What Makes a Question “Major”? Inconsistent Readings of The Major Questions Doctrine in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump (2026)

by Jin Lim, Executive Blog Chair, University of Cincinnati Law Review Vol. 95

I. Introduction

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.¹ The Court’s main analysis relied on IEEPA’s text and structure.² However, a key point of disagreement was the major questions doctrine, a principle requiring clear congressional authorization when the Executive claims authority of vast economic and political significance.³ The Justices disagreed over the doctrine’s scope and whether it should apply in the foreign-affairs context.⁴

This Post argues that Learning Resources exposes the need for a clearer and controlling major questions doctrine. Otherwise, courts would keep relying on vague common sense, competing intuitions, historical analogies, and policy judgments.⁵ For future separation of powers disputes, consistent interpretations of the doctrine will help.

II. Background

A. The Major Questions Doctrine and the Babysitter

In recent years, the major questions doctrine reflects the presumption that Congress does not intend to assign major policy decisions to agencies without clear authorization.⁶ Under this doctrine, courts “expect Congress to speak clearly if it wishes to assign to an agency decisions of vast economic and political significance.”⁷ In other words, when the Executive claims unusually broad or impactful authority, courts require clear congressional authorization rather than relying on general or ambiguous statutory language.⁸

Justice Barrett’s babysitter example illustrates her view that the doctrine is based on common sense and ordinary principles of interpretation.⁹ Justice Barrett hypothetically describes a situation where a parent asks a babysitter to watch the children over the weekend, gives her a credit card, and says, “make sure the kids have fun.”¹⁰ What if the babysitter takes the children to an amusement park for two days of fun and spends one night in a hotel?¹¹ Would that action be consistent with the parent’s intention?¹² Justice Barrett suggests that, without additional context clues, it likely would not, because such conduct does not align with common sense.¹³ By “common sense,” she suggests that some limits “go without saying.”¹⁴ Moreover, under Barette’s contextual approach, a reasonable person applying common sense would consider external factors such as constitutional structure and separation of powers as well.¹⁵

As Justice Gorsuch explains, the babysitter exercises delegated authority,¹⁶ not being able to exercise extraordinary power without clear permission from the original source of authority, the parent.¹⁷ The babysitter analogy reflects the major questions doctrine’s point that people “expect Congress to speak clearly if it wishes to assign to an agency decisions of vast ‘economic and political significance.’”¹⁸

B. International Emergency Economic Powers Act

Congress has long delegated to the President the authority to act with some discretion during times of national emergency, particularly in matters involving foreign affairs and economic regulation.¹⁹ The most significant modern statute providing such authority is the IEEPA, enacted in 1977 to address economic threats arising from outside the United States.²⁰

Under IEEPA, the President may exercise authority only after declaring a national emergency based on the existence of an “unusual and extraordinary threat” that has its source in whole or substantial part outside the United States and that affects national security, foreign policy, or the economy.²¹ Once such an emergency is declared, the statute authorizes the President to regulate a wide range of economic transactions, including foreign-owned property and international commercial activities.²²

In practice, IEEPA confers broad discretionary authority on the Executive.²³ Presidents have relied on the statute to address a wide array of issues, including international terrorism, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, foreign election interference, and the promotion of human rights and democracy.²⁴ The statute allows the President to act quickly and flexibly in response to evolving international threats, often without detailed statutory guidance.²⁵ In short, IEEPA has been a constitutionally permissible delegation of legislative authority for the Executive.²⁶

C. Learning Res., Inc. v. Trump (2026)

The plaintiffs in Learning Resources were two small businesses, Learning resources, Inc. and hand2mind, Inc.²⁷ When President Trump invoked the IEEPA to impose broad tariffs on countries from which the plaintiffs sourced their products, the plaintiffs filed suit against the President and various government officials.²⁸ They argued that IEEPA does not authorize the President to impose tariffs.²⁹

The District Court held that IEEPA does not grant such authority³⁰ and denied the government’s motion to transfer the lawsuit to the United States Court of International Trade (“CIT”).³¹ The government argued that the CIT had subject-matter jurisdiction because it has “exclusive jurisdiction of any civil action commenced against” the government “that arises out of any law of the United States providing for . . . tariffs.”³² The District Court rejected this argument.³³ The Supreme Court consolidated the case with Trump v. V.O.S. Selections, Inc. and ultimately vacated the District Court’s judgment in Learning Resources and remanded with instructions to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction, while affirming the Federal Circuit’s judgment in V.O.S. Selections.³⁴

The Supreme Court’s majority³⁵ concludes that the terms “regulate” and “importation” in the IEEPA do not authorize the President to impose tariffs.³⁶ The Government concedes that the President has no inherent constitutional authority to impose tariffs during peacetime and relies exclusively on IEEPA to justify the challenged tariffs.³⁷

