Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge GRIFFITH.
Concurring opinion filed by Senior Circuit Judge EDWARDS.
Dissenting opinion filed by Senior Circuit Judge SILBERMAN.
GRIFFITH, Circuit Judge:
In NLRB v. Noel Canning, — U.S. -, 134 S.Ct. 2550, 189 L.Ed.2d 538 (2014), the Supreme Court determined that the National Labor Relations Board lacked authority to act during the time that three of its five members held office via appointments that violated the Recess Appointments Clause. This petition for review asks whether a Regional Director of the Board had authority to conduct a union election and certify its result during that same time. We conclude that the Regional Director maintained his authority and therefore deny the petition for review.
I
A
Section 3(a) of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) calls for a National Labor Relations Board made up of five members who are appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate. 29 U.S.C. § 153(a). The Board has two main functions under the NLRA. Its quasi-judicial function involves deciding whether particular conduct violates the provisions of the Act that bar unfair labor practices. Id. §§ 158, 160. The Board also has the primary responsibility for directing and [671]*671holding representation elections by which employees may choose to designate representatives for purposes of collective bargaining. Id. § 159(b), (c). Representation proceedings differ from unfair labor practice proceedings in that they may only be reviewed in a court of appeals when they are relevant to the court’s review of an unfair labor practice proceeding. See Am. Fed’n of Labor v. NLRB, 308 U.S. 401, 409, 60 S.Ct. 300, 84 L.Ed. 347 (1940). The Act authorizes the Board to delegate to Regional Directors the authority to direct representation elections and certify the results. 29 U.S.C. § 153(b). The Board first delegated its authority over representation proceedings to the Regional Directors in 1961. See 26 Fed.Reg. 3911 (May 4, 1961). Regional Directors have been responsible for administering and certifying the results of representation elections in their particular regions ever since.
In what turns out to be a critical distinction for the purposes of this challenge, the statute preserves for the Board the power to review “any action of a regional director” taken pursuant to that delegation, should a party object. 29 U.S.C. § 153(b). Thus, though the Board may empower Regional Directors to oversee representation elections, the terms of the delegation authorized under the Act provide that no Regional Director’s actions are ever final on their own; they only become final if the parties decide not to seek Board review or if the Board leaves those actions undisturbed. Id.
The Act separately permits the Board to delegate “any or all of the powers which it may itself exercise” to panels made up of three or more of its members. 29 U.S.C. § 153(b). When such a panel is created, the Act provides that two of its members make up a quorum of that group. Id. This provision allows the Board to process cases more quickly by spreading them across more panels. Moreover, it allows the Board to continue to function without requiring the attendance of all members. Should two of the five members’ terms expire, the Board can continue to act despite the vacancies, while waiting for Congress to appoint new members. Nevertheless, the statute mandates that “three members of the Board shall, at all times, constitute a quorum of the Board.” Id.
Between August 2010 and January 3, 2012, three of the Board’s five members’ terms expired and the Senate refused to confirm any of the President’s nominees to fill the vacancies, leaving the Board without a quorum and therefore unable to' act. Claiming authority under the Recess Appointments Clause, see U.S. Const, art. II, § 2, cl. 3, the President named three individuals to the Board during a three-day break between pro forma Senate sessions, but the Supreme Court held those appointments unconstitutional in Noel Canning, 134 S.Ct. 2550. No Senate-confirmed appointees were sworn in until August 5, 2013. In the interim, Regional Directors continued to hold elections and certify the results, relying upon the Board’s previous delegation of authority.
B
UC Health is a nonprofit corporation that operates a hospital and provides inpatient and outpatient medical care near the University of Cincinnati in Ohio. In March 2013, while the Board lacked a quorum, the UC Health Public Safety Union filed a petition with the Board seeking to represent a unit of security officers employed by the company. UC Health and the Union entered into a Stipulated Election Agreement that identified the appropriate bargaining unit and established that the Regional Director would supervise a secret-ballot election following the Board’s regulations. Under those regulations, if either [672]*672party files timely objections to the election, it is entitled to plenary review by the Board of any decision of the Regional Director addressing those objections. 29 C.F.R. § 102.67(c). If no objections are filed, the Regional Director “shall” certify the results. Id. § 102.69(b).
