Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/22-506_nmip.pdf
Page Number: 74.0

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

27 

KAGAN, J., dissenting 

goalposts for triggering the major-questions doctrine.  Who 
knows—by next year, the Secretary of Health and Human
Services may be found unable to implement the Medicare
program  under  a  broad  delegation  because  of  his  actions’ 
(enormous) “economic impact.”  Ante, at 21.
  To  justify  this  use  of  its  heightened-specificity  require-
ment, the majority relies largely on history: “[P]ast waivers
and  modifications,”  the  majority  argues,  “have  been  ex-
tremely  modest.”  Ante,  at  20.    But  first,  it  depends  what 
you think is “past.”  One prior action, nowhere counted by
the majority, is the suspension of loan payments and inter-
est accrual begun in COVID’s first days.  That action cost 
the  Federal  Government  over  $100  billion,  and  benefited 
many  more  borrowers  than  the  forgiveness  plan  at  issue.
See supra, at 21.  And second, it’s all relative.  Past actions 
were  more  modest  because  the  precipitating  emergencies
were more modest.  (The COVID emergency generated, all 
told,  over  $5  trillion  in  Government  relief  spending.)    In 
providing  more  significant  relief  for  a  more  significant 
emergency—or call it unprecedented relief for an unprece-
dented  emergency—the  Secretary  did  what  the  HEROES 
Act contemplates.  Imagine asking the enacting Congress:
Can  the  Secretary  use  his  powers  to  give  borrowers  more 

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BARRETT’s views on properly contextual interpretation of delegation pro-
visions.  See  West  Virginia,  597  U. S.,  at  ___–___  (dissenting  opinion) 
(slip  op.,  at  14–19).    But  then  consider  two  of  the  contextual  factors 
JUSTICE BARRETT views as “telltale sign[s]” of whether an agency has ex-
ceeded the scope of a delegation.  Ante, at 12.  First, she asks, is there a 
“mismatch[ ]” between a “backwater provision” or “subtle device” and an 
agency’s exercise of power?  Ibid.  And second, is the agency official op-
erating within or “outside [his] wheelhouse”?  Ante, at 12–13.  Here, for 
the  reasons  stated  above,  there  is  no  mismatch:  The  broadly  worded
“waive or modify” delegation IS the HEROES Act, not some tucked away 
ancillary provision.  And as JUSTICE BARRETT agrees, “this is not a case
where the agency is operating entirely outside its usual domain.”  Ante, 
at 15.  So I could practically rest my case on JUSTICE BARRETT’s reason-
ing.