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Syllabus
approval of, the Corps' regulations interpreting the CWA to cover wet-lands adjacent to navigable waters. See id., at 135-139. The Court expressed no opinion on the question of the Corps' authority to regulate wetlands not adjacent to open water, and the statute's text will not allow extension of the Corps' jurisdiction to such wetlands here. Pp. 166-168.
(b) The Corps' original interpretation of the CWA in its 1974 regulations—which emphasized that a water body's capability of use by the public for transportation or commerce determines whether it is navigable—is inconsistent with that which it espouses here, yet respondents present no persuasive evidence that the Corps mistook Congress' intent in 1974. Respondents contend that whatever its original aim, when Congress amended the CWA in 1977, it approved the more expansive definition of "navigable waters" found in the Corps' 1977 regulations. Specifically, respondents submit that Congress' failure to pass legislation that would have overturned the 1977 regulations and the extension of the Environmental Protection Agency's jurisdiction in § 404(g) to include waters "other than" traditional "navigable waters" indicates that Congress recognized and accepted a broad definition of "navigable waters" that includes nonnavigable, isolated, intrastate waters. This Court recognizes congressional acquiescence to administrative interpretations of a statute with extreme care. Failed legislative proposals are a particularly dangerous ground on which to rest an interpretation of a prior statute, Central Bank of Denver, N. A. v. First Interstate Bank of Denver, N. A., 511 U. S. 164, 187, because a bill can be proposed or rejected for any number of reasons. Here, respondents have failed to make the necessary showing that Congress' failure to pass legislation demonstrates acquiescence to the 1977 regulations or the 1986 Migratory Bird Rule. Section 404(g) is equally unenlightening, for it does not conclusively determine the construction to be placed on the use of the term "waters" elsewhere in the CWA. Riverside Bayview Homes, supra, at 138, n. 11. Pp. 168-172.
(c) Even if § 404(a) were not clear, this Court would not extend deference to the Migratory Bird Rule under Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837. Where an administrative interpretation of a statute would raise serious constitutional problems, the Court will construe the statute to avoid such problems unless the construction is plainly contrary to Congress' intent. Edward J. DeBartolo Corp. v. Florida Gulf Coast Building & Constr. Trades Council, 485 U. S. 568, 575. The grant of authority to Congress under the Commerce Clause, though broad, is not unlimited. See, e. g., United States v. Morrison, 529 U. S. 598. Respondents' arguments, e. g., that the Migratory Bird Rule falls within Congress' power to regulate intra-
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