Justice STEVENS delivered the opinion of the Court.

The Line Item Veto Act gives the President the power to "cancel in whole" three types of provisions that have been signed into
law: "(1) any dollar amount of discretionary budget authority; (2) any item of new direct spending; or (3) any limited tax
benefit." [Under that Act, the President canceled an item of new direct spending passed by the Balanced Budget Act of 1997
that would have increased New York's Medicaid reimbursements. In addition, he canceled a limited tax benefit passed by the
Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997 that would have allowed companies to defer capital gains if they sold stock to a farmers'
cooperative.] It is . . . undisputed that each of those provisions had been signed into law pursuant to Article I, § 7, of the
Constitution before it was canceled.

The Act requires the President to adhere to precise procedures whenever he exercises his cancellation authority. In identifying
items for cancellation he must consider the legislative history, the purposes, and other relevant information about the items. He
must determine, with respect to each cancellation, that it will "(i) reduce the Federal budget deficit; (ii) not impair any essential
Government functions; and (iii) not harm the national interest." Moreover, he must transmit a special message to Congress
notifying it of each cancellation within five calendar days (excluding Sundays) after the enactment of the canceled provision. It is
undisputed that the President meticulously followed these procedures in these cases.

A cancellation takes effect upon receipt by Congress of the special message from the President. If, however, a "disapproval
bill" pertaining to a special message is enacted into law, the cancellations set forth in that message become "null and void." The
Act sets forth a detailed expedited procedure for the consideration of a "disapproval bill," but no such bill was passed for either
of the cancellations involved in these cases. A majority vote of both Houses is sufficient to enact a disapproval bill. The Act
does not grant the President the authority to cancel a disapproval bill, but he does, of course, retain his constitutional authority
to veto such a bill.

The effect of a cancellation is plainly stated in [the Act], which defines the principal terms used in the Act. With respect to both
an item of new direct spending and a limited tax benefit, the cancellation prevents the item "from having legal force or effect."
Thus, under the plain text of the statute, the two actions of the President that are challenged in these cases prevented one
section of the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 and one section of the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997 "from having legal force or
effect." The remaining provisions of those statutes, with the exception of the second canceled item in the latter, continue to have
the same force and effect as they had when signed into law.

In both legal and practical effect, the President has amended two Acts of Congress by repealing a portion of each. "[R]epeal of
statutes, no less than enactment, must conform with Art. I." INS v. Chadha. There is no provision in the Constitution that
authorizes the President to enact, to amend, or to repeal statutes. Both Article I and Article II assign responsibilities to the
President that directly relate to the lawmaking process, but neither addresses the issue presented by these cases. [A]fter a bill
has passed both Houses of Congress, but "before it become[s] a Law," it must be presented to the President. If he approves it,
"he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it, with his Objections to that House in which it shall have originated, who shall enter the
Objections at large on their Journal, and proceed to reconsider it." His "return" of a bill, which is usually described as a "veto,"
is subject to being overridden by a two-thirds vote in each House.

There are important differences between the President's "return" of a bill pursuant to Article I, § 7, and the exercise of the
President's cancellation authority pursuant to the Line Item Veto Act. The constitutional return takes place before the bill
becomes law; the statutory cancellation occurs after the bill becomes law. The constitutional return is of the entire bill; the
statutory cancellation is of only a part. Although the Constitution expressly authorizes the President to play a role in the process
of enacting statutes, it is silent on the subject of unilateral Presidential action that either repeals or amends parts of duly enacted
statutes.

There are powerful reasons for construing constitutional silence on this profoundly important issue as equivalent to an express
prohibition. The procedures governing the enactment of statutes set forth in the text of Article I were the product of the great
debates and compromises that produced the Constitution itself. Familiar historical materials provide abundant support for the
conclusion that the power to enact statutes may only "be exercised in accord with a single, finely wrought and exhaustively
considered, procedure." Our first President understood the text of the Presentment Clause as requiring that he either "approve
all the parts of a Bill, or reject it in toto." What has emerged in these cases from the President's exercise of his statutory
cancellation powers, however, are truncated versions of two bills that passed both Houses of Congress. They are not the
product of the "finely wrought" procedure that the Framers designed. . . .

