Mississippi Medical Cannabis: Church Setbacks Depend on Existence, Not Ownership, and Application-Fee Exceptions Remain Statutory

1. Introduction

This first-impression decision interprets two important features of the Mississippi Medical Cannabis Act: the protection afforded to churches near proposed dispensaries and the circumstances permitting a refund of a dispensary application fee. The five-justice majority held that an existing church need not own its premises to trigger the Act’s location restrictions. It also held that an applicant’s extensive, good-faith investigation does not authorize courts to create an exception to the statutory nonrefundability of application fees.

Green Cross of MS, LLC sought permission to operate a medical-cannabis dispensary in Oxford. Its investigation identified a nearby childcare facility, from which it obtained the necessary waiver, but did not uncover a recently established church operating in neighboring commercial premises. Mississippi Alcoholic Beverage Control, a division of the Mississippi Department of Revenue, discovered the church and denied the application. The church was only ninety-nine feet from the proposed dispensary—too close for a waiver.

The resulting litigation separated two questions that might otherwise appear inseparable: whether the application was lawfully denied and whether fairness nevertheless justified returning the $15,000 application fee. The Supreme Court answered the first question yes and the second no. Two dissents challenged the fairness and evidentiary foundations of the administrative process, exposing an important tension between enforcing statutory text and ensuring meaningful review of agency decisions.

2. Background and Procedural History

The application and the undiscovered church

The Act, enacted in 2022, authorizes the Department of Revenue to oversee medical-cannabis dispensaries. Under Mississippi Code Section 41-137-35(16)(a)(ii), a dispensary generally cannot locate within 1,000 feet of the nearest property boundary line of a qualifying school, church, or childcare facility. A waiver requires the protected institution’s approval and the licensing agency’s authorization, and the dispensary’s main entrance cannot be within 500 feet of the protected property boundary.

Green Cross proposed a dispensary at 311 Heritage Drive. Its July 18, 2022 survey identified a childcare facility within 1,000 feet but outside the 500-foot restriction. Green Cross obtained a waiver from that facility. The surveyor also certified that no church-owned properties were within the prohibited area. A search of the secretary of state’s records identified Next Gear Solutions LLC/Next Gear Solutions Inc., rather than a church, as the occupier of nearby premises at 304 Heritage Drive, Suite 2.

ABC’s investigation produced a different picture. According to the facts accepted by the majority, Wellspring Church began holding services at 304 Heritage Drive on July 15, 2022, before Green Cross submitted its application on July 30. Wellspring did not own the property, but it had paid for permission to occupy it. ABC determined that the church was ninety-nine feet from the proposed dispensary.

The administrative and judicial decisions

• August 5, 2022: ABC denied the application because of the church-distance restriction. It returned the $25,000 annual license fee but retained the $15,000 application fee.
• August 8, 2022: Green Cross appealed to the Panola County Circuit Court. Although the proposed dispensary was in Lafayette County, Section 41-137-59(2)(a) placed jurisdiction in the county where the appellant resided.
• March 2023: The Legislature expanded the Act’s administrative-appeal process to include license-application denials. That process had not been available when Green Cross appealed.
• July 26, 2024: The circuit court upheld the denial but ordered a refund of the application fee, reasoning that retaining it was arbitrary under these unusual circumstances.
• October 29, 2026: The Supreme Court upheld the license denial and reversed the refund order.

ABC and the Department of Revenue directly appealed the refund ruling. Green Cross and Karen Crumpler cross-appealed the ruling sustaining the license denial.

3. Summary of the Opinion

The majority confined its review to statutory interpretation. It declined to resolve the procedural-due-process and evidentiary objections developed in the dissents because, in its view, Green Cross had not presented those matters as assignments of error and had expressly disclaimed a substantial-evidence challenge.

4. Analysis of the Court’s Legal Reasoning

A. Review was independent because the presented questions concerned statutory meaning

The Court acknowledged the familiar grounds for reviewing administrative action: substantial evidentiary support, arbitrariness or capriciousness, the agency’s statutory authority, and infringement of statutory or constitutional rights. But the majority characterized the questions actually presented as questions of law and therefore applied de novo review.

This distinction matters. The majority did not uphold ABC’s statutory interpretation merely because an administrative agency had adopted it. Instead, it independently interpreted the Act. At the same time, it treated the church’s existence and proximity as undisputed for purposes of the issues Green Cross chose to pursue. Justice Sullivan’s dissent disputed whether the record justified that treatment.

