Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/20-1530_n758.pdf
Page Number: 46

Cite as:  597 U. S. ____ (2022) 

9 

GORSUCH, J., concurring 

federalism, and the separation of powers.  See Part I–A, su-
pra.  The major questions doctrine seeks to protect against
“unintentional,  oblique,  or  otherwise  unlikely”  intrusions
on  these  interests.    NFIB  v.  OSHA,  595  U. S.,  at  ___ 
(GORSUCH, J., concurring) (slip op., at 5).  The doctrine does 
so  by  ensuring  that,  when  agencies  seek  to  resolve  major 
questions, they at least act with clear congressional author-
ization and do not “exploit some gap, ambiguity, or doubtful
expression in Congress’s statutes to assume responsibilities 
far beyond” those the people’s representatives actually con-
ferred  on  them.  Ibid.    As  the  Court  aptly  summarizes  it 
today,  the  doctrine  addresses  “a  particular  and  recurring
problem:  agencies asserting highly consequential power be-
yond  what  Congress  could  reasonably  be  understood  to 
have granted.”  Ante, at 20. 

II 
A 
Turning from the doctrine’s function to its application, it 
seems to me that our cases supply a good deal of guidance
about when an agency action involves a major question for 
which clear congressional authority is required. 

First, this Court has indicated that the doctrine applies 
when  an  agency  claims  the  power  to  resolve  a  matter  of
great “political significance,” NFIB v. OSHA, 595 U. S., at 
___  (slip  op.,  at  6)  (internal  quotation  marks  omitted),  or 
end an “earnest and profound debate across the country,” 
Gonzales, 546 U. S., at 267–268 (internal quotation marks 
omitted); see ante, at 17.  So, for example, in Gonzales, the 
Court  found  that  the  doctrine  applied  when  the  Attorney
General  issued  a  regulation  that  would  have  effectively
banned  most  forms  of  physician-assisted  suicide  even  as
certain States were considering whether to permit the prac-
tice.  546 U. S., at 267.  And in NFIB v. OSHA, the Court 
held the doctrine applied when an agency sought to man-
date COVID–19 vaccines nationwide for most workers at a