The Government advances two related arguments to support its position that despite the unambiguous provisions of the Act,
cancellations do not amend or repeal properly enacted statutes in violation of the Presentment Clause. First, relying primarily on
Field v. Clark, 143 U.S. 649 (1892), the Government contends that the cancellations were merely exercises of discretionary
authority granted to the President by the Balanced Budget Act and the Taxpayer Relief Act read in light of the previously
enacted Line Item Veto Act. Second, the Government submits that the substance of the authority to cancel tax and spending
items "is, in practical effect, no more and no less than the power to 'decline to spend' specified sums of money, or to 'decline to
implement' specified tax measures." Neither argument is persuasive.

In Field v. Clark, the Court upheld the constitutionality of the Tariff Act of 1890. That statute contained a "free list" of almost
300 specific articles that were exempted from import duties "unless otherwise specially provided for in this act." Section 3 was
a special provision that directed the President to suspend that exemption for sugar, molasses, coffee, tea, and hides "whenever,
and so often" as he should be satisfied that any country producing and exporting those products imposed duties on the
agricultural products of the United States that he deemed to be "reciprocally unequal and unreasonable ..." The section then
specified the duties to be imposed on those products during any such suspension. The Court provided this explanation for its
conclusion that § 3 had not delegated legislative power to the President:

"Nothing involving the expediency or the just operation of such legislation was left to the determination of the President....
[W]hen he ascertained the fact that duties and exactions, reciprocally unequal and unreasonable, were imposed upon the
agricultural or other products of the United States by a country producing and exporting sugar, molasses, coffee, tea or hides, it
became his duty to issue a proclamation declaring the suspension, as to that country, which Congress had determined should
occur. He had no discretion in the premises except in respect to the duration of the suspension so ordered. But that related only
to the enforcement of the policy established by Congress. As the suspension was absolutely required when the President
ascertained the existence of a particular fact, it cannot be said that in ascertaining that fact and in issuing his proclamation, in
obedience to the legislative will, he exercised the function of making laws.... It was a part of the law itself as it left the hands of
Congress that the provisions, full and complete in themselves, permitting the free introduction of sugars, molasses, coffee, tea
and hides, from particular countries, should be suspended, in a given contingency, and that in case of such suspensions certain
duties should be imposed."

This passage identifies three critical differences between the power to suspend the exemption from import duties and the power
to cancel portions of a duly enacted statute. First, the exercise of the suspension power was contingent upon a condition that
did not exist when the Tariff Act was passed: the imposition of "reciprocally unequal and unreasonable" import duties by other
countries. In contrast, the exercise of the cancellation power within five days after the enactment of the Balanced Budget and
Tax Reform Acts necessarily was based on the same conditions that Congress evaluated when it passed those statutes.
Second, under the Tariff Act, when the President determined that the contingency had arisen, he had a duty to suspend; in
contrast, while it is true that the President was required by the Act to make three determinations before he canceled a
provision, those determinations did not qualify his discretion to cancel or not to cancel. Finally, whenever the President
suspended an exemption under the Tariff Act, he was executing the policy that Congress had embodied in the statute. In
contrast, whenever the President cancels an item of new direct spending or a limited tax benefit he is rejecting the policy
judgment made by Congress and relying on his own policy judgment. Thus, the conclusion in Field v. Clark that the
suspensions mandated by the Tariff Act were not exercises of legislative power does not undermine our opinion that
cancellations pursuant to the Line Item Veto Act are the functional equivalent of partial repeals of Acts of Congress that fail to
satisfy Article I, § 7. . . .

The cited statutes all relate to foreign trade, and this Court has recognized that in the foreign affairs arena, the President has "a
degree of discretion and freedom from statutory restriction which would not be admissible were domestic affairs alone
involved." United States v. Curtiss-Wright Export Corp., 299 U.S. 304 (1936). [M]ore important, when enacting the
statutes discussed in Field, Congress itself made the decision to suspend or repeal the particular provisions at issue upon the
occurrence of particular events subsequent to enactment, and it left only the determination of whether such events occurred up
to the President. The Line Item Veto Act authorizes the President himself to effect the repeal of laws, for his own policy
reasons, without observing the procedures set out in Article I, § 7. The fact that Congress intended such a result is of no
moment. Although Congress presumably anticipated that the President might cancel some of the items in the Balanced Budget
Act and in the Taxpayer Relief Act, Congress cannot alter the procedures set out in Article I, § 7, without amending the
Constitution.

