Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/20-1530_n758.pdf
Page Number: 51

14 

WEST VIRGINIA v. EPA 

GORSUCH, J., concurring 

that Congress will make an “[e]xtraordinary gran[t] of reg-
ulatory authority” through “vague language” in “ ‘a long-ex-
tant  statute.’ ”  Ante,  at  18–20  (quoting  Utility  Air,  573 
U. S., at 324).  Recently, too, this Court found a clear state-
ment  lacking  when  OSHA  sought  to  impose  a  nationwide 
COVID–19 vaccine mandate based on a statutory provision
that was adopted 40 years before the pandemic and that fo-
cused on conditions specific to the workplace rather than a
problem faced by society at large.  See NFIB v. OSHA, 595 
U. S., at ___ (GORSUCH, J., concurring) (slip op., at 3).  Of 
course, sometimes old statutes may be written in ways that
apply to new and previously unanticipated situations.  See 
Sedima, S. P. R. L. v. Imrex Co., 473 U. S. 479, 499 (1985).
But an agency’s attempt to deploy an old statute focused on 
one problem to solve a new and different problem may also
be  a  warning  sign  that  it  is  acting  without  clear  congres-
sional authority.  See ante, at 18. 

Third, courts may examine the agency’s past interpreta-
tions of the relevant statute.  See ante, at 20–21.  A “con-
temporaneous” and long-held Executive Branch interpreta-
tion of a statute is entitled to some weight  as evidence of 
the statute’s original charge to an agency.  United States v. 
Philbrick, 120 U. S. 52, 59 (1887).  Conversely, in NFIB v. 
OSHA,  the  Court  found  it  “telling  that  OSHA,  in  its  half 
century  of  existence,  ha[d]  never  before  adopted  a  broad 
public health regulation” under the statute that the agency 
sought to invoke as authority for a nationwide vaccine man-
date.  595 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 8); ante, at 18; see also 
Brown & Williamson, 529 U. S., at 158–159 (noting that for 
decades the FDA had said it lacked statutory power to reg-
ulate cigarettes).  As the Court states today, “ ‘the want of
[an] assertion of power by those who presumably would be
alert’ ”  to  it  is  “ ‘significant  in  determining  whether  such 
power  was  actually  conferred.’ ”    Ante,  at  21.    When  an 
agency  claims  to  have  found  a  previously  “unheralded 
power,”  its  assertion  generally  warrants  “a  measure  of