Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/21a244_hgci.pdf
Page Number: 14.0

Cite as:  595 U. S. ____ (2022) 

5 

GORSUCH, J., concurring 

The nondelegation doctrine ensures democratic account-
ability by preventing Congress from intentionally delegat-
ing its legislative powers to unelected officials.  Sometimes 
lawmakers may be tempted to delegate power to agencies
to “reduc[e] the degree to which they will be held accounta-
ble for unpopular actions.”  R. Cass, Delegation Reconsid-
ered: A Delegation Doctrine for the Modern Administrative
State,  40  Harv.  J.  L.  Pub.  Pol’y  147,  154  (2017).    But  the 
Constitution  imposes  some  boundaries  here.  Gundy,  588 
U. S., at ___  (GORSUCH, J., dissenting) (slip op., at 1).  If 
Congress  could  hand  off  all  its  legislative  powers  to  une-
lected agency officials, it “would dash the whole scheme” of
our  Constitution  and  enable  intrusions  into  the  private
lives and freedoms of Americans by bare edict rather than 
only with the consent of their elected representatives.  De-
partment of Transportation v. Association of American Rail-
roads,  575  U. S.  43,  61  (2015)  (ALITO,  J.,  concurring);  see 
also M. McConnell, The President Who Would Not Be King 
326–335 (2020); I. Wurman, Nondelegation at the Found-
ing, 130 Yale L. J. 1490, 1502 (2021).

The major questions doctrine serves a similar function by
guarding  against  unintentional,  oblique,  or  otherwise  un-
likely delegations of the legislative power.  Sometimes, Con-
gress passes broadly worded statutes seeking to resolve im-
portant policy questions in a field while leaving an agency 
to  work  out  the  details  of  implementation.    E.g.,  King  v. 
Burwell, 576 U. S. 473, 485–486 (2015).  Later, the agency
may  seek  to  exploit  some  gap,  ambiguity,  or  doubtful  ex-
pression  in  Congress’s  statutes  to  assume  responsibilities
far beyond its initial assignment.  The major questions doc-
trine  guards  against  this  possibility  by  recognizing  that
Congress does not usually “hide elephants in mouseholes.” 
Whitman v. American Trucking Assns., Inc., 531 U. S. 457, 
468  (2001).  In  this  way,  the  doctrine  is  “a  vital  check  on
expansive  and  aggressive  assertions  of  executive  author-
ity.”  United  States  Telecom  Assn.  v. FCC,  855  F.  3d  381,