Congress is more ideologically polarized now than at any time in the modern regulatory era, which makes legislation ever harder to pass. One of the consequences of this congressional dysfunction is a reduced probability that Congress will update regulatory legislation in response to significant new economic, scientific, or technological developments. This predicament, we argue here, has important implications for the federal agencies charged with implementing statutes over time and for courts adjudicating challenges to agency statutory implementation.
We explain how federal agencies coping with new regulatory challenges often encounter problems of “fit” with older statutes, which require them to make delicate legal and political judgments in the face of congressional silence. And we show how, following the Goldilocks principle, agencies seek to get this process just right by balancing the perceived need for regulatory innovation with a concern about potential overreach.
Agencies, we claim, do not simply “go for broke” when wrestling with problems of fit. Instead they proceed strategically, cognizant of the preferences of their political overseers and the risk of being overturned in the courts. Sometimes agencies interpret their enabling legislation so as to expand their jurisdiction; other times, agencies manage problems of fit by intentionally shrinking their jurisdiction, proceeding incrementally, and engaging in deliberate restraint. Our examples show that agencies can be persistent, flexible, bold, cautious, expert, political, and, above all, strategic. The examples also suggest that even—and perhaps especially—when adapting old statutes to new problems, agencies are surprisingly accountable, not just to the President, but also to Congress, the courts, and the public.