Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/22-506_nmip.pdf
Page Number: 44

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

13 

BARRETT, J., concurring 

its wheelhouse.  For instance, in Gonzales v. Oregon, we re-
buffed an interpretive rule from the Attorney General that
restricted the use of controlled substances in physician-as-
sisted suicide.  546 U. S., at 254, 275.  This judgment, we 
explained, was a medical one that lay beyond the Attorney
General’s  expertise,  and  so  a  sturdier  source  of  statutory 
authority than “an implicit delegation” was required.  Id., 
at 267–268.  Likewise, in King v. Burwell, we blocked the 
Internal  Revenue  Service’s  (IRS’s)  attempt  to  decide 
whether the Affordable Care Act’s tax credits could be avail-
able on federally established exchanges.  576 U. S., at 485– 
486.  Among  other  things,  the  IRS’s  lack  of  “expertise  in 
crafting health insurance policy” made us think that “had 
Congress  wished  to  assign  that  question  to  an  agency,  it 
surely would have done so expressly.”  Id., at 486.  Echoing 
the theme, our reasoning in Alabama Association of Real-
tors rested partly on the fact that the CDC’s eviction mora-
torium  “intrude[d]  into  . . .  the  landlord-tenant  relation-
ship”—hardly  the  day-in,  day-out  work  of  a  public-health 
agency.  594 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 6).  National Federa-
tion  of  Independent  Business  v.  OSHA  is  of  a  piece.    595 
U. S. ___ (2022) (per curiam).  There, we held that the Oc-
cupational  Safety  and  Health  Administration’s  (OSHA’s) 
authority  to  ensure  “ ‘safe  and  healthful  working  condi-
tions’ ”  did  not  encompass  the  power  to  mandate  the  vac-
cination of employees; as we explained, the statute empow-
ered  the  agency  “to  set  workplace  safety  standards,  not 
broad public health measures.”  Id., at ___, ___ (slip op., at 
2, 6).  The shared intuition behind these cases is that a rea-
sonable speaker would not understand Congress to confer 
an unusual form of authority without saying more. 

We have also pumped the brakes when “an agency claims
to discover in a long-extant statute an unheralded power to 
regulate ‘a significant portion of the American economy.’ ”  
Utility Air, 573 U. S., at 324.  Of course, an agency’s post-