The Regional Director held the representation election on April 16, 2013, and the Union prevailed by a small margin. The Regional Director certified the results ■without objection from UC Health or the Union on April 24. Shortly thereafter, the Union requested that UC Health bargain, but the company refused. Citing that refusal to bargain, the Acting General Counsel charged UC Health with an unfair labor practice. The company defended itself on the ground that the Regional Director had acted without authority because the Board lacked a quorum at the time of the election.
The Board granted summary judgment to the Acting General Counsel, finding that the company’s argument was untimely because it had not been made during the representation proceedings. See UC Health and UC Health Public Safety Union, 360 N.L.R.B. No. 71 (2014). And even if not waived, the Board concluded that UC Health’s argument was without merit because the Board had delegated authority over representational proceedings to the Regional Directors in 1961; “[p]ursuant to this delegation, NLRB Regional Directors remain vested with the authority to conduct elections and certify their results, regardless of the Board’s composition at any given moment.” Id. at *1 n. 2. Therefore, the Board determined that the election was valid and UC Health had committed an unfair labor practice by refusing to bargain with the Union. Id. at *2-3. UC Health filed a petition for review in this court. We have jurisdiction under 29 U.S.C. § 160(e), (f). Absent plain meaning to the contrary, a court is obliged to defer to an agency’s reasonable interpretation of its statutory jurisdiction pursuant to the familiar Chevron doctrine. City of Arlington v. FCC, — U.S. -, 133 S.Ct. 1863, 1870-71, — L.Ed.2d-(2013).
II
The sole question before us is whether the Regional Director had authority to hold the representation election and certify its results when the Board lacked a quorum. We hold that he did.
The Board argues that we need not address whether the Regional Director had the necessary authority because UC Health has waived its challenge by failing to raise its objection to the Regional Director’s authority at the representation proceeding. “[A]s a general proposition, the applicable case law emphasizes the need for parties seeking judicial review of agency action to raise their issues before the agency during the administrative process in order to preserve those issues for review.” Advocates for Highway & Auto Safety v. Fed. Motor Carrier Safety Admin., 429 F.3d 1136, 1148 (D.C.Cir.2005). The NLRA states that “[n]o objection that has not been urged before the Board, its member, agent, or agency, shall be considered by the court, unless the failure or neglect to urge such objection shall be excused because of extraordinary circumstances.” 29 U.S.C. § 160(e). And under the Board’s practice, “any issues that may be presented during the representation proceeding must be offered there.” Pace Univ. v. NLRB, 514 F.3d 19, 23 (D.C.Cir.2008). Thus, the Board claims, UC Health’s objection to the Regional Director’s authority comes too late.
We have consistently held, however, that challenges to the composition of an agency [673]*673can be raised on review even when they are not raised before the agency. See Noel Canning v. NLRB, 705 F.3d 490, 497 (D.C.Cir.2013), aff'd on other grounds, — U.S. -, 134 S.Ct. 2550, 189 L.Ed.2d 538 (2014); Mitchell v. Christopher, 996 F.2d 375, 378-79 (D.C.Cir.1993) (recognizing an exception allowing parties to “raise[] for the first time on review ... challenges that concern the very composition or ‘constitution’ of an agency”). Since this challenge directly involves the question of whether the Board’s lack of a quorum stripped the Regional Directors of power, UC Health may make it and we may review it.
