Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/20-1530_n758.pdf
Page Number: 45.0

8 

WEST VIRGINIA v. EPA 

GORSUCH, J., concurring 

tory texts, and, more particularly, [by] giving narrow con-
structions to statutory delegations that might otherwise be
thought to be unconstitutional.”  Mistretta v. United States, 
488 U. S. 361, 373, n. 7 (1989).  In fact, this Court applied 
the major questions doctrine in “all corners of the adminis-
trative  state,”  whether  the  issue  at  hand  involved  an 
agency’s asserted power to regulate tobacco products, ban
drugs used in physician-assisted suicide, extend Clean Air 
Act regulations to private homes, impose an eviction mora-
torium, or enforce a vaccine mandate.  Ante, at 17; see FDA 
v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., 529 U. S. 120, 160 
(2000); Gonzales v. Oregon, 546 U. S. 243, 267 (2006); Util-
ity Air Regulatory Group v. EPA, 573 U. S. 302, 324 (2014); 
Alabama Assn. of Realtors v. Department of Health and Hu-
man Servs., 594 U. S. ___, ___ (2021) (per curiam) (slip op., 
at  6);  National  Federation  of  Independent  Business  v. 
OSHA,  595  U. S.  ___,  ___  (2022)  (per curiam)  (slip  op., 
at 6).3 

The  Court  has  applied  the  major  questions  doctrine  for
the  same  reason  it  has  applied  other  similar  clear-state-
ment rules—to ensure that the government does “not inad-
vertently cross constitutional lines.”  Barrett 175.  And the 
constitutional  lines  at  stake  here  are  surely  no  less  im-
portant than those this Court has long held sufficient to jus-
tify  parallel  clear-statement  rules.  At  stake  is  not  just  a
question of retroactive liability or sovereign immunity, but 
basic questions about self-government, equality, fair notice, 

—————— 

3 At times, this Court applied the major questions doctrine more like 
an  ambiguity  canon.   See  FDA  v. Brown &  Williamson  Tobacco  Corp., 
529 U. S. 120, 159 (2000).  Ambiguity canons merely instruct courts on 
how to “choos[e] between equally plausible interpretations of ambiguous
text,” and are thus weaker than clear-statement rules.  Barrett 109.  But 
our  precedents  have  usually  applied  the  doctrine  as  a  clear-statement 
rule, and the Court today confirms that is the proper way to apply it.  See 
ante, at 19–20, 28.