B. Existing churches need not hold title to their premises

The central statutory language protects a school, church, or childcare facility that:

“exists or has acquired necessary real property for the operation of such facility before the date of the medical cannabis establishment application”

Green Cross did not deny that Wellspring was a church in the ordinary sense. Its argument concerned the statutory connection between a church and its premises: because the setback is measured from the “property boundary line of a church,” Green Cross contended that a legally sufficient real-property interest was required.

The majority rejected an ownership requirement. It read the alternatives—“exists” or “has acquired necessary real property”—as allowing an already operating church to qualify without owning the land. The reference to a property boundary establishes a geographic measuring point; it does not, in the Court’s interpretation, require the protected institution to hold fee-simple title.

The Court also endorsed the circuit court’s finding that Wellspring had paid to occupy the premises and therefore possessed an interest in the property. That additional reasoning limits how broadly the holding should be understood. The decision establishes that ownership is unnecessary; it does not comprehensively decide the status of unauthorized occupation, an isolated religious gathering, or every form of temporary use.

C. The application date, rather than the survey date, controls the relevant timing

The statutory protection applies when the institution existed or had acquired the necessary property before the application date. Green Cross’s investigation did not reveal Wellspring, but the majority accepted that the church was operating before the July 30 application.

The applicant’s lack of knowledge did not change that sequence. Nor did a survey addressing church ownership establish the absence of an operating church in commercial premises. The opinion therefore distinguishes actual qualifying use from what ownership records or corporate filings disclose.

D. The waiver provisions did not rescue the application

The Act’s waiver mechanism does not eliminate all distance restrictions. A protected institution’s approval and an agency waiver can address locations within the broader 1,000-foot zone only when the statutory 500-foot restriction is also satisfied.

Green Cross properly obtained the childcare facility’s waiver, but each protected institution presented a separate compliance question. Because Wellspring was only ninety-nine feet away, its proximity could not be cured through the waiver process. This made the ownership argument decisive: once Wellspring qualified as a protected church, the proposed location could not be approved.

E. Good faith does not create an application-fee refund exception

Section 41-137-35(4) describes the $15,000 charge as a “one-time non-refundable license application fee.” The circuit court nevertheless emphasized Green Cross’s careful investigation, reliance on public information, and nonfrivolous application. It inferred that the fee’s purpose was to deter frivolous applications and considered retention unjust in these circumstances.

The Supreme Court rejected that reasoning on two related grounds. First, the asserted anti-frivolity purpose does not appear in the statutory text. Second, the Legislature expressly provided a different and limited refund mechanism, demonstrating that refund eligibility was a matter of legislative specification rather than general judicial fairness.

Under Section 41-137-37(5), the licensing agency may refund all or part of an application fee when the sole reason for denial is failure to satisfy the 1,500-foot separation requirement between dispensaries. Two qualifications are important:

• The exception concerns proximity to another dispensary, not to a church, school, or childcare facility.
• Even when the exception applies, “may” authorizes a discretionary refund; it does not promise an automatic full refund.

Green Cross’s denial did not fall within that exception. The Court therefore held that neither ABC nor the judiciary could create a further exception based on diligence, detrimental reliance on public information, or the perceived harshness of the result.

Textual detail: The refund provision quoted in the opinion cross-references Section 41-137-35(5), while the opinion identifies the application-fee provision as Section 41-137-35(4). The Court does not analyze that cross-reference discrepancy; its decision rests on the scope of the stated refund exception.

F. Separation of powers supplied the constitutional foundation

The majority invoked article 1, sections 1–2 of the Mississippi Constitution. Determining whether a carefully investigated but unsuccessful application should qualify for a refund is a policy choice for the Legislature. Judicially supplying that exception would alter, rather than interpret, the statutory scheme.

Accordingly, the circuit court’s description of fee retention as “arbitrary” could not overcome an express legislative direction. Under the majority’s approach, an agency does not act arbitrarily merely by following an applicable, unambiguous nonrefundability provision.

G. Application fees and annual license fees serve distinct legal functions

Green Cross argued that ABC’s return of the $25,000 annual license fee showed that refund discretion existed despite statutory nonrefundability language. The Court instead distinguished the charges by what they funded.

