Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/20-1530_n758.pdf
Page Number: 48

Cite as:  597 U. S. ____ (2022) 

11 

GORSUCH, J., concurring 

Third, this Court has said that the major questions doc-
trine may apply when an agency seeks to “intrud[e] into an 
area that is the particular domain of state law.”  Ibid.  Of 
course,  another  longstanding  clear-statement  rule—the
federalism canon—also applies in these situations.  To pre-
serve the “proper balance between the States and the Fed-
eral  Government”  and  enforce  limits  on  Congress’s  Com-
merce Clause power, courts must “ ‘be certain of Congress’s
intent’ ”  before  finding  that  it  “legislate[d]  in  areas  tradi-
tionally regulated by the States.”  Gregory v. Ashcroft, 501 
U. S. 452, 459–460 (1991).  But unsurprisingly, the major 
questions doctrine and the federalism canon often travel to-
gether.  When an agency claims the power to regulate vast
swaths of American life, it not only risks intruding on Con-
gress’s power, it also risks intruding on powers reserved to 
the States.  See SWANC, 531 U. S., at 162, 174. 

While  this  list  of  triggers  may  not  be  exclusive,  each  of
the signs the Court has found significant in the past is pre-
sent  here,  making  this  a  relatively  easy  case  for  the  doc-
trine’s application.  The EPA claims the power to force coal
and gas-fired power plants “to cease [operating] altogether.” 
Ante, at 24.  Whether these plants should be allowed to op-
erate is a question on which people today may disagree, but 
it is a question everyone can agree is vitally important.  See 
ante,  at  24–25.    Congress  has  debated  the  matter  fre-
quently.  Ibid.; see generally Climate Change, The History 
of a Consensus and the Causes of Inaction, Hearing before 
the Subcommittee on Environment of the House Committee 
on  Oversight  and  Reform,  116th  Cong.,  1st  Sess.,  pt.  I 
(2019).  And so far it has “conspicuously and repeatedly de-
clined” to adopt legislation similar to the Clean Power Plan 
(CPP).  Ante, at 20; see American Lung Assn. v. EPA, 985 
F. 3d 914, 998, n. 19 (CADC 2021) (Walker, J., concurring
in part, concurring in judgment in part, and dissenting in 
part) (cataloguing failed legislative proposals); cf. Brown &