The nondelegation doctrine is a principle of US constitutional law holding that, because Article I of the Constitution vests "all legislative powers" in Congress, Congress cannot hand that authority to the executive branch to exercise without limit. In its modern form the doctrine permits Congress to authorize executive policy discretion so long as it supplies an "intelligible principle" to guide that discretion (The SANDBOX Act Uses AI Policy as a Trojan Horse for Unfettered Deregulation (Center for American Progress, September 2026)).
Background
As summarized in a September 2026 Center for American Progress report, the Supreme Court has not struck down a statute on nondelegation grounds in more than 90 years, although some justices have suggested that the doctrine be reinvigorated. The intelligible-principle standard distinguishes permissible delegations of implementation authority from impermissible transfers of lawmaking power (The SANDBOX Act Uses AI Policy as a Trojan Horse for Unfettered Deregulation (Center for American Progress, September 2026)).
Application to AI policy
The doctrine has been raised in debate over proposals that would let an executive official waive federal rules to promote AI. Nicole Alvarez and Adam Conner of the Center for American Progress argue that the SANDBOX Act authorizes the OSTP director to waive or modify any federal rule, including rules Congress required agencies to adopt, on the single standard that doing so "will advance the development, deployment, or use of artificial intelligence in the United States," which they say supplies "no limiting principle." They write that the bill "is aggressive enough to potentially" prompt the doctrine's revival, while stating that their objection does not depend on a more aggressive doctrine: the bill delegates something different from rulemaking authority, "the authority to unmake rules that Congress required to be in force." They connect this to the English Bill of Rights of 1689, which barred the Crown from suspending laws without Parliament's consent, and to the Take Care Clause (The SANDBOX Act Uses AI Policy as a Trojan Horse for Unfettered Deregulation (Center for American Progress, September 2026)).
See also
- SANDBOX Act (S. 2750)
- Congressional Review Act
- AI Federalism — the separate federal–state allocation question
Relationships
- related: SANDBOX Act (S. 2750) — proposal to which the doctrine has been applied
- supports: The SANDBOX Act Uses AI Policy as a Trojan Horse for Unfettered Deregulation (Center for American Progress, September 2026) — source of the argument summarized here