Also known as: intelligible standard · intelligible principle
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
A guiding directive that Congress must supply when delegating regulatory authority to executive agencies or commissions. The directive must be sufficiently clear to permit courts to determine whether the agency has followed the law and to prevent the agency from exercising unfettered policy-making power.
Congress enacted the Learning Advancement Act directing the National Education Board to promote effective and inclusive education in federally funded schools. The Board then issued nationwide curriculum and teacher-evaluation standards. A charter network challenged the delegation as lacking sufficient guidance. The court upheld the statute because the stated goal supplied an intelligible standard channeling the Board's discretion.
Congress directed the EPA to set national ambient air quality standards requisite to protect public health. The agency issued stringent limits on ozone and particulate matter. Industry groups argued the statute conferred unguided power. The court rejected the challenge, holding that the health-protection directive constituted an intelligible standard guiding the EPA's rulemaking.
Select any source to read its text and confirm it supports the definition.
Congress authorized the President to prohibit interstate shipment of petroleum produced in excess of state quotas. The President issued regulations banning hot oil without further statutory criteria. Producers challenged the rules. The court invalidated the delegation because the statute supplied no intelligible standard limiting executive discretion.
Congress directed the Attorney General to apply the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act to pre-enactment offenders. The Attorney General issued registration rules. An offender claimed the statute lacked an intelligible principle. The court sustained the delegation because the Act's purpose of protecting the public from sex offenders provided adequate guidance.
Illinois enacted a statute criminalizing publications that portray defined groups as criminal or lacking virtue. A publisher was convicted for distributing such materials. The defendant argued the statute delegated excessive power to prosecutors. The court upheld the law, finding that its prohibition on false statements exposing groups to contempt supplied an intelligible standard.
Congress authorized the Attorney General to temporarily schedule substances posing imminent hazards to public safety. The Attorney General scheduled a new designer drug. A defendant challenged the delegation. The court upheld the statute because the public-safety and imminent-hazard criteria furnished an intelligible standard guiding the Attorney General's temporary scheduling decisions.
Congress need only articulate a general policy goal or directive that guides agency discretion. Broad phrases such as promoting effective education, protecting public health, or advancing productive industrial operations have been held sufficient.
A statute fails when it states only an open-ended objective such as advancing modern industry without identifying concrete policy goals, priorities, or boundaries that constrain agency choices among production methods, quotas, or other regulatory tools.
No. Procedural mandates do not substitute for a substantive intelligible standard that limits the agency's policy choices. The statute must still articulate a guiding principle that channels the agency's substantive discretion.
Courts examine the statute's text and structure to decide whether Congress has supplied a principle clear enough to allow judicial review of agency compliance and to prevent the agency from making fundamental policy decisions on its own.
…in J. W. Hampton & Co. v. United States , 276 U. S. 394, 409 (1928): "If Congress shall lay down by legislative act an intelligible principle to which the person or body authorized to fix such rates is directed to conform, such legislative action is not a forbidden delegation of legislative power." In practice, however,…