Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/22-506_nmip.pdf
Page Number: 66.0

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

19 

KAGAN, J., dissenting 

form the reader that the statute also contemplates the Sec-
retary’s addition of new terms and conditions.  See ante, at 
17–18.  But once again the majority treats that authority in
isolation, and thus as insignificant.  Each aspect of the Sec-
retary’s  authority—waiver,  modification,  replacement—is
kept sealed in a vacuum-packed container.  The way they 
connect and reinforce each other is generally ignored.  “Di-
vide to conquer” is the watchword.  So there cannot possibly
emerge  “a  fair  construction  of  the  whole  instrument.” 
McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316, 406 (1819).  The ma-
jority fails to read the statutory authorization right because 
it fails to read it whole.  See A. Scalia & B. Garner, Reading 
Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts 167–169 (2012) (dis-
cussing the importance of the whole-text—here, really, the
whole-sentence—canon).

The majority’s cardinal error is reading “modify” as if it
were  the  only  word  in  the  statutory  delegation.  Taken 
alone,  this  Court  once  stated,  the  word  connotes  “incre-
ment” and means “to change moderately or in minor fash-
ion.”  MCI  Telecommunications  Corp.  v.  American  Tele-
phone & Telegraph Co., 512 U. S. 218, 225 (1994).  But no 
sooner did the Court say that much than it noted the im-
portance of “contextual indications.”  Id., at 226; see Scalia 
& Garner 167 (“Context is a primary determinant of mean-
ing”).  And in the HEROES Act, the dominant piece of con-
text is that “modify” does not stand alone.  It is one part of 
a couplet: “waive or modify.”  The first verb,  as discussed 
above, means eliminate—usually the most substantial kind 
of  change.  See  supra,  at  15;  accord,  ante,  at  16.  So  the 
question  becomes:  Would  Congress  have  given  the  Secre-
tary power to wholly eliminate a requirement, as well as to
relax it just a little bit, but nothing in between?  The major-
ity says yes.  But the answer is no, because Congress would 
not  have  written  so  insane  a  law.    The  phrase  “waive  or
modify” instead says to the Secretary: “Feel free to get rid 
of a requirement or, short of that, to alter it to the extent