526
Opinion of OTMConnor, J.
plified the "customary congressional practice" of enacting "retroactive statutes confined to short and limited periods required by the practicalities of producing national legislation." Ibid. (internal quotation marks omitted).
This Court again considered the constitutionality of the MPPAA in Connolly v. Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, 475 U. S. 211 (1986), which presented the question whether the MPPAA's withdrawal liability provisions effected an unconstitutional taking. The action was brought by trustees of a multiemployer pension plan that, under collective bargaining agreements, received contributions from employers on the basis of the hours worked by their employees. We agreed that the liability imposed by the MPPAA constituted a permanent deprivation of assets, but we rejected the notion that "such a statutory liability to a private party always constitutes an uncompensated taking prohibited by the Fifth Amendment." Id., at 222. "In the course of regulating commercial and other human affairs," we explained, "Congress routinely creates burdens for some that directly benefit others." Id., at 223. Consistent with our decisions in Gray and Turner Elkhorn, we reasoned that legislation is not unlawful solely because it upsets otherwise settled expectations.
Moreover, given our holding in Gray that the MPPAA did not violate due process, we concluded that "it would be surprising indeed to discover" that the statute effected a taking. 475 U. S., at 223. Although the employers in Connolly had contractual agreements expressly limiting their contributions to the multiemployer plan, we observed that "[c]on-tracts, however express, cannot fetter the constitutional authority of Congress" and "the fact that legislation disregards or destroys existing contractual rights does not always transform the regulation into an illegal taking." Id., at 223- 224 (internal quotation marks omitted). Focusing on the three factors of "particular significance"—the economic impact of the regulation, the extent to which the regulation
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