Cite as: 520 U. S. 751 (1997)
Breyer, J., dissenting
§ 994(h); United States Sentencing Commission, Guidelines Manual § 4B1.1, comment., n. 2 (Nov. 1995) (USSG). The majority finds this interpretation unlawful. It believes that the three statutory words are unambiguous; that they are not susceptible to the Commission's interpretation; and that the only possible interpretation is one that does not except recidivist enhancement provisions.
In my view, however, the words "maximum term authorized" are ambiguous. They demand an answer to the question "authorized by what?" The statute itself does not tell us "what." Nor does the statute otherwise "directly [speak] to the precise [Guideline] question at issue." Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837, 842 (1984); see Smiley v. Citibank (South Dakota), N. A., 517 U. S. 735 (1996). In light of the statutory ambiguity, we should defer to the Commission's views about what Guideline the statute permits it to write; and we should uphold the Guideline the Commission has written because it "is based on a permissible construction of the statute." Chevron, supra, at 843.
I
A
To understand the legal issue before us, one must keep in mind both what the Guidelines are and how they work. The Guidelines themselves are a set of legal rules written by the United States Sentencing Commission acting under authority delegated to it by a congressional statute, the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 (Sentencing Act), Pub. L. 98-473, § 217, 98 Stat. 2017- 2026, as amended, 28 U. S. C. §§ 991-998. See generally Mistretta v. United States, 488 U. S. 361 (1989). Congress established the United States Sentencing Commission both to create a more honest sentencing system (through the elimination of parole, see Pub. L. 98-473, § 218(a)(5), 98 Stat. 2027) and to create a fairer system by reducing the "unjustifiably wide range of sentences [pre-
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