Major questions doctrine

Administrative law of the United States
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Related topics Constitutional law Statutory interpretation
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The major questions doctrine is a principle of statutory interpretation applied in United States administrative law cases which states that courts will presume that Congress does not delegate to executive agencies issues of major political or economic significance.

According to retired D.C. Circuit Judge Thomas Griffith and Haley Proctor, the "seminal statement" of the major questions doctrine comes from FDA v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp. (2000): "[W]e must be guided to a degree by common sense as to the manner in which Congress is likely to delegate a policy decision of such economic and political magnitude to an administrative agency."^[1]

There are at least two versions of the doctrine,^[2] a narrow version (a limitation on Chevron deference) and a broad version (a clear statement rule). Under the narrow version, the doctrine serves only to say that, when an agency asserts that it has authority to decide major questions, courts should independently determine whether the agency's interpretation of its statutory authority is the most reasonable reading of the statute. Under the broad version, the doctrine says that courts must not interpret statutes as delegating major questions to agencies unless Congress clearly said so.

Chief Justice John Roberts summarized the major questions doctrine in the landmark case of West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency (2022) as follows:

[I]n certain extraordinary cases, both separation of powers principles and a practical understanding of legislative intent make us "reluctant to read into ambiguous statutory text" the delegation claimed to be lurking there. Utility Air, 573 U. S., at 324. To convince us otherwise, something more than a merely plausible textual basis for the agency action is necessary. The agency instead must point to "clear congressional authorization" for the power it claims. Ibid.
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As for the major questions doctrine "label[]," post, at 13^[a], it took hold because it refers to an identifiable body of law that has developed over a series of significant cases all addressing a particular and recurring problem: agencies asserting highly consequential power beyond what Congress could reasonably be understood to have granted. Scholars and jurists have recognized the common threads between those decisions. So have we. See Utility Air, 573 U. S., at 324 (citing Brown & Williamson and MCI); King v. Burwell, 576 U. S. 473, 486 (2015) (citing Utility Air, Brown & Williamson, and Gonzales).

In the years since the Supreme Court adopted the broader version of the major questions doctrine, legal scholars have criticized the doctrine along various lines.^[3] These include arguments that the major questions doctrine is a symptom of "judicial self-aggrandizement,"^[4] that it is inconsistent with both textualism and originalism,^[5] and that it is at odds with normal tools of statutory interpretation.^[6] In an article for the Harvard Law Review summarizing this transformation in the major questions case law, Professor Mila Sohoni wrote that the "first crucial thing to understand about the major questions [doctrine] is what it did to administrative law."^[7] She continued, "[w]hile ostensibly applying existing major questions case law, the [Supreme Court] in actuality altered the doctrine of judicial review of agency action in its method and content, in ways that will have momentous consequences."

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