The Board also asserts that UC Health may not challenge the Regional Director’s authority because the company voluntarily entered into the Stipulated Election Agreement with the Union, and therefore agreed to let the Regional Director supervise the election. According to the Board, the agreement is a contract binding on both parties: UC Health accepted the Regional Director’s authority to oversee the election and, in exchange, received important procedural benefits, including a prompt election. Because UC Health explicitly agreed to the terms of the election, the Board insists that the company cannot challenge one of those terms now. We reject this argument. UC Health did not expressly give up the challenge it brings now when it executed the Agreement; it merely signed a form agreement providing that the Board’s regulations would govern the election. Indeed, when UC Health entered the Stipulated Election Agreement, no one knew whether Congress might confirm the President’s appointments and obviate the quorum issue by the time the representation election in this case took place. And for that matter, UC Health could not have known with any certainty that the Board had no quorum even without Senate approval for the President’s appointments until the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Noel Canning fourteen months after the election. We will not hold UC Health responsible for failing to see the future. And as we have already said, “challenges that concern the very composition or ‘constitution’ of an agency” can “be raised for-the first time on review,” even if the objecting party failed to make that objection at the appropriate time below. Mitchell, 996 F.2d at 378-79. Perhaps some objections to agency action could be abandoned by explicit acceptance of the agency’s authority to act under the statute. But we need not decide that here because UC Health did not expressly abandon anything at all in the Stipulated Election Agreement, and we will not hold it responsible for failing to preserve expressly an argument the substance of which had not yet arisen. See San Miguel Hosp. Corp. v. NLRB, 697 F.3d 1181, 1187 n. 7 (D.C.Cir.2012).
UC Health’s challenge to the Board’s decision that the Regional Director had authority to conduct the election fails on the merits.
The Board interprets the relevant provision of the NLRA to permit Regional Directors to continue exercising their delegated authority while the Board lacks a quorum. We consider the validity of the Board’s interpretation of the Act under “the familiar two-step Chevron test.”1 Int’l Alliance of Theatrical & [674]*674Stage Emps. v. NLRB, 334 F.3d 27, 31 (D.C.Cir.2003). At step one we ask “whether Congress has directly spoken to the precise question at issue.” Chevron, U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Res. Def. Council, Inc., 467 U.S. 837, 842, 104 S.Ct. 2778, 81 L.Ed.2d 694 (1984). If Congress has addressed whether Regional Directors may continue to act in the absence of a Board quorum, “that is the end of the matter[,] for the court, as well as the agency, must give effect to the unambiguously expressed intent of Congress.” Id. at 842-43, 104 S.Ct. 2778. If the statute is ambiguous, we move to Chevron’s second step and ask whether the Board’s interpretation is “a permissible construction of the statute” to which we must defer. Id. at 843, 104 S.Ct. 2778.
At the first step of Chevron, we conclude that the statute is silent on the issue of the Regional Director’s power to act when the Board lacks a quorum. The relevant text of the statute provides:
The Board is authorized to delegate to any group of three or more members any or all of the powers which it may itself exercise. The Board is also authorized to delegate to its regional directors its powers ... to direct an election or take a secret ballot ... and certify the results thereof, except that upon the filing of a request therefor with the Board by any interested person, the Board may review any action of a regional director delegated to him under this paragraph, but such a review shall not, unless specifically ordered by the Board, operate as a stay of any action taken by the regional director. A vacancy in the Board shall not impair the right of the remaining members to exercise all of the powers of the Board, and three members of the Board shall, at all times, constitute a quorum of the Board
29 U.S.C. § 153(b). In its adjudication of the unfair labor practice charge against UC Health, the Board explained that it interpreted the NLRA to permit the delegation of authority to the Regional Director and concluded that “[pjursuant to this delegation, NLRB Regional Directors remain vested with the authority to conduct elections and certify their results, regardless of the Board’s composition at any given moment.” UC Health, 360 N.L.R.B. No. 71 at *1 n. 2.
UC Health argues that the structure of the statute forbids this interpretation. In its view, the three-member quorum requirement applies to the activities of not just the Board but also of the Regional Directors. UC Health points out that the statute implements the quorum requirement in the sentence immediately succeed[675]*675ing the sentence that authorizes the Board to delegate authority to the Regional Directors. This ordering, UC Health argues, expressly limits actors wielding delegated Board authority precisely as the Board itself is limited: Neither may act unless the Board has a quorum.
