Week 14 - Major Questions Doctrine

Why was the IEEPA considered to not authorize the imposing of tariffs by the President in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump?

Issue(s):

• Does the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) authorize the President to impose broad tariffs on imports in response to declared national emergencies?

Facts (include arguments):

• President Trump declared national emergencies based on drug trafficking from Canada, Mexico, and China, and on large persistent trade deficits, then imposed tariffs including 25% duties on many Canadian and Mexican imports, 10% duties on many Chinese imports, and broad “reciprocal” tariffs on imports from trading partners worldwide.

• The administration argued that IEEPA lets the President “regulate ... importation,” and that this language includes the power to impose tariffs.

• The challengers argued that tariffs are a form of taxation, a core Article I power of Congress, and that IEEPA nowhere clearly authorizes the President to impose them.

Procedural posture:

• The litigation reached the Supreme Court in consolidated cases, including Trump v. V.O.S. Selections, Inc..

• Lower courts had concluded that IEEPA did not authorize the challenged tariffs, and the Supreme Court granted review.

Judgment:

• The Court held that IEEPA does not authorize the President to impose tariffs.

• The tariffs challenged under IEEPA therefore exceeded the scope of delegated statutory authority.

Applicable Rules and Precedent:

• Article I gives Congress the power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, and the Court treated tariffs as “very clear[ly] ... a branch of the taxing power.”

• The Court relied on the major questions doctrine, emphasizing that extraordinary assertions of power over matters of great economic and political significance require clear congressional authorization.

• The Court drew support from cases like West Virginia v. EPA, Biden v. Nebraska, and NFIB v. OSHA, which reject broad readings of ambiguous text when the Government claims sweeping power.

Holding:

• IEEPA’s authorization to “regulate ... importation” does not include the authority to impose tariffs.

• Congress did not clearly delegate to the President an unlimited power to impose tariffs of any size, scope, or duration.

Reasoning:

• The Court said tariffs are fundamentally taxes, and Congress normally delegates tariff authority in explicit terms, with detailed limits on amount, duration, and procedure; IEEPA does none of that.

• The word “regulate” is too general to carry such a major delegation, especially because no President had used IEEPA to impose tariffs in the statute’s nearly 50-year history.

• The Court also rejected the argument that emergency or foreign-affairs context weakens the major questions doctrine, stressing that there is no emergency exception to the need for clear statutory authorization.

Rule of Law:

• A President cannot use IEEPA to impose tariffs unless Congress has given clear statutory authorization, and IEEPA’s power to “regulate ... importation” is not enough.

Key takeaway:

• The Court ruled that President Trump could not rely on IEEPA to impose sweeping peacetime tariffs, reaffirming that tariff power remains primarily with Congress, not the Executive

What did Gorsuch say about the distinctiveness of the major questions doctrine in regards to this case and in practice?

• His main idea

  • The Constitution gives lawmaking power to Congress, not the President.

  • So if a President claims Congress gave him a huge and unusual power, the statute must say so clearly.

  • He agrees that IEEPA does not clearly give the President power to impose sweeping tariffs.

  • He says the major questions doctrine is the right tool to reach that result.

• Why he thinks this case is easy under that rule

  • The President claimed power to impose tariffs on almost any goods, from any country, at any rate.

  • Gorsuch says that is an extraordinary power, and Congress did not clearly hand it over in IEEPA.

• What he says about the other Justices

  • He says some Justices claim they are using only ordinary statutory interpretation, not the major questions doctrine.

  • Gorsuch argues that, even if they say that, they are really using the same ideas:

    • the power claimed is unusually big,

    • there is no historical precedent for using the statute that way,

    • and Congress normally would speak clearly before giving away that much power.

• His point about consistency

  • He criticizes those Justices for reading broad statutory language very broadly in earlier cases, but narrowly here.

  • He suggests that the best explanation is that this case really does call for the major questions doctrine, whether they admit it or not.

• How he describes the major questions doctrine

  • He says it is not new and not anti-government.

