deference is due. But if that is so, Chevron deference was not called for until sometime after the litigation began, when central management at the highest level decided to defend the ruling, and the deference is not to the classification ruling as such but to the brief. This explains why the Court has not accepted Justice Scalia’s position.
Justice Scalia, dissenting. Today’s opinion makes an avulsive change in judicial review of federal administrative action. Whereas previously a reasonable agency application of an ambiguous statutory provision had to be sustained so long as it represented the agency’s authoritative interpretation, henceforth such an application can be set aside unless “it appears that Congress delegated authority to the agency generally to make rules carrying the force of law,” as by giving an agency “power to engage in adjudication or notiee-and-comment rulemaking, or . . . some other [procedure] indicating] comparable congressional intent,” and “the agency interpretation claiming deference was promulgated in the exercise of that authority.” Ante, at 226-227. What was previously a general presumption of authority in agencies to resolve ambiguity in the statutes they have been authorized to enforce has been changed to a presumption of no such authority, which must be overcome by affirmative legislative intent to the contrary. And whereas previously, when agency authority to resolve ambiguity did not exist the court was free to give the statute what it considered the best interpretation, henceforth the court must supposedly give the agency view some indeterminate amount of so-called Skidmore deference. Skidmore v. Swift & Co., 323 U. S. 134 (1944). We will be sorting out the consequences of the Mead doctrine, which has today replaced the Chevron doctrine, Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837 (1984), for years to come. I would adhere to our established jurisprudence, defer to the reasonable interpretation the Customs Service has given to the statute it is charged with enforcing, and reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals. I Only five years ago, the Court described the Chevron doctrine as follows: “We accord deference to agencies under Chevron . .. because of a presumption that Congress, when it left ambiguity in a statute meant for implementation by an agency, understood that the ambiguity would be resolved, first and foremost, by the agency, and desired the agency (rather than the courts) to possess whatever degree of discretion the ambiguity allows,” Smiley v. Citibank (South Dakota), N. A., 517 U. S. 735, 740-741 (1996) (citing Chevron, supra, at 843-844). Today the Court collapses this doctrine, announcing instead a presumption that agency discretion does not exist unless the statute, expressly or impliedly, says so. While the Court disclaims any hard- and-fast rule for determining the existence of discretion-conferring intent, it asserts that “a very good indicator [is] express congressional authorizations to engage in the process of rulemaking or adjudication that produces regulations or rulings for which deference is claimed,” ante, at 229. Only when agencies act through “adjudieation[,] notice-and-comment rulemaking, or . . . some other [procedure] indicating] comparable congressional intent [whatever that means]” is Chevron deference applicable — because these “relatively formal administrative proeedure[s] [designed] to foster . . . fairness and deliberation” bespeak (according to the Court) congressional willingness to have the agency, rather than the courts, resolve statutory ambiguities. Ante, at 227, 230. Once it is determined that Chevron deference is not in order, the uncertainty is not at an end — and indeed is just beginning. Litigants cannot then assume that the statutory question is one for the courts to determine, according to traditional interpretive principles and by their own judicial lights. No, the Court now resurrects, in full force, the pre-Chevron doctrine of Skidmore deference, see Skid-more, supra, whereby “[t]he fair measure of deference to an agency administering its own statute . . . varfies] with circumstances,” including “the degree of the agency’s care, its consistency, formality, and relative expertness, and . . . the persuasiveness of the agency’s position,” ante, at 228 (footnotes omitted). The Court has largely replaced Chevron, in other words, with that test most beloved by a court unwilling to be held to rules (and most feared by litigants who want to know what to expect): th’ol’ “totality of the circumstances” test. The Court’s new doctrine is neither sound in principle nor sustainable in practice. A As to principle: The doctrine of Chevron — that all authoritative agency interpretations of statutes they are charged with administering deserve deference — was rooted in a legal presumption of congressional intent, important to the division of powers between the Second and Third Branches. When, Chevron said, Congress leaves an ambiguity in a statute that is to be administered by an executive agency, it is presumed that Congress meant to give the agency discretion, within the limits of reasonable interpretation, as to how the ambiguity is to be resolved. By committing enforcement of the statute to an agency rather than the courts, Congress committed its initial and primary interpretation to that branch as well. There is some question whether Chevron was faithful to the text of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), which it did not even bother to cite. But it was in accord with the origins of federal-court judicial review. Judicial control of federal executive officers was principally exercised through the prerogative writ of mandamus. See L. Jaffe, Judicial Control of Administrative Action 166, 176-177 (1965). That writ, generally would not issue