Page:Biden v. Nebraska.pdf/71

24 thinks best. See West Virginia, 597 U. S., at ___–___, ___–___ (dissenting opinion) (slip op., at 13–19, 28–33). The new major-questions doctrine works not to better understand—but instead to trump—the scope of a legislative delegation. See id., at ___ (slip op., at 32). Here is a fact of the matter: Congress delegates to agencies often and broadly. And it usually does so for sound reasons. Because agencies have expertise Congress lacks. Because times and circumstances change, and agencies are better able to keep up and respond. Because Congress knows that if it had to do everything, many desirable and even necessary things wouldn’t get done. In wielding the major-questions sword, last Term and this one, this Court overrules those legislative judgments. The doctrine forces Congress to delegate in highly specific terms—respecting, say, loan forgiveness of certain amounts for borrowers of certain incomes during pandemics of certain magnitudes. Of course Congress sometimes delegates in that way. But also often not. Because if Congress authorizes loan forgiveness, then what of loan forbearance? And what of the other 10 or 20 or 50 knowable and unknowable things the Secretary could do? And should the measure taken—whether forgiveness or forbearance or anything else—always be of the same size? Or go to the same classes of people? Doesn’t it depend on the nature and scope of the pandemic, and on a host of other foreseeable and unforeseeable factors? You can see the problem. It is hard to identify and enumerate every possible application of a statute to every possible condition years in the future. So, again, Congress delegates broadly. Except that this Court now won’t let it reap the benefits of that choice.

And that is a major problem not just for governance, but for democracy too. Congress is of course a democratic institution; it responds, even if imperfectly, to the preferences of American voters. And agency officials, though not