  • Instead, it protects the constitutional rule that Congress is the principal and executive officials are only agents with delegated power.

  • Big delegated powers need clear authorization.

• He says it is pro-Congress, not anti-administrative state

  • Gorsuch rejects the idea that the doctrine is just hostility to agencies or modern government.

  • He says the doctrine is really about making sure the Executive does not take more power than Congress clearly gave it.

• His warning about power accumulation

  • Once the Court says a vague statute gives the President a major power, it can be very hard for Congress to get that power back.

  • Presidents will usually want to keep that power, and may veto efforts to reclaim it.

  • So courts should be careful before reading vague statutes to create major executive powers.

• His example in this case

  • If the President had won, future presidents could use IEEPA to impose tariffs for almost any claimed emergency.

  • He warns that this would let one president control a huge part of economic policy based on self-declared emergencies.

• His disagreement with Justice Barrett

  • Barrett suggests the major questions doctrine may just be a form of common-sense statutory interpretation.

  • Gorsuch disagrees.

  • He says the doctrine is really based on an external constitutional value—Article I’s vesting of legislative power in Congress—not just ordinary word reading.

• His disagreement with the dissent’s foreign-affairs argument

  • Some dissenters argued the doctrine should apply less strongly in foreign affairs cases.

  • Gorsuch says that does not help here because the President admitted he has no independent constitutional tariff power in peacetime.

  • Since tariff power belongs to Congress alone, this is an ordinary major-questions case, not a special foreign-affairs exception.

• His concern about a broad foreign-affairs exception

  • He says that kind of exception would be dangerous because many important Article I powers affect foreign affairs:

    • tariffs,

    • immigration/naturalization rules,

    • military funding,

    • and more.

  • If all of those could be handed over loosely to the President, Congress’s powers would be badly weakened.

• His response to Justice Thomas

  • Justice Thomas suggested Congress can delegate most of its powers very broadly.

  • Gorsuch says that even if Congress could delegate that much, the President would still need to show that Congress actually did so clearly here.

  • So Thomas’s broader theory does not solve the statutory problem in this case.

• Bottom line

  • Gorsuch sees the case as an important separation-of-powers dispute.

  • His message is:

    • big executive power requires clear congressional permission,

    • IEEPA does not provide it,

    • and courts should not let presidents use vague laws to gather lasting control over major national policy.

What does Justice Barrett believe the major questions doctrine should be treated in contrast to Justice Gorsuch?

• Barrett agrees with the outcome

  • She agrees that the best reading of IEEPA does not let the President impose tariffs.

  • Her separate opinion is mainly about how to understand the major questions doctrine, not about changing the result.

• Her main point

  • She says the major questions doctrine is not a special anti-executive rule.

  • Instead, she thinks it is just an ordinary form of textualism: judges read statutory words in context to find their most natural meaning.

• What “context” includes for her

  • Context includes:

    • background legal conventions,

    • common sense,

    • and constitutional structure, including Article I.

  • Because Article I gives legislative power to Congress, a reasonable reader usually would expect Congress to make the big policy decisions itself unless the statute indicates otherwise.

• Where she partly agrees with Gorsuch

  • She agrees that Article I matters when reading statutes and that courts should be careful before reading a law to give away a huge power.

  • So she and Gorsuch are close in practice in this case.

• Where she disagrees with Gorsuch

  • She rejects the idea that courts should impose a strong rule that Congress must always speak with very high precision before delegating a major power.

  • She thinks less obvious clues in text and context can sometimes show that Congress meant to delegate such power.

• Her warning

  • She is skeptical of turning the major questions doctrine into a strong clear-statement canon that makes statutes mean less than their best reading.

  • In her view, that would push judges beyond interpretation and closer to policymaking.

• Why she thinks Gorsuch goes too far

  • Gorsuch says the doctrine helps stop executive officials from grabbing new power for themselves.

