Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/524bv.pdf
Page Number: 536

524US2

Unit: $U93

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Cite as: 524 U. S. 417 (1998)

491

Breyer, J., dissenting

2

Most, but not all, of the considerations mentioned in the
previous subsection apply to the Act’s delegation to the Pres-
ident of the authority to prevent “from having legal force or
effect” a “limited tax beneﬁt,” which term the Act deﬁnes in
terms of special tax relief for fewer than 100 (or in some
instances 10) beneﬁciaries, which tax relief is not available
to others who are somewhat similarly situated.
2 U. S. C.
§ 691e(9) (1994 ed., Supp. II). There are, however, two re-
lated signiﬁcant differences between the “limited tax bene-
ﬁt” and the spending items considered above, which make
the “limited tax beneﬁt” question more difﬁcult. First, the
history is different. The history of Presidential authority to
pick and to choose is less voluminous. Second, the subject
matter (increasing or decreasing an individual’s taxes) makes
the considerations discussed at the end of the last section
(i. e., the danger of an arbitrary exercise of delegated power)
of greater concern. But these differences, in my view, are
not sufﬁcient to change the “nondelegation” result.

For one thing, this Court has made clear that the standard
we must use to judge whether a law violates the “nondelega-
tion” doctrine is the same in the tax area as in any other.
In Skinner v. Mid-America Pipeline Co., 490 U. S. 212
(1989), the Court considered whether Congress, in the exer-
cise of its taxing power, could delegate to the Secretary of
Transportation the authority to establish a system of pipe-
line user fees.
In rejecting the argument that the “fees”
were actually a “tax,” and that the law amounted to an un-
constitutional delegation of Congress’ own power to tax, the
unanimous Court said that:

“From its earliest days to the present, Congress,
when enacting tax legislation, has varied the degree of
speciﬁcity and the consequent degree of discretionary
authority delegated to the Executive . . . .

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