Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/20-1530_n758.pdf
Page Number: 87.0

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

31 

KAGAN, J., dissenting 

old  regulatory  approaches  to  new  times,  to  ensure  that  a 
statutory  program  remains  effective.    See,  e.g.,  National 
Federation of Independent Business v. OSHA, 595 U. S. ___, 
___ (2022) (BREYER, SOTOMAYOR, and KAGAN, JJ., dissent-
ing)  (slip  op.,  at  9)  (observing  that  a  statute’s  broad  lan-
guage was meant to ensure that an agency had “the tools
needed to confront emerging dangers”). 

Over time, the administrative delegations Congress has
made  have  helped  to  build  a  modern  Nation.    Congress
wanted  fewer  workers  killed  in  industrial  accidents.    It 
wanted to prevent plane crashes, and reduce the deadliness 
of car wrecks.  It wanted to ensure that consumer products
didn’t catch fire.  It wanted to stop the routine adulteration
of food and improve the safety and efficacy of medications. 
And it wanted cleaner air and water.  If an American could 
go back in time, she might be astonished by how much pro-
gress  has  occurred  in  all  those  areas.  It  didn’t  happen 
through  legislation  alone.  It  happened  because  Congress 
gave broad-ranging powers to administrative agencies, and 
those  agencies  then  filled  in—rule  by  rule  by  rule—Con-
gress’s policy outlines.

This  Court  has  historically  known  enough  not  to  get  in
the  way.  Maybe  the  best  explanation  of  why  comes  from
Justice  Scalia.    See  Mistretta,  488  U. S.,  at  415–416  (dis-
senting opinion).  The context was somewhat different.  He 
was  responding  to  an  argument  that  Congress  could  not 
constitutionally  delegate  broad  policymaking  authority;
here, the Court reads a delegation with unwarranted skep-
ticism,  and  thereby  artificially  constrains  its  scope.    But 
Justice  Scalia’s  reasoning  remains  on  point.    He  started 
with the inevitability of delegations: “[S]ome judgments in-
volving  policy  considerations,”  he  stated,  “must  be  left  to 
[administrative] officers.”  Id., at 415.  Then he explained 
why courts should not try to seriously police those delega-
tions, barring—or, I’ll add, narrowing—some on the ground
that they went too far.  The scope of delegations, he said,