Regarding the major questions doctrine, Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Gorsuch explicitly rely on the doctrine.³⁸ Justice Barrett joins the Chief Justice’s major questions analysis but treats the doctrine as an application of ordinary interpretive principles rather than as an independent analytical framework.³⁹ Justice Kavanaugh, joined by Justice Alito and Thomas dissented, arguing that IEEPA supplied clear authorization even under the major questions doctrine and, alternatively, that the doctrine should not apply in the foreign-affairs context.⁴⁰ Justice Kagan, joined by Justices Sotomayor and Jackson, considers ordinary statutory interpretation sufficient, making reliance on the doctrine unnecessary.⁴¹

III. Discussion

A. The Major Questions Doctrine’s Instability

The disagreement in Learning Resources concerns not only whether to apply the major questions doctrine, but also what the doctrine is supposed to do. Its application depends heavily on how each Justice understands the doctrine itself, leading to inconsistent applications. Justice Gorsuch points out that the Court’s application of the doctrine has been inconsistent across cases, and Learning Resources confirms that.⁴² Here, some Justices treat the doctrine as central, while others treat it as unnecessary or collapse it into ordinary statutory interpretation.⁴³ This is not just a difference in style. It reflects a deeper problem about what the justices understand the doctrine to be and what it is supposed to do.

The doctrine’s reliance on concepts such as “common sense” further contributes to its instability.⁴⁴ If “common sense” requires courts to consider external factors such as constitutional structure and separation of powers,⁴⁵ there is a risk of stretching the range of common sense too wide. Then, it incorporates normative judgments which extend beyond statutory text,⁴⁶ which can result in more inconsistent interpretations. This creates an irony. While the Court rejects broad interpretations of statutory language due to the lack of clarity, it simultaneously relies on extra-textual considerations to determine what counts as sufficiently “clear.”⁴⁷ Without a shared standard for weighing these considerations, what counts as “clear” risks depending on each Justice’s interpretive judgment. Clarifying the doctrine would introduce more stability.

B. The Clearer Major Questions Doctrine’s Necessity in Foreign Affairs and the Separation of Powers

Learning Resources leaves a question about how the major questions doctrine should apply when the President invokes broadly delegated authority to address economic tensions involving foreign affairs. It is constitutionally established that tariffs fall within Congress’s authority.⁴⁸ However, at the same time, delegations of authority to the President in foreign affairs have historically been broad and flexible.⁴⁹ When these two principles collide, as in this case, the scope of the delegation becomes central. Yet the Justices disagree on how the major questions doctrine should guide that interpretation. That is why the Court relies primarily on statutory interpretation to fill the gap.

If the major questions doctrine should become clearer as this post’s discussion’s Part A already claims, it would help courts to consider the Executive Branch’s extraordinary power’s validity.

This can become particularly important because national emergencies are not confined strictly to either domestic or foreign affairs.⁵⁰ They often overlap. Even when emergencies concern foreign threats, they frequently produce domestic economic consequences.⁵¹ Without a clearer framework for evaluating broad claims of delegated authority, the limits of executive power become less predictable. For that reason, the major questions doctrine must be clarified and consistently applied if it is to serve as a meaningful safeguard within the separation of powers framework.

IV. Conclusion

A clearer major questions doctrine could promote consistent application and provide clearer limits on executive power.

Cover Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash

Author

Jin Lim

Jin Lim is a 3L student at the University of Cincinnati College of Law. Her main legal interests lie in the U.S. federal legal system and international law. Her role as Executive Blog Chair gives her tremendous opportunities to learn about diverse legal topics. While eager to learn more about U.S. law, she has recently delved deeper into the realm of international law by engaging with the American Society of International Law’s International Law in Brief as a Student Author. She is also a cinephile and a bibliophile. Her favorite pastimes are watching films and reading.

