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Opinion of the Court
otherwise impermissible. . . . Congressional inaction frequently betokens unawareness, preoccupation, or paralysis").
Finally, we dispose of the Government's argument that the VA's regulatory interpretation of § 1151 deserves judicial deference due to its undisturbed endurance for 60 years. A regulation's age is no antidote to clear inconsistency with a statute, and the fact, again, that § 3.358(c)(3) flies against the plain language of the statutory text exempts courts from any obligation to defer to it. Dole v. Steelworkers, 494 U. S. 26, 42-43 (1990); Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., supra, at 842-843. But even if this were a close case, where consistent application and age can enhance the force of administrative interpretation, see Zenith Radio Corp. v. United States, 437 U. S. 443, 450 (1978), the Government's position would suffer from the further factual embarrassment that Congress established no judicial review for VA decisions until 1988, only then removing the VA from what one congressional Report spoke of as the agency's "splendid isolation." H. R. Rep. No. 100-963, pt. 1, p. 10 (1988). As the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit aptly stated: "Many VA regulations have aged nicely simply because Congress took so long to provide for judicial review. The length of such regulations' unscrutinized and unscrutinizable existence" could not alone, therefore, enhance any claim to deference. 5 F. 3d, at 1463-1464.
III
Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is affirmed.
It is so ordered.
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