Cite as: 515 U. S. 687 (1995)
Scalia, J., dissenting
(5th ed. 1979) (defining "[p]roximate" as "Immediate; nearest; direct") (emphasis added); Webster's New International Dictionary 1995 (2d ed. 1949) ("[P]roximate cause. A cause which directly, or with no mediate agency, produces an effect") (emphasis added).
The only other reason given for finding a proximate-cause limitation in the regulation is that "by use of the word 'actually,' the regulation clearly rejects speculative or conjectural effects, and thus itself invokes principles of proximate causation." Ante, at 712 (O'Connor, J., concurring); see also ante, at 700, n. 13 (majority opinion). Non sequitur, of course. That the injury must be "actual" as opposed to "potential" simply says nothing at all about the length or foreseeability of the causal chain between the habitat modification and the "actual" injury. It is thus true and irrelevant that "[t]he Secretary did not need to include 'actually' to connote 'but for' causation," ibid.; "actually" defines the requisite injury, not the requisite causality.
The regulation says (it is worth repeating) that "harm" means (1) an act that (2) actually kills or injures wildlife. If that does not dispense with a proximate-cause requirement, I do not know what language would. And changing the regulation by judicial invention, even to achieve compliance with the statute, is not permissible. Perhaps the agency itself would prefer to achieve compliance in some other fashion. We defer to reasonable agency interpretations of ambiguous statutes precisely in order that agencies, rather than courts, may exercise policymaking discretion in the interstices of statutes. See Chevron, 467 U. S., at 843-845. Just as courts may not exercise an agency's power to adjudicate, and so may not affirm an agency order on discretionary grounds the agency has not advanced, see SEC v. Chenery Corp., 318 U. S. 80 (1943), so also this Court may not exercise the Secretary's power to regulate, and so may not uphold a regulation by adding to it even the most reasonable of elements it does not contain.
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