We are not convinced that the statutory text and structure unambiguously require this interpretation. The plain language of the Act applies the quorum requirement to the Board’s authority to act, not the Regional Directors’ ability to wield delegated authority. To the contrary, the structure of the statute supports the Board’s interpretation just as well as it might support UC Health’s construction. The first sentence of the provision empowers the Board to delegate its final, plenary authority to panels of its own members. The second sentence authorizes the Board to delegate to the Regional Directors the authority to oversee elections, provided that the Regional Directors’ decisions always remain subject to Board review if the parties dispute them. And the third sentence specifies that the Board can only exercise its plenary, final authority — whether to adjudicate unfair labor practice charges or to review the decisions of Regional Directors in representation elections, whether wielded by the Board as a whole or by three-member delegee panels — if the Board has at least three validly appointed members. Thus, though the statute cabins the Board’s own ability to function without a quorum, it says nothing about what effect the loss of a quorum has on pre-existing delegations of authority to the Regional Directors.
Because the statute is ambiguous on this point, we owe deference to the Board’s interpretation, City of Arlington, 133 S.Ct. at 1870-71, if it is reasonable and consistent with the statute’s purpose, see Indep. Ins. Agents of Am., Inc. v. Hawke, 211 F.3d 638, 643 (D.C.Cir.2000).
We think the Board’s interpretation easily meets this requirement. The Board explained that the NLRA “expressly authorize^] the delegation” of power to the Regional Director, that the Board acted under that authority and “delegated decisional authority in representation cases to Regional Directors,” and that “[p]ursuant to this delegation, NLRB Regional Directors remain vested with the authority to conduct elections and certify their results, regardless of the Board’s composition at any given moment.” UC Health, 360 N.L.R.B. No. 71 at *1 n. 2. This is a sensible interpretation that is in no way contrary to the text, structure, or purpose of the statute. Though the dissent suggests we have failed to examine the language or structure of the statute, Dissent at 687, we have already explained in our step-one analysis that the Board’s interpretation gives effect to each part of the statutory provision. Moreover, allowing the Regional Director to continue to operate regardless of the Board’s quorum is fully in line with the policy behind Congress’s decision to allow for the delegation in the first place. Congress explained that the amendment to the NLRA that permitted the Board to delegate authority to the Regional Directors was “designed to expedite final disposition of cases by the Board.” See 105 Cong. Rec. 19,770 (1959) (statement of Sen. Barry Goldwater). Permitting Regional Directors to continue overseeing elections and certifying the results while waiting for new Board members to be confirmed allows representation elections to proceed and tees up potential objections for the Board, which can then exercise the power the NLRA preserves for it to review the Regional Director’s decisions once a quorum is restored. And at least those unions and companies that have no objections to the conduct or result [676]*676of an election can agree to accept its outcome without any Board intervention at all. The Board’s interpretation thus avoids unnecessarily halting representation elections any time a quorum lapses due to gridlock elsewhere.
The Board’s interpretation of the statute reads every clause of the statutory provision harmoniously, and, as a policy matter, it ensures adequate protection for the rights of employers and unions alike. It is eminently reasonable. Therefore we defer to the Board’s interpretation under Chevron step two and uphold the Regional Director’s authority to direct and certify the union election even while the Board itself had no quorum.
UC Health argues, however, that the Board’s interpretation of the statute is foreclosed by our decision in Laurel Baye Healthcare of Lake Lanier, Inc. v. NLRB, 564 F.3d 469 (D.C.Cir.2009). We conclude that UC Health is wrong. Laurel Baye has no direct application here because it addressed different statutory questions involving different and highly distinguishable statutory language and altogether different facts. Neither the holding nor the reasoning of that case forbids the Board’s interpretation of its authority here, to which we owe deference.