The application had been submitted and processed, so the application fee attached to an actual application. No operating license was created, however, leaving no license to which the remitted annual fee could apply. The Court accepted the return on that basis, not as an exercise of general equitable discretion.

This reasoning should not be mistaken for a broad holding that annual license fees are refundable whenever fairness favors repayment. The decision addresses money submitted for a license that was never issued.

H. Exhaustion required no unavailable administrative appeal

When Green Cross sought judicial review in August 2022, the Act provided an administrative appeal for fines, suspensions, and revocations, but not application denials. The Legislature added administrative review of denials in March 2023.

The majority therefore held that no unexhausted administrative remedy prevented Green Cross’s circuit-court appeal. Both parties ultimately acknowledged that the appeal had been properly taken. This conclusion answered the exhaustion question, but it did not resolve the separate question raised by the dissents: whether the process actually afforded a constitutionally adequate opportunity to present evidence.

5. Precedents Cited and Their Influence

No cited precedent had previously resolved the Act’s church-ownership or fee-refund questions. The majority instead applied established administrative-review, statutory-interpretation, and separation-of-powers principles. The dissents relied on a separate body of authority addressing evidentiary sufficiency and procedural fairness.

A. Majority authorities: administrative review and exhaustion

• Hill Bros. Constr. & Eng'g Co., Inc. v. Miss. Transp. Comm'n, 909 So. 2d 58, 64 (Miss. 2005), and Landmark Structures, Inc. v. City Council for Meridian, 826 So. 2d 746, 749 (Miss. 2002). Through the former’s quotation of the latter, the Court identified the four conventional grounds for reviewing agency decisions. These cases established the general framework but did not determine which grounds Green Cross had preserved.

• Miss. Ethics Comm'n v. Grisham, 957 So. 2d 997, 1000 (Miss. 2007), and 32 Pit Bulldogs v. Cnty. of Prentiss, 808 So. 2d 971, 973 (Miss. 2002). These authorities supported independent review of questions of law. Their significance was methodological: the Supreme Court interpreted the Act for itself rather than treating ABC’s interpretation as controlling.

• State v. Beebe, 687 So. 2d 702, 704 (Miss. 1996). This case supplied the requirement that a complainant exhaust available administrative remedies before resorting to court. Its supporting citations—NCAA v. Gillard, 352 So. 2d 1072, 1082–83 (Miss. 1977); Everitt v. Lovitt, 192 So. 2d 422, 426 (Miss. 1966); and Davis v. Barr, 250 Miss. 54, 157 So. 2d 505 (1963)—formed the cited foundation for that general rule. The decisive qualification here was that the remedy must actually be available.

• Miss. Dep't of Corr. v. McClure, 386 So. 3d 372, 377 (Miss. 2024), and Tiger Prod. Co., LLC v. Pace, 353 So. 3d 429, 433 (Miss. 2022). These cases supplied the exception: exhaustion does not apply when no adequate administrative remedy exists. They explained why Green Cross could properly proceed to circuit court under the original statutory scheme.

B. Majority authorities: plain meaning and judicial restraint

• Lawson v. Honeywell Int'l, Inc., 75 So. 3d 1024, 1027 (Miss. 2011), and Russell v. State, 231 Miss. 176, 94 So. 2d 916, 917 (1957). These authorities establish that courts determine what legislation provides, not what it should provide. They directly undermined the circuit court’s effort to supply a more equitable refund rule.

• Green v. Cleary Water, Sewer & Fire Dist., 910 So. 2d 1022, 1027 (Miss. 2005), and Marx v. Broom, 632 So. 2d 1315, 1318 (Miss. 1994). The Court relied on the prohibition against enlarging or restricting an unambiguous statute. Adding a diligence-based refund exception would enlarge the circumstances in which the Legislature permitted repayment.

• Miss. Dep't of Transp. v. Allred, 928 So. 2d 152, 154 (Miss. 2006), and City of Natchez v. Sullivan, 612 So. 2d 1087, 1089 (Miss. 1992). These cases direct courts to apply unambiguous legislation according to its plain meaning. They supported treating “non-refundable” and the specifically identified exception as operative commands rather than flexible policy statements.

