# Whitman v. American Trucking Assns., Inc.

> Supreme Court of the United States · February 27, 2001 · 531 U.S. 457

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9434048

## Case

- **Full name:** WHITMAN, ADMINISTRATOR OF ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY, Et Al. v. AMERICAN TRUCKING ASSOCIATIONS, INC., Et Al.
- **Court:** Supreme Court of the United States
- **Decided:** February 27, 2001
- **Citations:** 531 U.S. 457; 121 S. Ct. 903; 149 L. Ed. 2d 1; 2001 U.S. LEXIS 1952
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Thomas
- **Judges:** Scalia, Rehnquist, Stevens, O'Connor, Kennedy, Souter, Thomas, Ginsburg, Breyer
- **Cited by:** 1,281 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9434048

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- 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 implemen…
- 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…
- 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)
- concluding that rendering a decision on the legality of challenged regulations would not “inappropriately interfere with further administrative action, since the EPA has concluded its consideration of the implementation issue”

## Opinion text

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.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9434048. Public record. Not legal advice.