Laurel Baye addressed the lawfulness of the Board’s effort to evade the quorum requirement imposed on its own activities, not the status of authority previously delegated to the Regional Directors once the Board loses a quorum. In Laurel Baye, we considered the consequence of events beginning in December 2007, when the Board had four members, two of whom had terms that expired at the end of the month. With their departures, the Board would no longer satisfy the three-member quorum requirement the NLRA imposes “at all times,” see 29 U.S.C. § 153(b). In an effort to overcome this impediment, the four-member Board delegated its plenary, final authority to a panel of three members made up of the two members whose terms continued into 2008 and one of the members whose term would soon expire. When the outgoing members finished their service at the end of 2007, the Board had a total of only two members and no longer met the overall three-member quorum requirement. By the same token, the panel to which the Board had delegated its authority was composed only of the two remaining members of the Board. The Board reasoned that because the NLRA imposes a separate, lower quorum requirement for three-member panels, those two remaining members made up a quorum of the delegee panel. Thus, even though the Board itself was paralyzed for want of a quorum, the Board believed that those two remaining members could still act in the name of the three-member panel to which they belonged and could wield the plenary, final authority the Board had delegated to that panel before the Board’s total membership fell below the “at all times” three-member quorum requirement of 29 U.S.C. § 153(b).
In Laurel Baye, we rejected this tactic, concluding that the plain language of the statute had a single, “unambiguous” reading that foreclosed the Board’s interpretation.2 564 F.3d at 473. We held that the [677]*677Board could never adjudicate unfair labor practice charges with fewer than three active members because the NLRA provides that the Board must satisfy the three-member quorum requirement “at all times.” Id. at 472 (quoting 29 U.S.C. § 153(b)) (emphasis in Laurel Baye). “The Board quorum requirement therefore must still be satisfied, regardless of whether the Board’s authority is delegated to a group of its members.” Id. And when the Board has delegated its authority to a panel of three that meets its own two-member quorum requirement, that panel has authority to act on behalf of the Board only so long as the Board has authority to act as well-that is, when the Board has at least three members. “[T]he Board cannot by delegating its authority circumvent the statutory Board quorum requirement, because this requirement must always be satisfied.” Id. at 473. “The delegee group’s delegated power to act [therefore] ceases when the Board’s membership dips below the Board quorum of three members.” Id. at 475. The Board’s approach — allowing a delegee panel of two members to wield plenary Board authority even if those two members comprised the entire active Board membership — would “allow the Board to reduce its operative quorum to two without further congressional authorization.” Id. Thus we found that under the plain meaning of the statute a three-member delegee panel acting “on behalf of the Board” may only do so when the Board satisfies its quorum requirement. Id. (emphasis added).
Separately, we noted that our conclusion was bolstered by analogy to common-law agency principles. According to the Restatement (Third) of Agency, we explained, “an agent’s delegated authority terminates when the powers belonging to the entity that bestowed the authority are suspended” and “is also deemed to cease upon the resignation or termination of the delegating authority.” Laurel Baye, 564 F.3d at 473. “The statute confers no authority” on a delegee panel, but only “permits” the Board to create such a committee. Id. “The only authority by which the committee can act is that of the Board,” and “[i]f the Board has no authority, it follows that the committee” cannot exercise final authority in the place of the Board, either. Id.
The Supreme Court took up the same question regarding the Board’s authority to act without a quorum in New Process Steel, L.P. v. NLRB, 560 U.S. 674, 130 S.Ct. 2635, 177 L.Ed.2d 162 (2010), and reached a similar conclusion based on different reasoning. The Supreme Court’s interpretation of the plain terms of the statute led it to conclude that the Board’s powers must “be vested at all times in a group of at least three members.” Id. at 680, 130 S.Ct. 2635.3
[678]*678The Court specifically declined to consider the discussion of agency law in Laurel Baye, explaining that “failure to meet a quorum requirement [does not] necessarily establish that an entity’s power is suspended so that it can be exercised by no dele-gee .... [The] conclusion that the delegee group ceases to exist once there are no longer three Board members to constitute the group does not cast doubt on the prior delegations of authority to nongroup members, such as the regional directors.... ” Id. at 684 n. 4, 130 S.Ct. 2635. Such prior delegations to nongroup members involved a separate question that the Court expressly did not address.