Neither are we persuaded by the Government's contention that the President's authority to cancel new direct spending and tax
benefit items is no greater than his traditional authority to decline to spend appropriated funds. The Government has reviewed in
some detail the series of statutes in which Congress has given the Executive broad discretion over the expenditure of
appropriated funds. For example, the First Congress appropriated "sum[s] not exceeding" specified amounts to be spent on
various Government operations. In those statutes, as in later years, the President was given wide discretion with respect to both
the amounts to be spent and how the money would be allocated among different functions. It is argued that the Line Item Veto
Act merely confers comparable discretionary authority over the expenditure of appropriated funds. The critical difference
between this statute and all of its predecessors, however, is that unlike any of them, this Act gives the President the unilateral
power to change the text of duly enacted statutes. None of the Act's predecessors could even arguably have been construed to
authorize such a change.

Although they are implicit in what we have already written, the profound importance of these cases makes it appropriate to
emphasize three points.

First, we express no opinion about the wisdom of the procedures authorized by the Line Item Veto Act. . . .

Second, although appellees challenge the validity of the Act on alternative grounds, the only issue we address concerns the
"finely wrought" procedure commanded by the Constitution. We have been favored with extensive debate about the scope of
Congress' power to delegate law-making authority, or its functional equivalent, to the President. The excellent briefs filed by the
parties and their amici curiae have provided us with valuable historical information that illuminates the delegation issue but does
not really bear on the narrow issue that is dispositive of these cases. Thus, because we conclude that the Act's cancellation
provisions violate Article I, § 7, of the Constitution, we find it unnecessary to consider the District Court's alternative holding
that the Act "impermissibly disrupts the balance of powers among the three branches of government."

Third, our decision rests on the narrow ground that the procedures authorized by the Line Item Veto Act are not authorized by
the Constitution. . . . If the Line Item Veto Act were valid, it would authorize the President to create a different law--one whose
text was not voted on by either House of Congress or presented to the President for signature. Something that might be known
as "Public Law 105-33 as modified by the President" may or may not be desirable, but it is surely not a document that may
"become a law" pursuant to the procedures designed by the Framers of Article I, § 7, of the Constitution.

[I] write to respond to my colleague Justice BREYER, who observes that the statute does not threaten the liberties of individual
citizens, a point on which I disagree. The argument is related to his earlier suggestion that our role is lessened here because the
two political branches are adjusting their own powers between themselves. . . . Liberty is always at stake when one or more of
the branches seek to transgress the separation of powers. . . .

In recent years, perhaps, we have come to think of liberty as defined by that word in the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments and
as illuminated by the other provisions of the Bill of Rights. The conception of liberty embraced by the Framers was not so
confined. They used the principles of separation of powers and federalism to secure liberty in the fundamental political sense of
the term, quite in addition to the idea of freedom from intrusive governmental acts. The idea and the promise were that when the
people delegate some degree of control to a remote central authority, one branch of government ought not possess the power
to shape their destiny without a sufficient check from the other two. . . .

[U]nlike the Court, however, I do not believe that Executive cancellation of this item of direct spending violates the Presentment
Clause.

The Presentment Clause requires, in relevant part, that "[e]very Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and
the Senate, shall, before it becomes a Law, be presented to the President of the United States; If he approve he shall sign it, but
if not he shall return it." There is no question that enactment of the Balanced Budget Act complied with these requirements: the
House and Senate passed the bill, and the President signed it into law. It was only after the requirements of the Presentment
Clause had been satisfied that the President exercised his authority under the Line Item Veto Act to cancel the spending item.
Thus, the Court's problem with the Act is not that it authorizes the President to veto parts of a bill and sign others into law, but
rather that it authorizes him to "cancel" -- prevent from "having legal force or effect" -- certain parts of duly enacted statutes.

