Cite as: 512 U. S. 504 (1994)
Thomas, J., dissenting
Subsection (c), in stark contrast to the remainder of § 413.85, reads more like a preamble than a law. See ante, at 507-508, n. 1 (quoting § 413.85(c)).1 In the community support portion of § 413.85(c), the Secretary praises the benefits of approved educational programs and expresses a belief that communities "should" pay for such programs. The subsection then announces the Secretary's intention to support such activities "appropriately," limited only by the vague suggestion that at some point in the future a restructuring of fiscal priorities at the "community" level may obviate the need for federal support. The anti-redistribution principle is no less precatory than the community support principle. It states two "intent[ions]": first, to pay for the "customar[y] and traditiona[l]" educational activities of Medicare providers, and, second, to avoid reimbursing expenses that should be borne by educational institutions affiliated with teaching hospitals. I would not permit the Secretary to transform by "interpretation" what self-evidently are mere generalized expressions of intent into substantive rules of reimbursability. Cf. Stinson v. United States, 508 U. S. 36, 45 (1993) (an agency's interpretation of its own regulation cannot be sustained if " 'plainly erroneous or inconsistent with the regulation' ") (quoting Bowles v. Seminole Rock & Sand Co., 325 U. S. 410, 414 (1945)). See also Udall v. Tallman, 380 U. S. 1, 16-17 (1965).
We rejected a similar attempted transformation of preca-tory language in Pennhurst State School and Hospital v. Halderman, 451 U. S. 1 (1981). There, we addressed a claim that the "bill of rights" of the Developmentally Disabled Assistance and Bill of Rights Act of 1975, 42 U. S. C. § 6010 (1976 ed. and Supp. III), created substantive rights in favor of the mentally retarded. The bill of rights provided, in part, that such persons "have a right to appropriate treat-1 Like the Court, ante, at 507-508, I refer to the last sentence of 42 CFR § 413.85(c) (1993) as the "anti-redistribution principle," and to the remainder of the subsection as the "community support principle."
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