• City of Jackson v. City of Pearl, 358 So. 3d 621, 626 (Miss. 2023), and Chandler v. McKee, 202 So. 3d 1269, 1274 (Miss. 2016). These decisions reinforced the distinction between interpreting legislative language and changing it. They supported the conclusion that neither reviewing court could compel ABC to grant a refund the statutory scheme did not authorize.

C. Chief Justice Randolph’s authorities: meaningful notice and opportunity to be heard

• Shird v. Miss. State Dept. of Mental Health, 785 So. 2d 275, 278 (Miss. 2001). Green Cross quoted this case’s administrative-review standard, including review for violations of constitutional rights. Chief Justice Randolph regarded that quotation, together with Green Cross’s objection to exclusion of its evidence, as sufficient to raise a due-process issue. The majority disagreed about what issues had been presented.

• Molden v. Miss. State Dep't of Health, 730 So. 2d 29, 35 (Miss. 1998), and Booth v. Miss. Emp. Sec. Comm'n, 588 So. 2d 422, 428 (Miss. 1991). These cases identify notice and an opportunity to be heard as minimum administrative due-process protections under the federal and Mississippi constitutions. They supplied the central constitutional premise of Randolph’s dissent.

• Miss. Bd. of Veterinary Med. v. Geotes, 770 So. 2d 940, 943 (Miss. 2000), and City of Tupelo v. Miss. Emp. Sec. Comm'n, 748 So. 2d 151, 153 (Miss. 1999). These authorities require notice reasonably calculated to inform affected parties and afford them an opportunity to present their case. Randolph relied on them to emphasize that access to an appellate court is not necessarily equivalent to an effective opportunity to develop evidence.

• Tippah Cnty. v. LeRose, 283 So. 3d 149, 151 (Miss. 2019), and Daricek Living Tr. v. Hancock Cnty. ex rel. Bd. of Supervisors, 34 So. 3d 587, 597 (Miss. 2010). These cases recognize that due process is flexible and depends on the situation. Oliphant v. Carthage Bank, 224 Miss. 386, 411, 80 So. 2d 63, 73 (1955), quoted through that line of authority, further explains that notice and a hearing may be constitutionally required even without an express statutory provision. Together, they supported looking beyond the original Act’s procedural silence.

D. Justice Sullivan’s authorities: evidence, fair procedure, and judicial intervention

• Pub. Emps.' Ret. Sys. v. Marquez, 774 So. 2d 421, 430 (Miss. 2000), and Miss. State Dep't of Health v. Natchez Cmty. Hosp., 743 So. 2d 973, 976 (Miss. 1999). These cases establish that an agency decision unsupported by substantial evidence is necessarily arbitrary and capricious. Sullivan invoked them to argue that the legality of ABC’s underlying denial had to be examined before accepting its position on fee retention.

• Williams v. Miss. Emp. Sec. Comm'n, 395 So. 2d 964, 966 (Miss. 1981), and Noxubee Cnty. Bd. of Educ. v. Givens, 481 So. 2d 816, 820 (Miss. 1985). These were central to Sullivan’s evidentiary objection: hearsay may be admissible administratively, but uncorroborated hearsay alone is not substantial evidence. The opinion describes Noxubee Cnty. Bd. of Educ. v. Givens as sustaining reinstatement of a teacher where the discharge rested on uncorroborated hearsay. It also supplied the broader proposition that agencies remain subject to judicial enforcement of the rule of law.

• Bd. of Law Enf't Officers Standards & Training v. Butler, 672 So. 2d 1196, 1199 (Miss. 1996). ABC invoked this authority for limiting judicial review to the administrative record. Sullivan did not dismiss record-based review as a general principle; he challenged its application where Green Cross had no administrative hearing and was prevented from supplying relevant documentation.

• McFadden v. Miss. State Bd. of Med. Licensure, 735 So. 2d 145, 158 (Miss. 1999). This case supported the application of federal and state due-process protections to administrative proceedings. It framed the dispute as one involving constitutional safeguards, not simply discretionary agency procedure.

• Miss. State Bd. of Health v. Johnson, 197 Miss. 417, 19 So. 2d 445, 447 (1944), quoting State ex rel.Williams v. Whitman, 156 So. 705, 710 (Fla. 1934). These authorities require fair and impartial administrative action, free from justified suspicion of unfairness or oppression. Sullivan used them to criticize the asserted asymmetry between ABC’s ability to supplement its presentation and Green Cross’s inability to introduce supporting documents.