Laurel Baye does not control this case because it confronted an entirely different situation based on different statutory language and policy considerations, and neither could have nor did reach the question we face here. Therefore nothing in that opinion alters our conclusion that we owe deference to the Board’s reasonable interpretation of the statute. As noted above, in New Process Steel the Supreme Court highlighted the distinction between the two types of authority the Board may delegate to different actors. The Board may delegate its plenary, final authority to decide cases to a subgroup of its own members. It may also delegate nonfinal authority to supervise elections, subject to review and approval by the Board itself, to “nongroup” actors like the Regional Directors. New Process Steel, 560 U.S. at 684 n. 4, 130 S.Ct. 2635. This distinction between forms of delegated authority is crucial. Laurel Baye considered only whether plenary, final authority delegated to panels of the Board’s own members could survive when the Board had no quorum; we concluded that the delegation in question could not survive because it was precluded by the plain meaning of the statutory provision in question. Here, we must consider a different question, arising from a different clause of the statute, involving different analytical considerations: whether the statute vitiates nonfinal authority already delegated to individuals outside the Board’s membership when the Board loses its quorum. As the Supreme Court expressly acknowledged, the two questions are distinct, and the answer to one has no necessary logical relationship to the answer to the other.
UC Health insists, however, that the agency discussion in Laurel Baye prohibits the Board from interpreting the statute to authorize Regional Directors to continue acting when the Board has no quorum. We disagree. In Laurel Baye, we analyzed the plain language of the statute and found that it prohibited the Board from employing the delegation at issue there without giving any deference to the Board at all. The discussion of agency principles in that case confirmed our interpretation of the statute’s plain meaning. Here, because the text is ambiguous, we must defer to the Board’s reasonable interpretation. For that reason, Laurel Baye’s agency analysis could only possibly be relevant here if it rendered the Board’s interpretation unreasonable with the same clarity that the plain language of the statute, reinforced by the principles of agency law, foreclosed the Board’s effort in Laurel Baye to delegate its plenary, final authority even when it had no quorum. But there is a fundamental difference in the nature of the authority delegated in these two cases. Therefore we conclude that Laurel Baye’s agency discussion is simply off the mark in this case. A delegee panel, wielding the Board’s plenary, final authority, speaks on the Board’s behalf and in its [679]*679place. The Regional Directors never similarly occupy the Board’s role as a final decisionmaker. Indeed, the statute and the Board’s own regulations expressly reserve for the Board the power to review and reverse any determination a Regional Director makes. 29 U.S.C. § 153(b); 29 C.F.R. § 102.67(c).4 Therefore the statute makes clear that the delegation at issue here does not implicate any of the concerns that motivated us to draw on agency law in Laurel Baye. Because the relationship between the Board and the Regional Directors is so different from the relationship between the Board and its delegee panels, we do not see how the agency analysis in Laurel Baye sheds any light at all on the authority the statute permits the Board to delegate to the Regional Directors or when that authority expires.5
The important distinction between the final authority delegated in Laurel Baye and the nonfinal authority delegated here is all the more clear in light of the materials on which we relied in our agency analysis in Laurel Baye. All the sources we cited dealt with an agent who had authority to speak finally on the principal’s behalf with permanent legal effect. See, e.g., Restatement (Third) of Agency § 3.07(4) (2006) (explaining that an agent’s actual authority to affect its principal’s legal relations expires when the principal’s power to act is suspended); 2 William Meade Fletcher, Fletcher Cyclopedia of the Law of Corporations § 504 (2008) (same, with respect to the resignation or termination of the delegating authority); Id. § 421 (“If there are fewer than the minimum number of directors required by statute, [the remaining directors] cannot act as a board.”); Emerson v. Fisher, 246 F. 642, 648 (1st Cir.1918) (holding that a corporate treasurer’s delegee lacks authority to disburse corporate funds after the treasurer himself resigns). In every case the cited rule prohibits an agent from taking some final action on behalf of its principal at a time when the principal could not act itself. And indeed, the ability to stand in the principal’s place is fundamental to the existence of an agency relationship at all. See Restatement (Third) of Agency § 1.01 emt. c (“[T]he concept of agency posits a consensual relationship in which one person ... acts as a representative of or otherwise acts on behalf of another person with power to affect the legal rights and duties of the other person.”). For example, in Emerson, an assistant corporate treasurer continued to sign checks drawn on corporate funds in the treasurer’s name after the treasurer had resigned. 246 F. at 648. The First Circuit found that the assistant treasurer could not take final actions in the place of the treasurer when no individual held that office; wielding the principal’s authority and signing checks in his [680]*680stead was forbidden without a treasurer in place whose authority the assistant could exercise by proxy.
