Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/22-506_nmip.pdf
Page Number: 46

Cite as:  600 U. S. ____ (2023) 

15 

BARRETT, J., concurring 

view, it became evident in each case that the agency’s as-
sertion of “highly consequential power” went “beyond what
Congress could reasonably be understood to have granted.” 
West Virginia, 597 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 20). 

III 
As for today’s case: The Court surely could have “hi[t] the 
send button,” post, at 23 (KAGAN, J., dissenting), after the 
routine statutory analysis set out in Part III–A.  But it is 
nothing new for a court to punctuate its conclusion with an
additional point, and the major questions doctrine is a good
one  here.  Ante,  at  25,  n. 9.    It  is  obviously  true  that  the
Secretary’s  loan cancellation program has “vast ‘economic
and  political  significance.’ ”    Utility  Air,  573  U. S.,  at  324. 
That matters not because agencies are incapable of making
highly consequential decisions, but rather because an initi-
ative of this scope, cost, and political salience is not the type
that Congress lightly delegates to an agency.  And for the 
reasons given by the Court, the HEROES Act provides no 
indication that Congress empowered the Secretary to do an-
ything of the sort.  Ante, at 12–18, 25. 

Granted,  some  context  clues  from  past  major  questions
cases are absent here—for example, this is not a case where 
the agency is operating entirely outside its usual domain. 
But  the  doctrine  is  not  an  on-off  switch  that  flips  when  a 
critical mass of factors is present—again, it simply reflects 
“common sense as to the manner in which Congress is likely 
to delegate a policy decision of such economic and political
magnitude.”  Brown & Williamson, 529 U. S., at 133.  Com-
mon sense tells us that as more indicators from our previ-
ous major questions cases are present, the less likely it is 
that  Congress  would  have  delegated  the  power  to  the 
agency without saying so more clearly.

Here,  enough  of  those  indicators  are  present  to  demon-
strate that the Secretary has gone far “beyond what Con-
gress  could  reasonably  be  understood  to  have  granted”  in