174
Scalia, J., dissenting
Commissioner complete a little unfinished business that barely missed the deadline. They concern some 600 post-October 1, 1993, assignments to these respondents, the vast majority of which were made between 1995 and 1997, years after the statutory deadline had passed. App. 98-121. Respondents contend that these assignments are unlawful, and unless Congress has conferred upon the Commissioner the power that she claims—an unexpiring authority to assign eligible beneficiaries to signatory operators—the respondents must prevail. Section 9706(a) does not provide such an expansive power, and the other provisions of the Act confirm this.
II
It is well established that an agency's power to regulate private entities must be grounded in a statutory grant of authority from Congress. See FDA v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., 529 U. S. 120, 161 (2000); Bowen v. Georgetown Univ. Hospital, 488 U. S. 204, 208 (1988); Louisiana Pub. Serv. Comm'n v. FCC, 476 U. S. 355, 374 (1986). This principle has special importance with respect to the extraordinary power the Commissioner asserts here: to compel coal companies to pay miners (and their families) health benefits that they never contracted to pay. We have held that the Commissioner's use of this power under § 9706(a), even when exercised before October 1, 1993, violates the Constitution to the extent it imposes severe retroactive liability on certain coal companies. See Eastern Enterprises v. Apfel, 524 U. S. 498 (1998). When an agency exercises a power that so tests constitutional limits, we have all the more obligation to assure that it is rooted in the text of a statute.
The Court holds that the Commissioner retains the power to act after October 1, 1993, because Congress did not " 'specify a consequence for noncompliance' " with the statutory deadline. Ante, at 159. This makes no sense. When a power is conferred for a limited time, the automatic consequence of the expiration of that time is the expiration of the
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