holding that EPA implementation policy was final agency action because EPA published the policy in the Federal Register within the preamble to air quality regulations and stated in that preamble that it had settled on a new policy, which would immediately apply to the implementation of ozone standards
How later courts described this case
- holding that EPA implementation policy was final agency action because EPA published the policy in the Federal Register within the preamble to air quality regulations and stated in that preamble that it had settled on a new policy, which would immediately apply to the implementation of ozone standards
- holding that where a statute provides no guidance for 23 the exercise of discretion or that has “conferred authority to regulate an entire economy on the basis of no more precise a standard than stimulating the economy by assuring ‘fair competition,’” 24 such a statute must be stricken as invalid
- holding that Chevron deference is due only to a “reasonable interpretation made by the administrator of an agency”
- stating that Congress must “lay down by legislative act an intelligible principle to which the person or body authorized to [act] is directed to conform” (alteration in original) (quoting J.W. Hampton, Jr., & Co., 276 U.S. at 409, 48 S.Ct. 348)
Written by the judges who cited it.
Distinguished
Distinguished by Voices of Wetlands v. STATE WATER RES. BD., 69 Cal. Rptr. 3d 487 (2008)
Appellant observes that the statute contains no explicit authority for cost considerations, and it urges "as a general proposition" that "an agency implementing federal law may not consider costs unless the statute clearly authorizes cost considerations," citing Whitman v. American Trucking Associations (2001) 531 U.S. 457, 467-468, 121 S.Ct. 903, 149 L.Ed.2d 1. Whitman is inapposite here.
The opinion
Justice Thomas,
concurring.
I agree with the majority that §109’s directive to the agency is no less an “intelligible principle” than a host of other directives that we have approved. Ante, at 474-476. I also agree that the Court of Appeals’ remand to the agency to make its own corrective interpretation does not accord with our understanding of the delegation issue. Ante, at 472-473. I write separately, however, to express my con *487 cern that there may nevertheless be a genuine constitutional problem with § 109, a problem which the parties did not address.
The parties to these cases who briefed the constitutional issue wrangled over constitutional doctrine with barely a nod to the text of the Constitution. Although this Court since 1928 has treated the “intelligible principle” requirement as the only constitutional limit on congressional grants of power to administrative agencies, see J W. Hampton, Jr., & Co. v. United States, 276 U. S. 394, 409 (1928), the Constitution does not speak of “intelligible principles.” Rather, it speaks in much simpler terms: “All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress.” U. S. Const., Art. 1, § 1 (emphasis added). I am not convinced that the intelligible principle doctrine serves to prevent all cessions of legislative power. I believe that there are cases in which the principle is intelligible and yet the significance of the delegated decision is simply too great for the decision to be called anything other than “legislative.”
As it is, none of the parties to these cases has examined the text of the Constitution or asked us to reconsider our precedents on cessions of legislative power. On a future day, however, I would be willing to address the question whether our delegation jurisprudence has strayed too far from our Founders’ understanding of separation of powers.