Learning Resources v. Trump

Justice Gorsuch wrote a lengthy concurrence fully joining the majority opinion and its application of the major questions doctrine. He argued that the doctrine is not a recent invention but has deep roots in common law, tracing clear-statement rules back to English corporate law, agency law, and early American cases involving delegated authority. When an agent claims extraordinary power from a principal, the common law has long required express authorization—and the same principle applies when the executive branch claims Congress delegated it sweeping powers.

Gorsuch also responded to various colleagues. He noted that justices who previously criticized the major questions doctrine effectively applied it here by reading IEEPA's broad language narrowly—an approach inconsistent with their past dissents in cases like West Virginia v. EPA and Biden v. Nebraska. He pushed back on Justice Barrett's suggestion that the doctrine is merely "common sense," arguing it necessarily relies on the substantive constitutional value of Article I's vesting of legislative power in Congress. He also rejected the dissenters' proposed foreign affairs exception, noting that while the President has some inherent foreign affairs powers, the Constitution gives the tariff power exclusively to Congress, making a clear-statement requirement especially important.

Justice Barrett wrote a concurrence joining the majority opinion in full but reiterating her view that the major questions doctrine is best understood not as a special clear-statement rule imposed from outside the statute, but as an application of ordinary, commonsense principles of statutory interpretation. She argued that context—including constitutional structure, the history of how Congress delegates, and practical expectations about legislative behavior—naturally leads an interpreter to read IEEPA as not granting tariff authority, without needing to invoke an extra-textual "thumb on the scale." In her view, when Congress makes a big-time policy call like delegating the taxing power, a reasonable reader would expect clear language, and IEEPA's generic reference to "regulate... importation" falls short of that expectation as a matter of straightforward textual analysis.

Justice Kagan, joined by Justices Sotomayor and Jackson, concurred in the Court's holding that IEEPA does not authorize tariffs but declined to join the portions of the opinion invoking the major questions doctrine. She argued that ordinary tools of statutory interpretation—text, context, structure, and how Congress has used similar language in other statutes—amply demonstrate that "regulate... importation" does not include the power to impose tariffs. In her view, there was no need to apply a heightened clear-statement rule because the statute's plain meaning, read in context, already excludes tariff authority.

Kagan emphasized that IEEPA never mentions tariffs or duties, that Congress consistently uses explicit language when delegating tariff power, and that the word "regulate" is never used elsewhere in federal law to mean "tax." She also noted the extraordinary and unprecedented nature of the President's claimed authority—imposing tariffs of any amount on any product from any country—as contextual evidence that Congress did not intend such a delegation. While she agreed with the result, she maintained her view that the major questions doctrine as a separate canon was unnecessary to reach it.

Justice Jackson wrote separately to note that she would also consult legislative history to confirm that IEEPA does not authorize tariffs. She pointed to the House and Senate committee reports that accompanied both IEEPA and its predecessor statute, the Trading with the Enemy Act (TWEA), which she argued showed that Congress did not intend to grant the Executive the power to impose tariffs. In her view, this legislative history reinforced the conclusion reached through textual analysis and provided additional evidence of Congress's intent in enacting IEEPA.