Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 241.0

529US1

Unit: $U36

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FDA v. BROWN & WILLIAMSON TOBACCO CORP.

Breyer, J., dissenting

Deal legislation. Cf. Gray v. Powell, 314 U. S. 402, 411–412
(1941) (Congress “could have legislated speciﬁcally” but de-
cided “to delegate that function to those whose experience
in a particular ﬁeld gave promise of a better informed, more
equitable” determination). Thus, at around the same time
that it added the relevant language to the FDCA, Congress
enacted laws granting other administrative agencies even
broader powers to regulate much of the Nation’s transporta-
tion and communication. See, e. g., Civil Aeronautics Act of
1938, ch. 601, § 401(d)(1), 52 Stat. 987 (Civil Aeronautics
Board to regulate airlines within conﬁnes of highly general
“public convenience and necessity” standard); Motor Carrier
Act of 1935, ch. 498, § 204(a)(1), 49 Stat. 546 (Interstate Com-
merce Commission to establish “reasonable requirements”
for trucking); Communications Act of 1934, ch. 652, § 201(a),
48 Stat. 1070 (Federal Communications Commission (FCC)
to regulate radio, later television, within conﬁnes of even
broader “public interest” standard). Why would the 1938
New Deal Congress suddenly have hesitated to delegate to
so well established an agency as the FDA all of the discre-
tionary authority that a straightforward reading of the rele-
vant statutory language implies?

Nor is it surprising that such a statutory delegation of
power could lead after many years to an assertion of juris-
diction that the 1938 legislators might not have expected.
Such a possibility is inherent in the very nature of a broad
delegation.
In 1938, it may well have seemed unlikely that
the FDA would ever bring cigarette manufacturers within
the FDCA’s statutory language by proving that cigarettes
produce chemical changes in the body and that the makers
“intended” their product chemically to affect the body’s
it may have
“structure” or “function.” Or, back then,
seemed unlikely that, even assuming such proof, the FDA
actually would exercise its discretion to regulate so popular
a product. See R. Kluger, Ashes to Ashes 105 (1997) (in the
1930’s “Americans were in love with smoking . . .”).