Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/20pdf/19-1434_ancf.pdf
Page Number: 19

Cite as:  594 U. S. ____ (2021) 

15 

Opinion of the Court 

sometimes by providing for an appeal in adjudicatory pro-
ceedings  to  a  Presidentially  nominated  and  Senate  con-
firmed officer.  See, e.g., 1 Stat. 66–67 (authorizing appeal
of auditor decisions to Comptroller); §4, 1 Stat. 378 (permit-
ting supervisors of the revenue to issue liquor licenses “sub-
ject to the superintendence, control and direction of the de-
partment of the treasury”).  For the most part, Congress left
the  structure  of  administrative  adjudication  up  to  agency
heads, who prescribed internal procedures (and thus exer-
cised direction and control) as they saw fit.  See J. Mashaw, 
Creating the Administrative Constitution 254 (2012). 

This Court likewise indicated in early decisions that ade-
quate supervision entails review of decisions issued by in-
ferior officers.  For example, we held that the Commissioner 
of the General Land Office—the erstwhile agency that ad-
judicated  private  claims  to  public  lands  and  granted  land
patents—could review decisions of his subordinates despite 
congressional silence on the matter.  Our explanation, al-
most “too manifest to require comment,” was that the au-
thority to review flowed from the “necessity of ‘supervision 
and control,’ vested in the commissioner, acting under the
direction of the President.”  Barnard v. Ashley, 18 How. 43, 
45 (1856).  “Of necessity,” we later elaborated, the Commis-
sioner  “must  have  power  to  adjudge  the  question  of  accu-
racy preliminary to the issue of a [land] patent.”  Magwire 
v. Tyler, 1 Black 195, 202 (1862). 

Congress has carried the model of principal officer review
into the modern administrative state.  As the Government 
forthrightly acknowledged at oral argument, it “certainly is
the norm” for principal officers to have the capacity to re-
view decisions made by inferior adjudicative officers.  Tr. of 
Oral Arg. 23.  The Administrative Procedure Act, from its 
inception,  authorized  agency  heads  to  review  such  deci-
sions.  5 U. S. C. §557(b).  And “higher-level agency recon-
sideration” by the agency head is the standard way to main-
tain  political  accountability  and  effective  oversight  for