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Page Number: 26.0

20 

WEST VIRGINIA v. EPA 

Opinion of the Court 

congressional  authorization,”  ibid.—confirms  that  the  ap-
proach under the major questions doctrine is distinct.    

As for the major questions doctrine “label[ ],” post, at 13, 
it took hold because it refers to an identifiable body of law 
that has developed over a series of significant cases all ad-
dressing  a  particular  and  recurring  problem:  agencies  as-
serting highly consequential power beyond what Congress 
could reasonably be understood to have granted.  Scholars 
and  jurists  have  recognized  the  common  threads  between 
those decisions.  So have we.  See Utility Air, 573 U. S., at 
324 (citing Brown & Williamson and MCI); King v. Burwell, 
576 U. S. 473, 486 (2015) (citing Utility Air, Brown & Wil-
liamson, and Gonzales). 

B 
Under our precedents, this is a major questions case.  In 
arguing that Section 111(d) empowers it to substantially re-
structure the American energy market, EPA “claim[ed] to
discover in a long-extant statute an unheralded power” rep-
resenting  a  “transformative  expansion  in  [its]  regulatory
authority.”  Utility  Air,  573  U. S.,  at  324.    It  located  that 
newfound power in the vague language of an “ancillary pro-
vision[ ]”  of  the  Act,  Whitman,  531  U. S.,  at  468,  one  that 
was designed to function as a gap filler and had rarely been 
used in the preceding decades.  And the Agency’s discovery 
allowed it to adopt a regulatory program that Congress had
conspicuously  and  repeatedly  declined  to  enact  itself. 
Brown & Williamson, 529 U. S., at 159–160; Gonzales, 546 
U. S., at 267–268; Alabama Assn., 594 U. S., at ___, ___ (slip 
op., at 2, 8).  Given these circumstances, there is every rea-
son to “hesitate before concluding that Congress” meant to 
confer on EPA the authority it claims under Section 111(d). 
Brown & Williamson, 529 U. S., at 159–160. 

Prior to 2015, EPA had always set emissions limits under
Section  111  based  on  the  application  of  measures  that 
would reduce pollution by causing the regulated source to