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Agencies' Obligation To Interpret The Statute, Aaron Saiger
Agencies' Obligation To Interpret The Statute, Aaron Saiger
Vanderbilt Law Review
Conventionally, when a statute delegates authority to an agency, courts defer to agency interpretations of that statute. Most agencies and scholars view such deference as a grant of permission to the agency to adopt any reasonable interpretation. That is wrong, jurisprudentially and ethically. An agency that commands deference bears a duty to adopt what it believes to be the best interpretation of the relevant statute. Deference assigns to the agency, rather than to a court, power authoritatively to declare what the law is. That power carries with it a duty to give the statute the best reading the agency can. …