unless the executive officer was acting plainly beyond the scope of his authority. “The questions mooted before the Secretary and decided by him were whether the fund is a tribal fund, whether the tribe is still existing and whether the distribution of the annuities is to be confined to members of the tribe .... These are all questions of law the solution of which requires a construction of the act of 1889 and other related acts. A reading of these acts shows that they fall short of plainly requiring that any of the questions be answered in the negative and that in some aspects they give color to the affirmative answers of the Secretary. That the construction of the acts insofar as they have a bearing on the first and third questions is sufficiently uncertain to involve the exercise of judgment and discretion is rather plain.... “From what has been said it follows that the case is not one in which mandamus will lie.” t Wilbur v. United States ex rel. Kadrie, 281 U. S. 206, 221-222 (1930). Statutory ambiguities, in other words, were left to reasonable resolution by the Executive. The basis in principle for today’s new doctrine can be described as follows: The background rule is that ambiguity in legislative instructions to agencies is to be resolved not by the agencies but by the judges. Specific congressional intent to depart from this rule must be found — and while there is no single touchstone for such intent it can generally be found when Congress has authorized the agency to act through (what the Court says is) relatively formal procedures such as informal rulemaking and formal (and informal?) adjudication, and when the agency in fact employs such procedures. The Court’s background rule is contradicted by the origins of judicial review of administrative action. But in addition, the Court’s principal criterion of congressional intent to supplant its background rule seems to me quite implausible. There is no necessary connection between the formality of procedure and the power of the entity administering the procedure to resolve authoritatively questions of law. The most formal of the procedures the Court refers to — -formal adjudication — is modeled after the process used in trial courts, which of course are not generally accorded deference on questions of law. The purpose of such a procedure is to produce a closed record for determination and review of the facts — which implies nothing about the power of the agency subjected to the procedure to resolve authoritatively questions of law. As for informal rulemaking: While formal adjudication procedures are prescribed (either by statute or by the Constitution), see 5 U. S. C..§§554, 556; Wong Yang Sung v. McGrath, 339 U. S. 33, 50 (1950), informal rulemaking is more typically authorized but not required. Agencies with such authority are free to give guidance through rulemaking, but they may proceed to administer their statute case-by-case, “making law” as they implement their program (not necessarily through formal adjudication). See NLRB v. Bell Aerospace Co., 416 U. S. 267, 290-295 (1974); SEC v. Chenery Corp., 332 U. S. 194, 202-203 (1947). Is it likely — or indeed even plausible — that Congress meant, when such an agency chooses rulemaking, to accord the administrators of that agency, and their successors, the flexibility of interpreting the ambiguous statute now one way, and later another; but, when such an agency chooses case-by-case administration, to eliminate all future agency discretion by having that same ambiguity resolved authoritatively (and forever) by the courts? Surely that makes no sense. It is also the case that certain significant categories of rules — those involving grant and benefit programs, for example, are exempt from the requirements of informal rulemaking. See 5 U. S. C. § 553(a)(2). Under the Court’s novel theory, when an agency takes advantage of that exemption its rules will be deprived of Chevron deference, i. e., authoritative effect. Was this either the plausible intent of the APA rulemaking exemption, or the plausible intent of the Congress that established the grant or benefit program? Some decisions that are neither informal rulemaking nor formal adjudication are required to be made personally by a Cabinet Secretary, without any prescribed procedures. See, e. g., United States v. Giordano, 416 U. S. 505, 508 (1974) (involving application of 18 U. S. C. §2516 (1970 ed.), requiring wiretap applications to be authorized by “[t]he Attorney General, or any Assistant Attorney General specially designated by the Attorney General”); D. C. Federation of Civic Assns. v. Volpe, 459 F. 2d 1231, 1248-1249 (CADC 1971) (involving application of 23 U. S. C. § 138 (1970 ed.) requiring the Secretary of Transportation to determine that there is “no feasible and prudent alternative to the use of” publicly owned parkland for a federally funded highway), cert, denied, 405 U. S. 1030 (1972). Is it conceivable that decisions specifically committed to these high-level officers are meant to be accorded no deference, while decisions by an administrative law judge left in place without further discretionary agency review, see 5 U. S. C. § 557(b), are authoritative? This seems to me quite absurd, and not at all in accord with any plausible actual intent of Congress. B As for the practical effects of the new rule: 1 The principal effect will be protracted confusion. As noted above, the one test for Chevron deference that the Court enunciates is wonderfully imprecise: whether “Congress delegated authority to the agency generally to make rules carrying the force of law,.. . as by .. . adjudication[,] notice-and-comment rulemaking, or . . . some other [procedure] indicating] comparable congressional intent.” But even this description does not do justice to the utter flabbiness of the Court’s criterion, since, in