• McGowan v. Miss. State Oil & Gas Bd., 604 So. 2d 312, 318 (Miss. 1992). Its description of due process as a constitutional “procedural safety net” supported Sullivan’s position that gaps in the original statutory process did not eliminate constitutional protections.

• Madison Cnty. Bd. of Educ. v. Miles, 252 Miss. 711, 173 So. 2d 425 (1965). Cited through the judicial-intervention discussion and again among remedial examples, this case involved reinstatement of a principal whose removal lacked substantial evidentiary support. It illustrated that agency deference does not prevent corrective relief.

• Freeman v. Pub. Emps.' Ret. Sys., 822 So. 2d 274, 282 (Miss. 2002), and Pub. Emps.' Ret. Sys. v. Shurden, 822 So. 2d 258, 264 (Miss. 2002). These benefits cases supplied further examples of relief from unsupported agency decisions. The former involved restoration of disability status and back pay; the latter upheld reversal of a benefits denial. Their relevance was remedial and doctrinal, not specific to cannabis licensing.

• Miss. Div. of Medicaid v. All. Health Ctr., 174 So. 3d 254, 261 (Miss. 2015), and Rogers v. State, 599 So. 2d 930, 932 (Miss. 1992). Sullivan relied on these cases to establish that evidentiary sufficiency presents a question of law. He therefore rejected any implication that limiting review to legal questions necessarily excluded substantial-evidence review.

• Gill v. Miss. Dep't of Wildlife Conservation, 574 So. 2d 586, 591 (Miss. 1990). This authority illustrated that even review confined to legal questions through certiorari can reach an agency decision unsupported by substantial evidence. It reinforced Sullivan’s insistence that the record’s adequacy remained legally significant.

• Bay St. Louis Cmty. Ass'n v. Comm'n on Marine Res., 808 So. 2d 885, 890 (Miss. 2001), and Burks v. Amite Cnty. Sch. Dist., 708 So. 2d 1366, 1370 (Miss. 1998). These cases define arbitrary action as action dependent on will rather than reason or judgment, and capricious action as unreasonable or whimsical action disregarding surrounding facts and controlling principles. Sullivan applied those definitions to ABC’s investigation and litigation conduct.

Precedential distinction: The authorities supporting the dissents remain important administrative-law precedents, but the dissents’ application of them did not become the holding of this case. The majority resolved the appeal on the statutory questions it considered properly presented.

6. The Dissents and the Decision’s Principal Tension

Chief Justice Randolph: an appeal without an opportunity to develop evidence was inadequate

Chief Justice Randolph concluded that Green Cross never received a meaningful opportunity to be heard. ABC denied the application without a hearing, and Green Cross then entered a judicial-review process without having developed an evidentiary record before the agency.

He rejected the majority’s view that due process was not raised, pointing to Green Cross’s citation of constitutional-review principles and its objection that exclusion of its evidence was “patently unfair.” He further regarded the denial of any opportunity to present evidence as plain error. His proposed remedy was reversal and remand through the circuit court to ABC for a full administrative appeal.

Justice Sullivan: the agency’s evidence could not sustain its decision

Justice Sullivan, joined by Presiding Justice King and Justice Ishee, focused on the record’s contents. As he described it, ABC submitted three internal emails and an affidavit attesting that the emails had been reviewed. Two emails preceded the denial; the third was generated on September 21, after Green Cross had appealed.

The emails recounted conversations with others about the church’s occupancy, a proposed property purchase, and permission to use the building before closing. Sullivan considered the material uncorroborated hearsay rather than substantial evidence. He also objected that ABC opposed Green Cross’s effort to add documentation while relying on the later-generated email itself.

A further concern was ABC’s reliance on the 2023 amendment requiring circuit-court review to rest on the agency record. According to Sullivan, the original 2022 Act contained no equivalent provision, yet the amended language was used to resist supplementation in a case that began under the earlier procedural scheme.

Sullivan regarded counsel’s disclaimer of a substantial-evidence argument as inadvertent in light of Green Cross’s broader position. The majority, by contrast, treated that disclaimer and the stated assignments of error as defining the appeal. Sullivan would have reversed the order sustaining the denial and affirmed the application-fee refund, considering the elapsed time and procedural posture.

