Cite as: 503 U. S. 407 (1992)
Opinion of the Court
The court defined the word "required" to establish a separate condition that the property sought to be condemned be necessary (indispensable) for Amtrak's operations, a view which is not without support. See, e. g., American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language 1105 (2d ed. 1981). This interpretation, though, leaves little substance to the statutory presumption in favor of Amtrak's need and so is in clear tension with that part of the statute.
We decide that § 562(d) is ambiguous in some respects and conclude that the ICC's interpretation of the word "required" is a reasonable one. We defer to its interpretation. This is not to say that the issue is beyond dispute, but these alternative interpretations are as old as the jurisprudence of this Court. In McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316, 413 (1819), Chief Justice Marshall, in a choice of interpretations with some parallels to this one, read the word "necessary" to mean "convenient, or useful," rejecting a stricter reading of the term which would have limited congressional power under the Constitution to the "most direct and simple" means available. We think that as a matter of definition and interpretation in the context of this statute it is plausible, if not preferable, to say that Amtrak can find that an acquisition is required when it is a useful and appropriate way to accomplish its goals.
The Commission's interpretation is consistent also with the 1990 statutory addition enacted by Congress. While the amendment does not modify the specific language of § 562(d) at issue here, it confirms the ICC's view. The interpretation given to § 562(d) by the Court of Appeals and B&M, on the other hand, would make the amendment superfluous, because if the word "required" has the strict meaning they seek to attribute to it, condemnations by Amtrak would seem to be barred whenever Amtrak's purpose is to reconvey the property.
Contrary to the position of the dissent, we are not "deferring to what we imagine an agency had in mind." Post, at
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