  • Barrett responds that if the Constitution allows Congress to give that power to the Executive, then judges should not block that just because they prefer Congress to decide important issues itself.

• Her bottom line

  • Barrett supports using the major questions doctrine as a way of reading statutes carefully and contextually, not as a freestanding rule that adds a heavy “clarity tax” on Congress.

  • In this case, she sees no textual or contextual clues supporting tariff power under IEEPA, so she agrees the President loses

Despite agreeing with the result, what did Kagan say in his concurrence about the how the Court should have decided the case?

• Kagan agrees with the result

  • She agrees that IEEPA does not let the President impose tariffs.

  • She also agrees with most of the main opinion’s reasoning, but she does not join the part relying on the major questions doctrine.

• Her main point

  • Kagan says the Court does not need any special clear-statement rule to decide this case.

  • In her view, ordinary statutory interpretation already shows that the President loses.

• How she reads statutes

  • She says judges should use the usual method: read text in context.

  • That means looking at:

    • the actual words,

    • how the provision fits into the broader statute,

    • and some practical common sense about how Congress normally delegates power.

• Why she rejects major questions here

  • She thinks the major questions doctrine often asks for a special level of clarity beyond what normal interpretation requires.

  • She has criticized that approach before because she thinks it can be used to cut back on broad delegations that Congress actually approved.

• Why this case is different from those earlier fights

  • Here, she says, the Government does not just fail a stricter “major questions” test.

  • It fails even under the normal test.

  • So there is no need to invoke a controversial doctrine when standard tools already resolve the case.

• Her key statutory point

  • IEEPA authorizes the President to “regulate” importation, but it says nothing about tariffs, duties, or taxes.

  • Kagan says the ordinary meaning of “regulate” does not include taxing.

• Why that matters

  • Across federal statutes, Congress uses words like “tariff,” “duty,” or “surcharge” when it wants to delegate taxing power.

  • And when Congress wants to give both regulatory power and taxing power, it usually names them separately.

• Her bottom line on Kagan

  • Kagan’s message is: the President loses because the statute itself is not read naturally to include tariff power.

  • So this is, in her view, a plain statutory interpretation case, not a major-questions case.

• Jackson’s separate point

  • Justice Jackson also agrees that IEEPA does not authorize tariffs.

  • But she adds that courts should look at legislative history to find what Congress actually intended.

• Jackson’s basic reasoning

  • She says the Court should not just speculate about whether Congress would likely have delegated tariff power.

  • Instead, it should look at the legislative record, which she reads as showing that IEEPA was meant to let the President control or freeze foreign-involved property transactions, not impose tariffs.

• Simple takeaway

  • Kagan: normal statutory reading is enough; no need for the major questions doctrine.

  • Jackson: same result, but she would rely more openly on legislative history to confirm Congress did not authorize tariffs.

In Thomas’s dissent, what does he say about not only the disagreement with the result, but also the constitutionality of the delegation of the tariff power?

• Thomas disagrees with the Court’s result

  • He agrees with Justice Kavanaugh’s dissent that the statute’s text authorizing the President to “regulate importation” is enough to support tariff power.

  • So unlike the majority, he thinks the President had statutory authority.

• Why he writes separately

  • Thomas wants to answer a different question too: even if Congress gave the President this tariff power, would that delegation be constitutional?

  • His answer is yes.

• His main constitutional argument

  • He says the Constitution does not forbid Congress from delegating all kinds of power.

  • In his view, the nondelegation doctrine only blocks Congress from giving away core legislative power.

• What he thinks “core legislative power” means

  • He defines it narrowly as the power to make substantive rules that set the conditions for depriving people of life, liberty, or property.

  • He says only that kind of power is constitutionally nondelegable.

• What follows from that narrow definition

  • If a congressional power is not part of that core category, then Congress may delegate it to the President.

  • Thomas says Congress has done that many times throughout American history.

• How he treats tariffs

  • He argues that the power to impose duties on imports is one of the powers Congress may delegate.