What the disagreement means

The central division was not simply textualism versus sympathy. The majority asked whether the statute authorized denial on the accepted facts and permitted the requested refund. The dissents questioned whether a fair process and adequate evidence had established those facts at all.

The decision therefore should not be read as holding that hearsay always suffices, that applicants never have a right to a hearing, or that statutory compliance automatically satisfies due process. The majority declined to decide those broader matters within the appeal as framed.

7. Likely Impact and Limits

For prospective dispensary applicants

The ruling makes ownership-focused investigations insufficient. A church operating in rented, licensed, or otherwise paid-for commercial space may trigger the setback even though ownership records identify an unrelated business or landlord.

Practical investigation should therefore address actual occupancy and use, not merely title and corporate filings. Site inspections and inquiries to property managers or occupants may reveal protected uses absent from public databases. These are risk-management implications, not newly imposed statutory investigative steps.

The decision also places the financial risk of an undiscovered church restriction on the applicant. Good faith and substantial diligence do not themselves create a refund entitlement.

For agencies and reviewing courts

The majority gives agencies a clear statutory basis to recognize churches without requiring ownership. It also prevents reviewing courts from using generalized fairness to add application-fee exceptions.

Nevertheless, the dissents warn agencies to create a reliable, balanced record and to afford the process required by current law. The 2023 administrative-appeal amendment reduces the particular statutory gap encountered here, but it does not make evidentiary sufficiency or meaningful participation irrelevant.

For appellate advocacy

The case demonstrates the consequences of issue selection. A party that expressly disclaims substantial-evidence review and focuses on statutory authority may find the court unwilling to reach related procedural or evidentiary objections. Counsel seeking those forms of review should identify them distinctly and preserve the supporting objections.

For the Legislature

If diligent applicants should receive refunds when a protected institution is difficult to discover, the majority’s reasoning places responsibility for that policy choice with the Legislature. Any amendment could specify qualifying diligence, refund limits, and the treatment of newly established or temporary protected uses.

Questions left unresolved

• The minimum continuity or permanence necessary for a church to “exist” at a location.
• The treatment of entirely gratuitous, unauthorized, or isolated use of premises.
• The precise boundary measurement for a church occupying only part of a multi-tenant property.
• The due-process and substantial-evidence objections that the majority considered outside the issues presented.

These limits are significant. The decision rejects a fee-simple ownership prerequisite; it does not provide an exhaustive definition of every occupancy arrangement protected by the Act.

8. Complex Concepts Simplified

Fee-simple ownership

The ordinary, broad form of land ownership. A church can operate somewhere without owning the land, just as a business can operate in rented premises.

Setback

A legally required separation between specified uses. Here, protected institutions create distance restrictions around proposed dispensaries.

Waiver

Permission to depart from a restriction when statutory conditions are satisfied. The church’s ninety-nine-foot proximity was too close for the Act’s waiver mechanism.

De novo review

The reviewing court decides the legal question independently rather than deferring to the earlier legal interpretation.

Substantial evidence

Evidence sufficient for a reasonable decision-maker to support the agency’s conclusion. The dissent argued that repeated, uncorroborated reports of what others said did not meet that standard.

Hearsay within hearsay

A statement that passes through multiple speakers before reaching the decision-maker—for example, an internal email reporting what one person said another person had established.

Arbitrary and capricious

Agency action lacking reasoned support or disregarding relevant facts and governing principles. The majority and dissent disagreed about which aspect of ABC’s conduct properly required that assessment.

Exhaustion of administrative remedies

Using available agency-review procedures before going to court. A party cannot be required to use an administrative appeal the law did not yet provide.

Procedural due process

Constitutionally adequate procedures, ordinarily including notice and a meaningful opportunity to be heard, appropriate to the interests and circumstances involved.

Separation of powers

The division of governmental responsibilities. Courts interpret legislation; they cannot add a refund policy simply because the statutory result appears harsh.

9. Conclusion

The decision establishes two controlling principles: a church need not own its operating premises to trigger Mississippi’s medical-cannabis setback, and an applicant’s good-faith investigation cannot supply an application-fee refund exception omitted from the Act.

Green Cross’s license denial therefore stood, and its $15,000 application fee remained nonrefundable. The broader significance lies in the Court’s strict distinction between statutory interpretation and equitable policy-making, tempered by forceful dissents emphasizing that agency authority must still rest on adequate evidence and fair procedure.