286
Opinion of the Court
N. A. v. First Interstate Bank of Denver, N. A., 511 U. S. 164, 173 (1994) (a "private plaintiff may not bring a [suit based on a regulation] against a defendant for acts not prohibited by the text of [the statute]"). That right must come, if at all, from the independent force of § 602. As stated earlier, we assume for purposes of this decision that § 602 confers the authority to promulgate disparate-impact regulations; 6 the question remains whether it confers a private right of action to enforce them. If not, we must conclude that a failure to comply with regulations promulgated under § 602 that is not also a failure to comply with § 601 is not actionable.
Implicit in our discussion thus far has been a particular understanding of the genesis of private causes of action. Like substantive federal law itself, private rights of action to enforce federal law must be created by Congress. Touche Ross & Co. v. Redington, 442 U. S. 560, 578 (1979) (remedies available are those "that Congress enacted into law"). The judicial task is to interpret the statute Congress has passed to determine whether it displays an intent to create not just a private right but also a private remedy. Transamerica Mortgage Advisors, Inc. v. Lewis, 444 U. S. 11, 15 (1979). Statutory intent on this latter point is determinative. See, e. g., Virginia Bankshares, Inc. v. Sandberg, 501 U. S. 1083, 1102 (1991); Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals Inc. v. Thompson, 478 U. S. 804, 812, n. 9 (1986) (collecting cases). Without it, a cause of action does not exist and courts may not
6 For this reason, the dissent's extended discussion of the scope of agencies' regulatory authority under § 602, see post, at 305-307, is beside the point. We cannot help observing, however, how strange it is to say that disparate-impact regulations are "inspired by, at the service of, and inseparably intertwined with" § 601, post, at 307, when § 601 permits the very behavior that the regulations forbid. See Guardians, 463 U. S., at 613 (O'Connor, J., concurring in judgment) ("If, as five Members of the Court concluded in Bakke, the purpose of Title VI is to proscribe only purposeful discrimination . . . , regulations that would proscribe conduct by the recipient having only a discriminatory effect . . . do not simply 'further' the purpose of Title VI; they go well beyond that purpose").
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