Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/20-1530_n758.pdf
Page Number: 85.0

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

29 

KAGAN, J., dissenting 

makes itself clear: Prevent agencies from doing important 
work,  even  though  that  is  what  Congress  directed.    That 
anti-administrative-state stance shows up in the majority
opinion, and it suffuses the concurrence.  See ante, at 19, 
25–26; e.g., ante, at 3–6 (GORSUCH, J., concurring). 

The  kind  of  agency  delegations  at  issue  here  go  all  the
way back to this Nation’s founding.  “[T]he founding era,”
scholars have shown, “wasn’t concerned about delegation.”
E. Posner & A. Vermeule, Interring the Nondelegation Doc-
trine, 69 U. Chi. L. Rev. 1721, 1734 (2002) (Posner & Ver-
meule).  The records of the Constitutional Convention, the 
ratification debates, the Federalist—none of them suggests
any significant limit on Congress’s capacity to delegate pol-
icymaking authority to the Executive Branch.  And neither 
does  any  early  practice.    The  very  first  Congress  gave
sweeping authority to the Executive Branch to resolve some
of the day’s most pressing problems, including questions of 
“territorial  administration,”  “Indian  affairs,”  “foreign  and 
domestic debt,” “military service,” and “the federal courts.” 
J. Mortenson & N. Bagley, Delegation at the Founding, 121
Colum. L. Rev. 277, 349 (2021) (Mortenson & Bagley).  That 
Congress, to use a few examples, gave the Executive power 
to  devise  a  licensing  scheme  for  trading  with  Indians;  to 
craft appropriate laws for the Territories; and to decide how 
to pay down the (potentially ruinous) national debt.  See id., 
at 334–338, 340–342, 344–345; C. Chabot, The Lost History 
of Delegation at the Founding, 56 Ga. L. Rev. 81, 113–134
(2021)  (Chabot).  Barely  anyone  objected  on  delegation
grounds.  See  Mortenson  &  Bagley  281–282,  332,  339; 
Chabot 117–119; Posner & Vermeule 1733–1736. 

It is not surprising that Congress has always delegated, 

—————— 
ante, at 13–16.  Nowhere will you find the concurrence ask: What does 
the phrase “best system of emission reduction” mean?  §7411(a)(1).  So 
much  for  “begin[ning],  as  we  must,  with  a  careful  examination  of  the 
statutory text.”  Henson v. Santander Consumer USA Inc., 582 U. S. 79, 
___ (2017) (slip op., at 3).