Is everything not forbidden then permissible for federal agencies? That's the question at the heart of a legal battle that the Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear—a case which could (hopefully!) curtail the power of the administrative state.
Does statutory silence—that is, nothing in a law saying yay or nay—on powers narrowly granted elsewhere mean that a federal agency has the authority to use those powers broadly? Or must explicit authority to act be granted by Congress? One would think (and hope) that it's the latter; otherwise, the power of federal bureaucrats is basically unchecked. Unsurprisingly, the government is essentially arguing the former.