Article I, § 7 of the Constitution obviously prevents the President from cancelling a law that Congress has not authorized him to
cancel. Such action cannot possibly be considered part of his execution of the law, and if it is legislative action, as the Court
observes, " 'repeal of statutes, no less than enactment, must conform with Art. I.'" But that is not this case. It was certainly
arguable, as an original matter, that Art. I, § 7 also prevents the President from cancelling a law which itself authorizes the
President to cancel it. But as the Court acknowledges, that argument has long since been made and rejected. . . .

As much as the Court goes on about Art. I, § 7, therefore, that provision does not demand the result the Court reaches. It no
more categorically prohibits the Executive reduction of congressional dispositions in the course of implementing statutes that
authorize such reduction, than it categorically prohibits the Executive augmentation of congressional dispositions in the course of
implementing statutes that authorize such augmentation--generally known as substantive rulemaking. There are, to be sure, limits
upon the former just as there are limits upon the latter--and I am prepared to acknowledge that the limits upon the former may
be much more severe. Those limits are established, however, not by some categorical prohibition of Art. I, § 7, which our
cases conclusively disprove, but by what has come to be known as the doctrine of unconstitutional delegation of legislative
authority: When authorized Executive reduction or augmentation is allowed to go too far, it usurps the nondelegable function of
Congress and violates the separation of powers.

It is this doctrine, and not the Presentment Clause, that was discussed in the Field opinion, and it is this doctrine, and not the
Presentment Clause, that is the issue presented by the statute before us here. That is why the Court is correct to distinguish
prior authorizations of Executive cancellation, such as the one involved in Field, on the ground that they were contingent upon
an Executive finding of fact, and on the ground that they related to the field of foreign affairs, an area where the President has a
special "degree of discretion and freedom." These distinctions have nothing to do with whether the details of Art. I, § 7 have
been complied with, but everything to do with whether the authorizations went too far by transferring to the Executive a degree
of political, law-making power that our traditions demand be retained by the Legislative Branch.

I turn, then, to the crux of the matter: whether Congress's authorizing the President to cancel an item of spending gives him a
power that our history and traditions show must reside exclusively in the Legislative Branch. I may note, to begin with, that the
Line Item Veto Act is not the first statute to authorize the President to "cancel" spending items. . . .

Insofar as the degree of political, "law-making" power conferred upon the Executive is concerned, there is not a dime's worth
of difference between Congress's authorizing the President to cancel a spending item, and Congress's authorizing money to be
spent on a particular item at the President's discretion. And the latter has been done since the Founding of the Nation. . . .
Examples of appropriations committed to the discretion of the President abound in our history. . . . The constitutionality of such
appropriations has never seriously been questioned. . . .

The short of the matter is this: Had the Line Item Veto Act authorized the President to "decline to spend" any item of spending
contained in the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, there is not the slightest doubt that authorization would have been constitutional.
What the Line Item Veto Act does instead-- authorizing the President to "cancel" an item of spending--is technically different.
But the technical difference does not relate to the technicalities of the Presentment Clause, which have been fully complied with;
and the doctrine of unconstitutional delegation, which is at issue here, is preeminently not a doctrine of technicalities. The title of
the Line Item Veto Act, which was perhaps designed to simplify for public comprehension, or perhaps merely to comply with
the terms of a campaign pledge, has succeeded in faking out the Supreme Court. The President's action it authorizes in fact is
not a line-item veto and thus does not offend Art. I, § 7; and insofar as the substance of that action is concerned, it is no
different from what Congress has permitted the President to do since the formation of the Union. . . .

I approach the constitutional question before us with three general considerations in mind. First, the Act represents a legislative
effort to provide the President with the power to give effect to some, but not to all, of the expenditure and revenue-diminishing
provisions contained in a single massive appropriations bill. And this objective is constitutionally proper. . . .

Second, the case in part requires us to focus upon the Constitution's generally phrased structural provisions, provisions that
delegate all "legislative" power to Congress and vest all "executive" power in the President. The Court, when applying these
provisions, has interpreted them generously in terms of the institutional arrangements that they permit. . . .

