Major Questions Doctrine

The major questions doctrine is a principle of statutory interpretation in United States administrative law holding that courts should not read a federal statute as delegating decisions of vast political or economic significance to an executive agency without clear and specific authorization from Congress. It took shape as a paradigm in FDA v. Brown and Williamson Tobacco Corp in 2000, which called for a commonsense reading of whether Congress intended to hand an agency such sweeping power, and the Supreme Court named it explicitly as the major questions doctrine in West Virginia v. EPA in 2022, requiring agencies to point to clear congressional authorization in extraordinary cases. It functions in two related ways, as a narrower limit on the deference courts give agency interpretations, and as a broader clear-statement rule that a statute is not read as granting authority over a major question unless its text plainly says so.