The outcome in Emerson and the issues identified in the other authorities we cited in Laurel Baye were unmistakably relevant to the issue we confronted in that case. There, the Board had allowed a delegee panel to exercise the Board’s plenary, final authority when the Board itself could not act at all. The panel’s judgment was as final for the parties as the full Board’s determination would have been. Allowing an agent to act in those circumstances was at odds with basic principles of agency law. But those principles have no bearing here. No decision of the Regional Directors is ever final under its own power. Only the acquiescence of the parties or the Board’s ratification can give binding force to a Regional Director’s determination. Therefore the Regional Directors are not acting “on behalf of the Board” in the • way that doomed the Board’s tactic in Laurel Baye. 564 F.3d at 475 (emphasis added). And the agency analysis we expounded in that case is not relevant here for the same reason.
In other words, a Regional Director never has the last say on anything unless a party fails to object. In that event, it is the parties’ choice to leave the Regional Director’s decisions unchallenged that effectively makes- the election final. Otherwise, a Regional Director’s decision becomes final only when approved by the Board. Of course, Board review is discretionary even when a party files an objection to a Regional Director’s decision. Nonetheless any objection will always be considered by the Board, and it is the Board’s action — declining to grant review or granting review and upholding or reversing the Regional Director’s decision— that finally commits the Board’s imprimatur. Obviously the Board could not consider any objection to a Regional Director’s determination when it did not satisfy the NLRA’s three-member quorum requirement. But-when the Board acts with a quorum to review and approve a Regional Director’s decision, the Board, not the Regional Director, has decided the issue. Unlike in Laurel Baye, this delegation does not allow some other actor to stand in the Board’s place and wield its authority when it is otherwise statutorily immobilized. Therefore the agency principles that bolstered our statutory conclusion in Laurel Baye are as irrelevant in this ease as is our discussion there of a different clause of the statute.6
[681]*681Indeed, we are all the more persuaded that the Board’s interpretation of the statute is reasonable in light of the structural distinction between the final character of its authority to adjudicate unfair labor practice cases and the nonfinal authority to oversee representation elections it may delegate to the Regional Directors. Because any contested decision a Regional Director makes is not final until the Board acts, it is immaterial whether the Board had a quorum at the time the Regional Director conducted the election. To the contrary, when the Regional Directors exercise their delegated authority to oversee elections, they further the policy of the statute by increasing the efficiency with which representation elections are held— irrespective of the Board’s status at that time.
For all these reasons, there is nothing in Laurel Baye or its broad discussion of principles of agency law that controls the Board’s interpretation of its authority in this case. As shown above, the Board’s interpretation of its authority was reasonable, and we are bound to defer to the Board’s reasonable interpretation of the statute it is charged to administer. See City of Arlington, 133 S.Ct. at 1870-71.
Ill
For the foregoing reasons, we deny UC Health’s petition for review and grant the NLRB’s cross-application for enforcement of its order.