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1 1 (May 17, 2022)

handle is hein.crs/goveftp0001 and id is 1 raw text is: Congressional ______ ~tResearch Service The Supreme Court's Major Questions Doctrine: Background and Recent Developments May 17, 2022 Congress frequently delegates authority to agencies in general or broad terms to promulgate regulations that advance the goals Congress has identified. In a number of decisions, however, the Supreme Court has declared that if an agency seeks to decide an issue of major national significance, a general delegation of authority may not be enough; instead, the agency's action must be supported by clear statutory authorization. Courts, commentators, and individual Supreme Court Justices have referred to this doctrine as the major questions doctrine (or major rules doctrine), although the Supreme Court has never used that term in a majority opinion. The Supreme Court has recently signaled an increased interest in applying the major questions doctrine as a principle of statutory interpretation in challenges to significant agency actions. This Sidebar provides an overview of the major questions doctrine, discusses cases this term in which the Court has invoked or may invoke the doctrine, and identifies considerations for Congress in crafting legislation against the backdrop of the doctrine. Overview of the Major Questions Doctrine Agencies must often interpret statutes that grant them regulatory authority. If an agency acts based on the agency's interpretation, and that action is challenged, courts may be called upon to review such interpretations to determine if the agency has exceeded its authority. Reviewing courts will sometimes defer to an agency's interpretation of an ambiguous statute. In a handful of cases involving a challenge to agency actions, the Supreme Court has rejected agency claims of regulatory authority under the major questions doctrine when (1) the underlying claim of authority concerns an issue of vast 'economic and political significance,' and (2) Congress has not clearly empowered the agency. The Court and commentators have sometimes justified the doctrine based on the Court's observation that Congress does not alter the fundamental details of a regulatory scheme in vague terms or ancillary provisions-it does not, one might say, hide elephants in mouseholes. The Court has often applied the major questions doctrine when determining whether to defer to an agency's Congressional Research Service https://crsreports. congress.gov LSB10745 CRS Legal Sidebar Prepared for Members and Committees of Congress

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