On February 20, 2026, in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump, the Supreme Court held that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) does not authorize the president to impose tariffs. In a 6-3 decision written by Chief Justice Roberts, the Court concluded that IEEPA's authority to "regulate . . . importation" does not include the power to impose tariffs. Beyond its significance for trade, the Court's decision is also an important development for the separation of powers and provides a meaningful window into the Court's approach to the "major questions doctrine." The decision will likely shape how lower courts approach executive actions and assertions of agency power in a wide range of challenges.
The Major Questions Doctrine
The major questions doctrine reflects the Court's concern that the executive branch may use ambiguous statutory language to claim consequential legislative power that Congress did not intend to delegate. Rooted in separation-of-powers principles and "common sense" as to how Congress is likely to delegate its authority, the doctrine requires Congress to "speak clearly if it wishes to assign to an agency decisions of vast economic and political significance." West Virginia v. EPA, 597 U.S. 697, 721-22 (2022). In such cases, it is not enough for an agency to identify a "colorable textual basis" for the claimed authority; the agency must instead "point to 'clear congressional authorization'" for its assertion of power. Id. at 722-23.
The Supreme Court first invoked the major questions doctrine by name in 2022 in West Virginia, rejecting an attempt by the Environmental Protection Agency to rely on "vague" statutory language for a rule that would have "substantially restructure[d] the American energy market," particularly where Congress had repeatedly refused to adopt such a program itself. 597 U.S. at 724. The next year, in Biden v. Nebraska, the Court invoked the doctrine in invalidating the secretary of education's student loan forgiveness program, explaining that the Court would not assume that Congress intended to empower the agency to abolish billions of dollars in student loan debt absent clear language providing that authority. In both cases, the Court treated the scale of the asserted power as a signal that Congress would have spoken more plainly if it meant to delegate it.
Although the Supreme Court's use of the "major questions doctrine 'label'" is recent, the Court has explained that the doctrine is rooted in earlier Supreme Court cases that rejected agencies' attempts to assert "highly consequential power beyond what Congress could reasonably be understood to have granted." West Virginia, 597 U.S. at 724. The Court's use of the doctrine has left open several questions, including what qualifies as "vast economic and political significance," and whether the doctrine operates as a "clear-statement rule" or is simply another tool of statutory construction, to be used alongside other canons of interpretation in determining the best meaning of a statute.
The Supreme Court's Tariff Decision
In Learning Resources, a majority of the Court agreed that IEEPA's power to "regulate . . . importation" does not authorize tariffs because it cannot be read to "include[] the power to tax." The majority split, however, on whether that conclusion should be based on the major questions doctrine or instead follows from ordinary tools of statutory interpretation.
In a portion of the opinion that commanded only three votes, Chief Justice Roberts—joined by Justices Gorsuch and Barrett—invoked the major questions doctrine. Emphasizing that tariffs implicate the "core congressional power of the purse," the plurality reasoned that a "reasonable interpreter" would expect Congress to delegate that power "clearly" rather than through general language. The plurality also rejected the government's (and the principal dissent's) attempt to frame the IEEPA tariffs as a matter of "foreign affairs" that would lower the bar for a clear statement from Congress, stressing that the president has no inherent authority to impose tariffs. Given the significant political and economic consequences of the president's tariffs, the plurality found it implausible that Congress would have "pawn[ed]" such decisions off to the president through ambiguous language.
The plurality also looked to past congressional and executive branch practice. The plurality noted that, in other statutes in which Congress has delegated its tariff power to the president, it has done so explicitly and subject to strict limitations and procedural prerequisites. Under the president's interpretation of IEEPA, however, the president could impose tariffs without any such limitations. The plurality also found it "telling" that past presidents have invoked IEEPA on numerous occasions, but no president has ever invoked it to impose tariffs.
The plurality rejected the argument raised by the government and the dissent that the national-emergency posture makes the major questions doctrine inapplicable. In the plurality's view, that argument largely backfires: emergency powers can be used as a pretext to claim even greater authority, so courts should be especially skeptical of unbounded emergency powers absent clear language from Congress. In other words, "[t]here is no major questions exception to the major questions doctrine."
In a separate opinion, Justice Kagan, joined by Justices Sotomayor and Jackson, agreed that IEEPA does not grant the president authority to impose tariffs, but would have resolved the case using ordinary principles of statutory interpretation rather than invoking the major questions doctrine. Justices Gorsuch and Barrett also each wrote separately, reflecting an ongoing internal debate about whether the major questions doctrine is best understood as a "clear-statement rule" rooted in separation of powers, as Justice Gorsuch has asserted, or an "ordinary application of textualism," as Justice Barrett has argued.
Significance of the Decision for Other Challenges to Executive Branch Actions
Although the majority holding of the Court does not explicitly rely on the major questions doctrine, lower courts will likely look to the chief justice's three-justice plurality decision for guidance as they continue to grapple with how to apply the doctrine. The plurality's decision underscores that, even where the executive branch may be able to identify a plausible textual basis for claimed authority, courts will not necessarily accept that interpretation if the statutory text is ambiguous and the context provides a reason to doubt that Congress would have granted that authority absent clearer language. Courts are likely to require a clear statutory statement where the power is economically and politically significant, Congress has previously declined to give the executive such power, and the executive purports to find that new power in an old statute. The plurality's decision makes clear, moreover, that the Court will look skeptically at broad assertions of executive branch power, even in the context of an emergency statute when the power is claimed by the president himself rather than an agency, at least where the power claimed is one that belongs to Congress in the first instance.
More broadly, the Supreme Court's application of the major questions doctrine is one of many recent contexts in which the Court has curtailed executive power. In Loper Bright v. Raimondo, for example, the Supreme Court made clear that a court should not simply defer to an agency's interpretation of ambiguous statutory text but must instead interpret a statute itself using tools of statutory construction. And in SEC v. Jarkesy, the Supreme Court held that the SEC could not use in-house proceedings to seek monetary penalties for securities fraud, and that such claims must instead be heard in federal district court where a jury trial is available. The prominence of the major questions doctrine reflects the related concern that the executive branch will use vague statutory language to improperly broaden the power Congress has assigned it. Although the Court continues to grapple with the doctrine's meaning, it will likely feature prominently in future challenges to executive actions. Taken together, these cases reinforce a trend: courts are less willing to assume that broad or ambiguous statutory language silently authorizes high-stakes executive action.
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