  • He does not view tariff-setting as part of the nondelegable core legislative power.

• His historical/originalist claim

  • Thomas says that at the Founding, control over foreign commerce was understood differently from core domestic lawmaking.

  • He argues that foreign trade was often treated as an area where Congress could give the President substantial discretion.

• Why foreign commerce matters to him

  • He says engaging in foreign commerce was seen more as a privilege than a basic right.

  • Because of that, rules about imports and duties did not raise the same nondelegation concern as ordinary domestic regulation.

• His bottom line on separation of powers

  • Thomas thinks the Court is wrong to rely on broad separation-of-powers concerns against the President here.

  • In his view, even a broad delegation of tariff authority would be constitutionally permissible.

• Simple takeaway

  • Thomas’s position is narrower and more originalist than the majority’s: Congress cannot delegate only a limited category of truly core legislative power.

  • Since he thinks tariffs are outside that category, he believes Congress could lawfully hand tariff power to the President, and that IEEPA should be read as doing so.

Why did Kavanaugh in his dissent believe that Article I and the major questions doctrine was satisfied?

• Kavanaugh would uphold the tariffs

  • He says IEEPA gave the President authority to impose tariffs because tariffs are a traditional way to “regulate importation.”

  • So he thinks the Court should have ruled for the President.

• His basic legal argument

  • The only real question, in his view, is whether tariffs are one tool for regulating imports.

  • He says the answer is clearly yes, just like quotas and embargoes are.

• Why he thinks the text supports the President

  • He argues that the ordinary meaning of “regulate importation” is broad enough to include tariffs.

  • He says tariffs have long been used as a common way to control or shape imports.

• His response to the majority’s Article I point

  • He says it is beside the point to emphasize that Congress has constitutional authority over tariffs.

  • Everyone agrees on that.

  • The real issue is whether Congress delegated some of that power to the President in IEEPA.

• He says Congress can control the President if it wants

  • Kavanaugh stresses that Congress is not powerless.

  • It can limit tariff policy through:

    • new legislation,

    • appropriations,

    • oversight,

    • confirmations,

    • and other political tools.

• His first major-questions argument

  • He accepts that this is an economically important case.

  • But he says the major questions doctrine is still satisfied because the statute, history, and precedent provide clear congressional authorization.

• Why he thinks the authorization is “clear”

  • He says the Court’s doctrine does not require magic words like “tariff” or “duty.”

  • A generally worded statute can still clearly authorize a major power if the context and history show that the power fits naturally within the text.

• His four main reasons

  • He says this is not like earlier major-questions cases because:

    • the President is not discovering some brand-new power in an old statute,

    • the interpretation is not inconsistent with prior presidential understandings,

    • tariff-setting is inside the President’s foreign-trade wheelhouse,

    • and the phrase “regulate importation” is not vague or cryptic.

• His “elephant” line

  • He says this is not an “elephant in a mousehole” problem.

  • For him, tariffs are an elephant in an elephant hole—a big power placed in a big, broad trade-related statutory grant.

• His second major-questions argument

  • Even if the doctrine might matter elsewhere, he says it should not apply in foreign affairs cases.

  • He argues that courts have historically given the political branches more flexibility in foreign affairs and have not used major questions as a thumb on the scale against the President there.

• Why foreign affairs matters to him

  • He says Congress often deliberately gives the President broad discretion in foreign affairs, including trade.

  • He also points to a long historical tradition of broad delegations involving tariffs and foreign commerce.

• His practical warning

  • Kavanaugh says the Court’s ruling may not stop future presidents from using other tariff statutes.

  • But he warns it could create immediate problems, including:

    • messy refund litigation over billions already collected,

    • and uncertainty about trade deals negotiated while the tariffs were in place.

• Simple takeaway

  • Kavanaugh’s view is:

    • the statute’s text is broad,

    • tariffs are a normal tool of import regulation,

    • the major questions doctrine is either satisfied or irrelevant here,

    • and the Court wrongly blocked a lawful presidential action.