order to maintain the fiction that the new test is really just the old one, applied consistently throughout our case law, the Court must make a virtually open-ended exception to its already imprecise guidance: In the present case, it tells us, the absence of notice-and-comment rulemaking (and “[who knows?] [of] some other [procedure] indieati[ng] comparable congressional intent”) is not enough to decide the question of Chevron deference, “for we have sometimes found reasons for Chevron deference even when no such administrative formality was required and none was afforded.” Ante, at 226-227, 231. The opinion then goes on to consider a grab bag of other factors — including the factor that used to be the sole criterion for Chevron deference: whether the interpretation represented the authoritative position of the agency, see ante, at 231-234. It is hard to know what the lower courts are to make of today’s guidance. 2 Another practical effect of today’s opinion will be an artificially induced increase in informal rulemaking. Buy stock in the GPO. Since informal rulemaking and formal adjudication are the only more-or-less safe harbors from the storm that the Court has unleashed; and since formal adjudication is not an option but must be mandated by statute or constitutional command; informal rulemaking — which the Court was once careful to make voluntary unless required by statute, see Bell Aerospace, supra, and Chenery, supra— will now become a virtual necessity. As I have described, the Court’s safe harbor requires not merely that the agency have been given rulemaking authority, but also that the agency have employed rulemaking as the means of resolving the statutory ambiguity. (It is hard to understand why that should be so. Surely the mere conferral of rulemaking authority demonstrates — if one accepts the Court’s logic — a congressional intent to allow the agency to resolve ambiguities. And given that intent, what difference does it make that the agency chooses instead to use another perfectly permissible means for that purpose?) Moreover, the majority’s approach will have a perverse effect on the rules that do emerge, given the principle (which the Court leaves untouched today) that judges must defer to reasonable agency interpretations of their own regulations. See, e. g., United States, v. Cleveland Indians Baseball Co., 532 U. S. 200, 220 (2001) (“We need not decide whether the [informal] Revenue Rulings themselves are entitled to deference[,. . . because] the Rulings simply reflect the agency’s longstanding interpretation of its own regulations”). Agencies will now have high incentive to rush out barebones, ambiguous, rules construing statutory ambiguities, which they can then in turn further clarify through informal rulings entitled to judicial respect. 3 Worst of all, the majority’s approach will lead to the ossification of large portions of our statutory law. Where Chevron applies, statutory ambiguities remain ambiguities subject to the agency’s ongoing clarification. They create a space, so to speak, for the exercise of continuing agency discretion. As Chevron itself held, the Environmental Protection Agency can interpret “stationary source” to mean a single smokestack, can later replace that interpretation with the “bubble concept” embracing an entire plant, and if that proves undesirable can return again to the original interpretation. 467 U. S., at 853-859, 865-866. For the indeterminately large number of statutes taken out of Chevron by today’s decision, however, ambiguity (and hence flexibility) will cease with the first judicial resolution. Skidmore deference gives the agency’s current position some vague and uncertain amount of respect, but it does not, like Chevron, leave the matter within the control of the Executive Branch for the future. Once the court has spoken, it becomes unlawful for the agency to take a contradictory position; the statute now says what the court has prescribed. See Neal v. United States, 516 U. S. 284, 295 (1996); Lechmere, Inc. v. NLRB, 502 U. S. 527, 536-537 (1992); Maislin Industries, U. S., Inc. v. Primary Steel, Inc., 497 U. S. 116, 131 (1990). It will be bad enough when this ossification occurs as a result of judicial determination (under today’s new principles) that there is no affirmative indication of congressional intent to “delegate”; but it will be positively bizarre when it occurs simply because of an agency’s failure to act by rulemaking (rather than informal adjudication) before the issue is presented to the.courts. One might respond that such ossification would not result if the agency were simply to readopt its interpretation, after a court reviewing it under Skidmore had rejected it, by re-promulgating it through one of the Chevron-eligible procedural formats approved by the Court today. Approving this procedure would be a landmark abdication of judicial power. It is worlds apart from Chevron proper, where the court does not purport to give the statute a judicial interpretation— except in identifying the scope of the statutory ambiguity, as to which the court’s judgment is final and irreversible. (Under Chevron proper, when the agency’s authoritative interpretation comes within the scope of that ambiguity — and the court therefore approves it — the agency will not be “overruling” the court’s decision when it later decides that a different interpretation (still within the scope of the ambiguity) is preferable.) By contrast, under this view, the reviewing court will not be holding the agency’s authoritative interpretation within the scope of the ambiguity; but will be holding that the agency has not used the “delegation-conferring” procedures, and that the court must therefore interpret the statute on its own — but subject to reversal if and when the agency uses the proper procedures. One