Barrett, J., concurring
but context can also do the trick. Surrounding circumstances, whether contained within the statutory scheme or external to it, can narrow or broaden the scope of a delegation to an agency.
This expectation of clarity is rooted in the basic premise that Congress normally “intends to make major policy decisions itself, not leave those decisions to agencies.” United States Telecom Assn. v. FCC, 855 F. 3d 381, 419 (CADC 2017) (Kavanaugh, J., dissenting from denial of reh’g en banc). Or, as Justice Breyer once observed, “Congress is more likely to have focused upon, and answered, major questions, while leaving interstitial matters [for agencies] to answer themselves in the course of a statute’s daily administration.” S. Breyer, Judicial Review of Questions of Law and Policy, 38 Admin. L. Rev. 363, 370 (1986); see also A. Gluck & L. Bressman, Statutory Interpretation From the Inside—An Empirical Study of Congressional Drafting, Delegation, and the Canons: Part I, 65 Stan. L. Rev. 901, 1003–1006 (2013). That makes eminent sense in light of our constitutional structure, which is itself part of the legal context framing any delegation. Because the Constitution vests Congress with “[a]ll legislative Powers,” Art. I, §1, a reasonable interpreter would expect it to make the big-time policy calls itself, rather than pawning them off to another branch. See West Virginia, 597 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 19) (explaining that the major questions doctrine rests on “both separation of powers principles and a practical understanding of legislative intent”).
Crucially, treating the Constitution’s structure as part of the context in which a delegation occurs is not the same as using a clear-statement rule to overenforce Article I’s nondelegation principle (which, again, is the rationale behind the substantive-canon view of the major questions doctrine). My point is simply that in a system of separated powers, a reasonably informed interpreter would expect
