A U.S. appeals court threw out EPA's recent clean air standards on May 14 in an irresponsible attack on well-established principles of administrative governance. Two of the three ruling judges, both Reagan appointees, found that the section of the Clean Air Act on which the EPA standards are based amounts to "an unconstitutional delegation of power," marking a major victory for the oil companies, auto manufacturers, and other polluters that spent millions trying to defeat the standards. But the decision raises concerns beyond the particular issue of clean air by suggesting that Congress cannot delegate authority to federal agencies -- which have scientific expertise that Congress lacks -- to develop standards for public health, safety and the environment. "If [the court] is saying that EPA can't do it that way, then other agencies can't do it that way, either," said Robin Conrad, a lawyer at the Chamber of Commerce, in the (May 22, 1999) Washington Post. This, however, ignores decades of precedent, including previous legal interpretation of the Clean Air Act, and the "last half-century of Supreme Court jurisprudence," as pointed out by Circuit Judge David Tatel, a Clinton appointee, in his dissent. In justifying their decision to remand EPA's standards, Circuit Judges Stephen F. Williams and Douglas Ginsburg invoked the "nondelegation doctrine," which holds that certain issues are too important for Congress to delegate. But this nondelegation doctrine has not been applied since the New Deal era and in subsequent years the courts have consistently upheld broad delegation of authority. In a 1989 ruling, the Supreme Court unanimously found that the current understanding of the delegation question was based "on a practical understanding that in our increasingly complex society, replete with ever changing and more technical problems, Congress simply cannot do its job absent an ability to delegate power under broad general directives." Some, however, still seem intent on turning the clock back and believe the decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals could do just that. "It's breathing life into that old doctrine. It really goes to the question of the powers that the agency has," said Bill Frick, general counsel to the American Petroleum Institute, which opposes the clean air standards.