References

1
Learning Res., Inc. v. Trump, 607 U.S. 229, 255 (2026). ↩︎
2
Id. ↩︎
3
Id. at 256 (Justice Gorsuch introducing the basic issue on the major questions doctrine). ↩︎
4
Id. at 384 (Justice Kavanaugh’s footnote 24). ↩︎
5
Id. ↩︎
6
See generally W. Va. v. EPA, 597 U.S. 697 (2022); Biden v. Neb., 600 U.S. 477 (2023); Nat’l Fed’n of Indep. Bus. (NFIB) v. DOL, OSHA, 595 U.S. 109 (2022); Util. Air Regul. Grp. v. EPA, 573 U. S. 302 (2014); Learning Res., 607 U.S. 242 (the majority enumerating the relevant cases where the Supreme Court rejected ambiguous terms on Congress’s power). ↩︎
7
W. Va., 597 U.S. at 716 (the Court explaining what the major questions doctrine is). ↩︎
8
Learning Res., Inc. v. Trump, 607 U.S. 229, 256 (Justice Gorsuch introducing the basic issue on the major questions doctrine). ↩︎
9
Biden., 600 U.S. at 514 (Justice Barrett explaining the major questions doctrine with the babysitter example). ↩︎
10
Id. at 513. ↩︎
11
Id. ↩︎
12
Id. ↩︎
13
Id. at 513-14. ↩︎
14
Id. at 512. ↩︎
15
Biden v. Neb., 600 U.S. 477, 514-15 (2023) (Justice Barrett explaining more about the major questions doctrine); Learning Res., Inc. v. Trump, 607 U.S. 229, 277 (2026) (Justice Gorsuch examining Justice Barrett’s description of “reasonable observer”). ↩︎
16
Learning Res., 607 U.S. at 275-76 (Justice Gorsuch capturing the basic meaning of Justice Barrett’s babysitter example). ↩︎
17
Id. ↩︎
18
Biden v. Neb., 600 U.S. 477, 514-15 (2023) (Justice Barrette explaining the major questions doctrine with the babysitter example); Util. Air Regul. Grp. v. EPA, 573 U. S. 302, 324 (2014). ↩︎
19
Curtis Bradley & Jack Goldsmith, Foreign Affairs, Nondelegation, and the Major Questions Doctrine, 172 U. Pa. L. Rev. 1743, 1781 (2024) (introducing the concept of IEEPA). ↩︎
20
Learning Res., 607 U.S. at 255 (Supreme Court’s introducing the case’s decision and the IEEPA’s basic context); International Emergency Economic Powers Act, 50 U.S.C. § 1701. ↩︎
21
Learning Res., 607 U.S. at 237 (explaining the requirement for the President to use IEEPA against the national threats); 50 U.S.C. § 1701(a); National Emergencies Act, 90 Stat. 1255 (1976). ↩︎
22
Bradley & Goldsmith, supra note 19, at 1782 (explaining what the IEEPA offers for the President in the national emergency); 50 U.S.C. § 1701(a). ↩︎
23
Id. ↩︎
24
Bradley & Goldsmith, supra note 19, at 1782; 50 U.S.C. § 1701(a); See Elizabeth Goitein, The Alarming Scope of the President’s Emergency Powers, ATL. (Jan./Feb. 2019), https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/01/presidential-emergency-powers/576418 [https://perma.cc/7MTG-YHKB]. ↩︎
25
Bradley & Goldsmith, supra note 19, at 1782; 50 U.S.C. § 1701(a). ↩︎
26
Bradley & Goldsmith, supra note 19, at 1783. ↩︎
27
Learning Resources Inc. v. Trump, 784 F. Supp. 3d 209, 215 (explaining why plaintiffs started the suit). ↩︎
28
Id. ↩︎
29
Id. ↩︎
30
Id. at 233. ↩︎
31
Id.; Learning Res., Inc. v. Trump, 607 U.S. 229, 239 (2026) (describing the decision made by District Court). ↩︎
32
Learning Res., 607 U.S. at 239; 28 U. S. C. § 1581(i)(1). ↩︎
33
Learning Res., 784 F. Supp. at 233. ↩︎
34
Learning Res., 607 U.S. at 238-41, 255. ↩︎
35
Id. at 236. It includes Justice Roberts, Justice Sotomayor, Justice Kagan, Justice Jackson, and the latter four justices join only parts I, II-A-1, and II-B of this opinion. ↩︎
36
Id. at 255 (Justice Roberts delivering the majority’s opinion); U.S.C. § 1702 (a)(1)(B). ↩︎
37
Id. at 241 (the majority explaining the Government’s position that failed to show it is not peacetime); Tr. of Oral Arg. 70-71. ↩︎
38
Id. at 236-300 (the majority opinion by the Chief Justice and Justice Gorsuch’s concurrence). ↩︎
39
Id. at 300-04 (Justice Barrett’s concurrence). ↩︎
40
Id. at 313-91 (the dissenting opinions). ↩︎
41
Id. at 304-13 (Justice Kagan and Justice Jackson’s concurrences). ↩︎
42
Id. at 256 (Justice Gorsuch’s concurring opinion which shows concerns about reading cases with the unstable reading). ↩︎
43
See generally Id. ↩︎
44
Biden v. Neb., 600 U.S. 477, 512 (2023) (Justice Barrett explaining the major questions doctrine that it would go without saying). ↩︎
45
See cases cited supra note 15. ↩︎
46
Biden, 600 U.S. at 514-15, 520 (Justice Barrette explaining more about the major questions doctrine); Learning Res., Inc. v. Trump, 607 U.S. 229, 277 (2026) (Justice Gorsuch examining Justice Barrett’s description of “reasonable observer”); W. Va. v. EPA, 597 U.S. 697, 723-24 (2022) (the Court explaining what the major questions doctrine is). ↩︎
47
Id. ↩︎
48
Learning Res., 607 U.S. at 331 (“I would conclude that the President’s power under IEEPA to “regulate . . . importation” encompasses tariffs. As a matter of ordinary meaning, including dictionary definitions and historical usage, the broad power to “regulate . . . importation” includes the traditional and common means to do so—in particular, quotas, embargoes, and tariffs). ↩︎
49
Id. ↩︎
50
Bradley & Goldsmith, supra note 19, at 1783 (“Declaration of emergencies, even if they concern foreign threats, can relate to both domestic and foreign affairs”). ↩︎
51
Id. ↩︎