Also known as: intelligible principle · intelligible-principle · nondelegation doctrine
Written by attorneys — see sources below.
A constitutional standard that Congress must supply when delegating legislative authority to executive agencies or officers. The standard guides the agency's exercise of discretion so that courts can determine whether the agency has followed the law. Without it the delegation violates separation of powers by transferring core legislative power without meaningful legislative direction.
Congress created the Manufacturing Standards Board and directed it to issue rules advancing modern industry. The Board then set production methods and output quotas for all factories. Imperial Motors challenged the rules claiming the statute supplied no guiding standard. The court upheld the delegation because the statutory goal of advancing modern industry provided an intelligible principle.
Congress authorized the Tariff Commission to adjust import duties to equalize production costs between domestic and foreign goods. The Commission raised duties on certain imports after investigation. J.W. Hampton Jr. & Co. contested the increase. The court sustained the delegation because the equalization directive supplied an intelligible principle.
J. W. Hampton, Jr., & Company imported barium dioxide into New York. The collector of customs assessed the importation at a dutiable rate of six cents per pound. This was two cents per pound more than that fixed by statute under a presidential proclamation issued pursuant to section 315 of the Tariff Act of September 21, 1922. The proclamation was issued by President Calvin Coolidge on May 19, 1924, after the United States Tariff Commission conducted an investigation into differences in costs of production between the United States and Germany, the principal competing country. The investigation included a public hearing at which interested parties could present evidence. The proclamation recited that the statutory duty did not equalize those cost differences and raised the rate on barium dioxide to six cents per pound, within the fifty-percent limit allowed by the statute. Hampton protested the assessment and appealed under section 514 of the Tariff Act. The United States Customs Court heard the case and a majority upheld the assessment. Hampton then appealed to the United States Court of Customs Appeals, which affirmed the Customs Court judgment on October 16, 1926. The Attorney General certified that the case warranted Supreme Court review. Hampton petitioned for certiorari on May 10, 1927, and the Supreme Court granted the writ.
View caseCongress directed an agency to issue permits for projects affecting endangered species while minimizing harm. The agency approved a development that reduced habitat. Defenders of Wildlife sued claiming the statute left too much discretion. The court rejected the challenge because the minimization directive constituted an intelligible principle.
Congress passed an appropriations bill containing numerous spending provisions. The President signed the bill then canceled several items. The City of New York challenged the cancellations. The court held the line-item cancellations unconstitutional because they exceeded the intelligible-principle limits on delegated authority.
In April 1996 Congress enacted the Line Item Veto Act, which took effect on January 1, 1997, and authorized the President to cancel in whole any dollar amount of discretionary budget authority, any item of new direct spending, or any limited tax benefit. On August 5, 1997, Congress passed the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, which included section 4722(c) deeming certain New York health-care-provider taxes permissible and in compliance with federal Medicaid requirements. On the same day Congress passed the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997, which included section 968 granting a limited tax benefit allowing owners of certain food refiners and processors to defer recognition of gain when selling stock to eligible farmers' cooperatives. On August 11, 1997, President Clinton transmitted notices canceling section 4722(c) of the Balanced Budget Act and section 968 of the Taxpayer Relief Act. The City of New York, two hospital associations, one hospital, and two unions representing health-care employees filed suit challenging the cancellation of section 4722(c). Snake River Potato Growers, Inc., a farmers' cooperative formed in May 1997 to acquire potato-processing facilities, and one of its members filed a separate action challenging the cancellation of section 968. The District Court for the District of Columbia consolidated the two actions and held that at least one plaintiff in each case had Article III standing. It ruled on the merits that the cancellations did not conform to the constitutionally mandated procedures for the enactment or repeal of laws. Earlier, six Members of Congress who had voted against the Line Item Veto Act had brought a separate challenge; the District Court had held the Act unconstitutional, but the Supreme Court dismissed that action for lack of standing in Raines v. Byrd, 521 U.S. 811 (1997). After the President exercised the cancellation authority, the present appellees filed suit challenging the two cancellations, and the District Court again held the statute invalid.
View caseCongress authorized an agency to prohibit transportation of petroleum in interstate commerce when necessary to prevent waste. The agency banned all shipments from certain fields. Panama Refining Co. challenged the ban. The court struck down the delegation because the statute contained no intelligible principle guiding the prohibition.
In June 1933 Congress enacted the National Industrial Recovery Act. Section 9(c) of Title I authorized the President to prohibit the transportation in interstate and foreign commerce of petroleum and its products. This prohibition applied when the petroleum was produced or withdrawn from storage in excess of amounts permitted by any state law or valid regulation. On July 11, 1933, the President issued an Executive Order prohibiting such transportation of excess petroleum. On July 14, 1933, he issued a further order authorizing the Secretary of the Interior to enforce the prohibition by designating agents, setting up boards, and promulgating rules and regulations. The Secretary of the Interior issued regulations on July 15, 1933, later amended on July 25 and August 21, 1933. These regulations required every producer, purchaser, shipper, and refiner of petroleum to file monthly sworn statements detailing residence, production locations, allowable and actual production, deliveries, and storage, and to maintain adequate books and records available for inspection. Panama Refining Company, a Delaware corporation engaged in refining crude oil and shipping it in interstate commerce, together with its Texas subsidiary and Amazon Petroleum Corporation along with other Texas oil producers, filed suits in federal district court in Texas against federal officials including the Administrator and Attorney General. The complaints alleged that the regulations restricted their interstate shipments of oil produced in compliance with Texas law. The District Court granted permanent injunctions against enforcement of the federal regulations and orders. The Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the decrees and directed that the bills be dismissed. The Supreme Court granted certiorari on October 8, 1934.
View caseCongress directed the EPA to set ambient air quality standards requisite to protect public health. The EPA issued strict ozone limits. American Trucking Associations challenged the standards. The court upheld the delegation because the public-health directive supplied an intelligible principle.
In July 1997 the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency revised the national ambient air quality standards for particulate matter and ozone. American Trucking Associations, Inc., and its co-respondents, including the States of Michigan, Ohio, and West Virginia, challenged the new standards in the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 7607(b)(1). The District of Columbia Circuit held that Section 109(b)(1) delegated legislative power to the Administrator in contravention of the Constitution because it provided no intelligible principle to guide the agency's exercise of authority. The court remanded the NAAQS to the agency for reconsideration. On rehearing the panel adhered to its position on the delegation point and on the implementation question, and it rejected the EPA's argument that the court lacked jurisdiction to reach the implementation question. The Administrator and the EPA petitioned the Supreme Court for review of the delegation, jurisdiction, and implementation questions. The respondents conditionally cross-petitioned for review of the costs question. The Supreme Court granted certiorari on both petitions in 2000 and consolidated the cases for decision. At the same time the EPA proposed the revised ozone NAAQS in 1996, it also proposed an interim implementation policy. After accepting comments, the White House published a memorandum prescribing implementation procedures, and the EPA announced in the preamble to its final ozone NAAQS that the provisions of subpart 1 of part D would apply to the implementation of the new standards.
View caseCongress must articulate a general policy or standard that guides the agency's discretion. Courts accept broad formulations such as advancing modern industry or protecting public health. The standard need not prescribe every detail.
No. The test requires only a guiding policy rather than granular rules. Broad objectives tied to a specific regulatory subject have repeatedly been upheld.
A statute fails when it leaves the agency free to make fundamental policy choices without any legislative direction. Complete absence of a guiding standard violates separation of powers.
Procedural steps such as hearings or reports help but do not substitute for a substantive policy standard. The statute must still direct the agency toward a defined goal.