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Cite as: 524 U. S. 417 (1998)

493

Breyer, J., dissenting

§ 315(a), 42 Stat. 941–942. The Court also upheld this dele-
gation against constitutional attack. See J. W. Hampton,
Jr., & Co. v. United States, 276 U. S. 394 (1928).

These statutory delegations resemble today’s Act more
closely than one might at ﬁrst suspect. They involve a duty
on imports, which is a tax. That tax in the last century was
as important then as the income tax is now, for it provided
most of the Federal Government’s revenues. See U. S.
Dept. of Commerce, Census Bureau, Historical Statistics of
the United States: Colonial Times to 1970, pt. 2, at 1106 (in
1890, when Congress passed the statute at issue in Field,
tariff revenues were 57% of the total receipts of the Federal
Government). And the delegation then thus affected a far
higher percentage of federal revenues than the tax-related
delegation over extremely “limited” tax beneﬁts here. See
supra, at 487.

The standards at issue in these earlier laws, such as “un-
reasonable,” were frequently vague and without precise
meaning. See, e. g., Act of Oct. 1, 1890, § 3, 26 Stat. 612.
Indeed, the word “equalize” in the 1922 statute, 42 Stat. 942,
could not have been administered as if it offered the preci-
sion it seems to promise, for a tariff that literally “equalized”
domestic and foreign production costs would, because of
transport costs, have virtually ended foreign trade.

Nor can I accept the majority’s effort to distinguish these
examples. The majority says that these statutes imposed a
speciﬁc “duty” upon the President to act upon the occurrence
of a speciﬁed event. See ante, at 443. But, in fact, some of
the statutes imposed no duty upon the President at all. See,
e. g., Act of Dec. 19, 1806, ch. 1, 2 Stat. 411 (President “au-
thorized” to “suspend the operation of ” a customs law “if in
his judgment the public interest should require it”). Others
imposed a “duty” in terms so vague as to leave substantial
discretion in the President’s hands. See Act of Oct. 1, 1890,
26 Stat. 612 (President’s “duty” to suspend tariff law was
triggered “whenever” and “so often as” he was “satisﬁed”