Dalton v. Specter, 511 U.S. 462, 12 (1994)

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Cite as: 511 U. S. 462 (1994)

Opinion of the Court

Our decision in Youngstown, supra, does not suggest a different conclusion. In Youngstown, the Government disclaimed any statutory authority for the President's seizure of steel mills. See 343 U. S., at 585 ("[W]e do not understand the Government to rely on statutory authorization for this seizure"). The only basis of authority asserted was the President's inherent constitutional power as the Executive and the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces. Id., at 587. Because no statutory authority was claimed, the case necessarily turned on whether the Constitution authorized the President's actions. Youngstown thus involved the conceded absence of any statutory authority, not a claim that the President acted in excess of such authority. The case cannot be read for the proposition that an action taken by the President in excess of his statutory authority necessarily violates the Constitution.5

The decisions cited above establish that claims simply alleging that the President has exceeded his statutory authority are not "constitutional" claims, subject to judicial review

5 Panama Refining Co. v. Ryan, 293 U. S. 388 (1935), the other case (along with Youngstown) cited in Franklin v. Massachusetts, 505 U. S. 788 (1992), as an example of when we have reviewed the constitutionality of the President's actions, likewise did not involve a claim that the President acted in excess of his statutory authority. Panama Refining involved the National Industrial Recovery Act, which delegated to the President the authority to ban interstate transportation of oil produced in violation of state production and marketing limits. See 293 U. S., at 406. We struck down an Executive Order promulgated under that Act not because the President had acted beyond his statutory authority, but rather because the Act unconstitutionally delegated Congress' authority to the President. See id., at 430. As the Court pointed out, we were "not dealing with action which, appropriately belonging to the executive province, is not the subject of judicial review, or with the presumptions attaching to executive action. To repeat, we are concerned with the question of the delegation of legislative power." Id., at 432 (footnote omitted). Respondents have not alleged that the 1990 Act in itself amounts to an unconstitutional delegation of authority to the President.

473

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