Cite as: 522 U. S. 156 (1997)
Ginsburg, J., dissenting
without regard to the amount in controversy. The Court held that the APA "does not afford an implied grant of subject-matter jurisdiction permitting federal judicial review of agency action." 430 U. S., at 107. Nevertheless, the Court explained, district court review of federal administrative action—when Congress had not prescribed another review route or specifically excluded review—would persist. Congress had just dropped the amount-in-controversy requirement from § 1331, thus "fill[ing] the jurisdictional void." Id., at 106. With the amount-in-controversy deleted, the Court indicated in Sanders, § 1331 would assure fidelity to the presumption that administrative action is subject to judicial review. See id., at 105-106; Abbott Laboratories v. Gardner, 387 U. S. 136, 141 (1967) (courts generally hold agency action nonreviewable "only upon a showing of 'clear and convincing evidence' of a contrary legislative intent"); see also Barlow v. Collins, 397 U. S. 159, 166 (1970) ("[J]udicial review of [federal] administrative action is the rule, and nonreviewability an exception which must be demonstrated.").
Whatever the reason for the rule implicit in Sanders—that federal district courts may engage in on-the-record, substantial evidence review of federal agency actions under § 1331— Chicago homes in on the statutory language. See Brief for Petitioners 11, 30, 39. Section 1331 reads: "The district courts shall have original jurisdiction of all civil actions arising under the Constitution, laws, or treaties of the United States." If deferential, on-the-record review of a federal agency's action qualifies as a "civil action" within a district court's "original jurisdiction," Chicago urges, then deferential, on-the-record review of local agency action must fit the same bill, i. e., such review must qualify as a "civil action" within the district court's "original jurisdiction."
But one of these things is not necessarily like the other. I recognize that the bare and identical words "original jurisdiction" and "civil action" in §§ 1331 and 1332 comport with
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