is reminded of Justice Jackson’s words in Chicago & Southern Air Lines, Inc. v. Waterman S. S. Corp., 333 U. S. 103, 113 (1948): “The court below considered that after it reviewed the Board’s order its judgment would be submitted to the President, that his power to disapprove would apply after as well as before the court acts, and hence that there would be no chance of a deadlock and no conflict of function. But if the President may completely disregard the judgment of the court, it would be only because it is one the courts were not authorized to render. Judgments within the powers vested in courts by the Judiciary Article of the Constitution may not lawfully be revised, overturned or refused faith and credit by another Department of Government.” I know of no case, in the entire history of the federal courts, in which we have allowed a judicial interpretation of a statute to be set aside by an agency — or have allowed a lower court to render an interpretation of a statute subject to correction by an agency. As recently as 1996, we rejected an attempt to do 'precisely that. In Chapman v. United States, 500 U. S. 453 (1991), we had held that the weight of the blotter paper bearing the lysergic acid diethyl-amide (LSD) must be counted for purposes of determining whether the quantity crossed the 10-gram threshold of 21 U. S. C. § 841(b)(1)(A)(v) imposing a minimum sentence of 10 years. At that time the United States Sentencing Commission applied a similar approach under the Sentencing Guidelines, but had taken no position regarding the meaning of the statutory provision. The Commission later changed its Guidelines approach, and, according to the petitioner in Neal v. United States, 516 U. S. 284 (1996), made clear its view that the statute bore that meaning as well. The petitioner argued that we should defer to that new approach. We would have none of it. “Were we, for argument’s sake, to adopt petitioner’s view that the Commission intended the commentary as an interpretation of § 841(b)(1), and that the last sentence of the commentary states the Commission’s view that the dose-based method is consistent with the term 'mixture or substance’ in the statute, he still would not prevail. The Commission’s dose-based method cannot be squared with Chapman. ... In these circumstances, we need not decide what, if any, deference is owed the Commission in order to reject its alleged contrary interpretation. Once we have determined a statute’s meaning, we adhere to our ruling under the doctrine of stare decisis, and we assess an agency’s later interpretation of the statute against that settled law.” Id., at 294-295 (citations omitted). There is, in short, no way to avoid the ossification of federal law that today’s opinion sets in motion. What a court says is the law after according Skidmore deference will be the law forever, beyond the power of the agency to change even through rulemaking. 4 And finally, the majority’s approach compounds the confusion it creates by breathing new life into the anachronism of Skidmore, which sets forth a sliding scale of deference owed an agency’s interpretation of a statute that is dependent “upon the thoroughness evident in [the agency’s] consideration, the validity of its reasoning, its consistency with earlier and later pronouncements, and all those factors which give it power to persuade, if lacking power to control”; in this way, the appropriate measure of deference will be accorded the “body of experience and informed judgment” that such interpretations often embody, 323 U. S., at 140. Justice Jackson’s eloquence notwithstanding, the rule of. Skidmore deference is an empty truism and a trifling statement of the obvious: A judge should take into account the well-considered views of expert observers. It was possible to live with the indeterminacy of Skid-more deference in earlier times. But in an era when federal statutory law administered by federal agencies is pervasive, and when the ambiguities (intended or unintended) that those statutes contain are innumerable, totality-of-the-circumstances Skidmore deference is a recipe for uncertainty, unpredictability, and endless litigation. To condemn a vast body of agency action to that regime (all except rule-making, formal (and informal?) adjudication, and whatever else might now and then be included within today’s intentionally vague formulation of affirmative congressional intent to “delegate”) is irresponsible. II The Court s pretense that today’s opinion is nothing more than application of our prior case law does not withstand analysis. It is, to be sure, impossible to demonstrate that any of our cases contradicts the rule of decision that the Court prescribes, because the Court prescribes none. More precisely, it at one and the same time (1) renders meaningless its newly announced requirement that there be an affirmative congressional intent to have ambiguities resolved by the administering agency, and (2) ensures that no prior decision can possibly be cited which contradicts that requirement, by simply announcing that all prior decisions according Chevron deference exemplify the multifarious ways in which that congressional intent can be manifested: “[A]s significant as notice-and-eomment is in pointing to Chevron authority, the want of that procedure here does not decide the case, for we have sometimes found reasons for Chevron deference even when no such administrative formality was required and none was afforded,” ante, at 230-231. The principles central to today’s opinion have no antecedent in our jurisprudence. Chevron, the case that the opinion purportedly explicates, made no mention of the “relatively formal administrative procedure[s]," ante, at 230, that the Court today finds the best indication of an affirmative intent by Congress to have ambiguities resolved by the administ