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Page Number: 72

16 

WEST VIRGINIA v. EPA 

KAGAN, J., dissenting 

power to regulate “drugs” and “devices” extended to tobacco 
products.  The  claim had  something  to  it:  FDA  has  broad 
authority over “drugs” and drug-delivery “devices,” and the
definitions of those terms could be read to encompass nico-
tine  and  cigarettes.  But  the  asserted  authority  “simply
[did] not fit” the overall statutory scheme.  529 U. S., at 143. 
FDA’s governing statute required the agency to ensure that 
regulated products were “safe” to be marketed—but there 
was  no  making  tobacco  products  safe  in  the  usual  sense. 
Id.,  at  133–143.    So  FDA  would  have  had  to  reinterpret 
what it meant to be “safe,” or else ban tobacco products al-
together.  Ibid.  Both options, the Court thought, were pre-
posterous.  Until the agency action at issue, tobacco prod-
ucts  hadn’t  been  spoken  of  in  the  same  breath  as 
pharmaceuticals  (FDA’s  paradigmatic  regulated  product).
And  Congress  had  created  in  several  statutes  a  “distinct
regulatory scheme” for tobacco, not involving FDA.  Id., at 
155–156.  So all the evidence was that Congress had never 
meant for  FDA to have any—let  alone total—control over
the tobacco industry, with its “unique political history.”  Id., 
at 159.  Again, there was “simply” a lack of “fit” between the
regulation at issue, the agency in question, and the broader 
statutory scheme.  Id., at 143. 

The majority’s effort to find support in Brown & William-
son for its interpretive approach fails.  See ante, at 19.  It 
may be helpful here to quote the full sentence that the ma-
jority  quotes  half  of.  “In  extraordinary  cases,”  the  Court
stated, “there may be reason to hesitate before concluding
that  Congress  has  intended  such  an  implicit  delegation.”
529  U. S.,  at  159.    For  anyone  familiar  with  this  Court’s 
Chevron doctrine, that language will ring a bell.  The Court 
was  saying  only—and  it  was  elsewhere  explicit  on  this
point—that  there  was  reason  to  hesitate  before  giving
FDA’s  position  Chevron  deference.    See  id.,  at  132–133, 
159–161.  And what was that reason?  The Court went on 
to  explain  that  it  would  not  defer  to  FDA  because  it  read