Industrial Union Department v. American Petroleum Institute
Case Date: 11/04/1980
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Industrial Union Department v. American Petroleum Institute (The Benzene Case), 448 U.S. 607 (1980), was a case heard before the United States Supreme Court. This case represented a challenge to the OSHA practice of regulating carcinogens by setting the exposure limit "at the lowest technologically feasible level that will not impair the viability of the industries regulated." OSHA selected that standard because it believed that (1) it could not determine a safe exposure level and that (2) the authorizing statute did not require it to quantify such a level. A plurality on the Court, led by Justice Stevens, wrote that the authorizing statute did indeed require OSHA to demonstrate a significant risk of harm (albeit not with mathematical certainty) in order to justify setting a particular exposure level.
Perhaps more importantly, the Court noted in dicta that if the government's interpretation of the authorizing statute had been correct, it might violate the Nondelegation doctrine. This line of reasoning may represent the "high-water mark" of recent attempts to revive the doctrine.
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