FCC v. Consumers’ Rsch., 145 S. Ct. 2482 (June 27, 2025) Kagan, J.
Prior History: Consumers’ Rsch. Cause Based Commerce, Inc. v. FCC, 109 F.4th 743, 2024 U.S. App. LEXIS 18241 (July 24, 2024) FCC v. Consumers’ Rsch., 145 S. Ct. 2482, 2487
JUSTICE KAGAN delivered the opinion of the Court. Nearly a century ago, Congress charged the then-new Federal Communications Commission (FCC or Commission) with making communications services available, at affordable prices, to all Americans. That objective became known as “universal service.” Some decades on, near the turn of the 21st century, Congress reaffirmed its commitment to universal service while providing new and more detailed instructions to the FCC about how to achieve it. Under the amended statutory plan, the FCC would use required payments, called contributions, from telecommunications companies to subsidize basic communications services for consumers in certain underserved communities—particularly, rural and low-income areas. To carry out that mandate, the Commission established discrete subsidy programs for the consumers Congress had identified, set up a special fund to receive and disburse the companies’ payments, and enlisted a private corporation, called the Universal Service Administrative Company, to help manage that fund’s operations.
The question in this case is whether the universal-service scheme—more particularly, its contribution mechanism—violates the Constitution’s nondelegation doctrine, either because Congress has given away its power to the FCC or because the FCC has given away its power to a private company. We hold that no impermissible transfer of authority has occurred. Under our nondelegation precedents, Congress sufficiently guided and constrained the discretion that it lodged with the FCC to implement the universal-service contribution scheme. And the FCC, in its turn, has retained all decision-making authority within that sphere, relying on the Administrative Company only for non-binding advice. Nothing in those arrangements, either separately or together, violates the Constitution.
Article I of the Constitution provides that “[a]ll legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States.” §1. Accompanying that assignment of power to Congress is a bar on its further delegation: Legislative power, we have held, belongs to the legislative branch, and to no other. See Whitman v. American Trucking Assns., Inc., 531 U. S. 457, 472, 121 S. Ct. 903, 149 L. Ed. 2d 1 (2001). At the same time, we have recognized that Congress may “seek [ ] assistance” from its coordinate branches to secure the “effect intended by its acts of legislation.” J. W. Hampton, Jr., & Co. v. United States, 276 U. S. 394, 406, 48 S. Ct. 348, 72 L. Ed. 624, Treas. Dec. 42706 (1928). And in particular, Congress may “vest [ ] discretion” in executive agencies to implement and apply the laws it has enacted—for example, by deciding on “the details of [their] execution.” Ibid.; see Wayman v. Southard, 23 U.S. 1, 10 Wheat. 1, 46, 6 L. Ed. 253 (1825) (“[T]he maker of the law may commit something to the discretion of the other departments”); Whitman, 531 U. S., at 474-475, 121 S. Ct. 903, 149 L. Ed. 2d 1 (A “degree of policy judgment” can “be left to those executing or applying the law”).
To distinguish between the permissible and the impermissible in this sphere, we have long asked whether Congress has set out an “intelligible principle” to guide what it has given the agency to do. J. W. Hampton, 276 U. S., at 409, 48 S. Ct. 348, 72 L. Ed. 624, Treas. Dec. 42706. Under that test, “the degree of agency discretion that is acceptable varies according to the scope of the power congressionally conferred.” Whitman, 531 U. S., at 475, 121 S. Ct. 903, 149 L. Ed. 2d 1. The “guidance” needed is greater, we have explained, when an agency action will “affect the entire national economy” than when it addresses a narrow, technical issue (e.g., the definition of “country [grain] [**819] elevators”). Ibid. But in examining a statute for the requisite intelligible principle, we have generally assessed whether Congress has made clear both [***20] “the general policy” that the agency must pursue and “the boundaries of [its] delegated authority.” American Power & Light Co. v. SEC, 329 U. S. 90, 105, 67 S. Ct. 133, 91 L. Ed. 103 (1946). And similarly, we have asked if Congress has provided sufficient standards to enable both “the courts and the public [to] ascertain whether the agency” has followed the law. OPP Cotton Mills, Inc. v. Administrator of Wage and Hour Div., Dept. of Labor, 312 U. S. 126, 144, 61 S. Ct. 524, 85 L. Ed. 624 (1941). If Congress has done so—as we have almost always found—then we will not disturb its grant of authority.
When Congress amended the Communications Act in 1996, it provided the Commission with clear guidance on how to promote universal service using carrier contributions. Congress laid out the “general policy” to be achieved, the “principle[s]” and standards the FCC must use in pursuing that policy, and the “boundaries” the FCC may not cross. J. W. Hampton, 276 U. S., at 409, 48 S. Ct. 348, 72 L. Ed. 624, Treas. Dec. 42706; American Power & Light, 329 U. S., at 105, 67 S. Ct. 133, 91 L. Ed. 103. Our precedents do not require more. Nor do they prevent the Commission, in carrying out Congress’s policy, from obtaining the Administrator’s assistance in projecting revenues and expenses, so that carriers pay the needed amount. For nearly three decades, the work of Congress and the Commission in establishing universal-service programs has led to a more fully connected country. And it has done so while leaving fully intact the separation of powers integral to our Constitution.
We accordingly reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
• Article I of the Constitution provides that all legislative powers are vested in Congress.
• The question here is whether Congress could delegate to the FCC the right to collect contributions from telecommunication companies to subsidize basic communication services for consumers in certain underserved communities, particularly low-income and rural areas.
• The majority found that Congress could do this.