Third, we need not here referee a dispute among the other two branches. . . .

These three background circumstances mean that, when one measures the literal words of the Act against the Constitution's
literal commands, the fact that the Act may closely resemble a different, literally unconstitutional, arrangement is beside the
point. . . .

The background circumstances also mean that we are to interpret nonliteral Separation of Powers principles in light of the need
for "workable government." . . .

The Court believes that the Act violates the literal text of the Constitution. A simple syllogism captures its basic reasoning:

Major Premise: The Constitution sets forth an exclusive method for enacting, repealing, or amending laws.

Minor Premise: The Act authorizes the President to "repea[l] or amen[d]" laws in a different way, namely by announcing a
cancellation of a portion of a previously enacted law.

Conclusion: The Act is inconsistent with the Constitution.

I find this syllogism unconvincing, however, because its Minor Premise is faulty. When the President "canceled" the two
appropriation measures now before us, he did not repeal any law nor did he amend any law. He simply followed the law,
leaving the statutes, as they are literally written, intact.

To understand why one cannot say, literally speaking, that the President has repealed or amended any law, imagine how the
provisions of law before us might have been, but were not, written. Imagine that the canceled New York health care [spending]
provision at issue here, had instead said the following: Section One. Taxes ... that were collected by the State of New York
from a health care provider before June 1, 1997 and for which a waiver of provisions [requiring payment] have been sought ...
are deemed to be permissible health care related taxes ... provided however that the President may prevent the just-mentioned
provision from having legal force or effect if he determines x, y and z. (Assume x, y and z to be the same determinations
required by the Line Item Veto Act).

Whatever a person might say, or think, about the constitutionality of this imaginary law, there is one thing the English language
would prevent one from saying. One could not say that a President who "prevent[s]" the deeming language from "having legal
force or effect" has either repealed or amended this particular hypothetical statute. Rather, the President has followed that law
to the letter. He has exercised the power it explicitly delegates to him. He has executed the law, not repealed it. . . .

[L]iterally speaking, the President has not "repealed" or "amended" anything. He has simply executed a power conferred upon
him by Congress, which power is contained in laws that were enacted in compliance with the exclusive method set forth in the
Constitution.

Nor can one dismiss this literal compliance as some kind of formal quibble, as if it were somehow "obvious" that what the
President has done "amounts to," "comes close to," or is "analogous to" the repeal or amendment of a previously enacted law.
That is because the power the Act grants the President (to render designated appropriations items without "legal force or
effect") also "amounts to," "comes close to," or is "analogous to" a different legal animal, the delegation of a power to choose
one legal path as opposed to another, such as a power to appoint. . . .

Because I disagree with the Court's holding of literal violation, I must consider whether the Act nonetheless violates Separation
of Powers principles-- principles that arise out of the Constitution's vesting of the "executive Power" in "a President," and "[a]ll
legislative Powers" in "a Congress." There are three relevant Separation of Powers questions here: (1) Has Congress given the
President the wrong kind of power, i.e., "non-Executive" power? (2) Has Congress given the President the power to
"encroach" upon Congress' own constitutionally reserved territory? (3) Has Congress given the President too much power,
violating the doctrine of "nondelegation?" . . .

Viewed conceptually, the power the Act conveys is the right kind of power. It is "executive." As explained above, an exercise
of that power "executes" the Act. Conceptually speaking, it closely resembles the kind of delegated authority--to spend or not
to spend appropriations, to change or not to change tariff rates--that Congress has frequently granted the President, any
differences being differences in degree, not kind. . . .

The Act does not undermine what this Court has often described as the principal function of the Separation of Powers, which is
to maintain the tripartite structure of the Federal Government--and thereby protect individual liberty--by providing a "safeguard
against the encroachment or aggrandizement of one branch at the expense of the other." . . .

The "nondelegation" doctrine represents an added constitutional check upon Congress' authority to delegate power to the
Executive Branch. And it raises a more serious constitutional obstacle here. [I]n Chief Justice Taft's more familiar words, the
Constitution permits only those delegations where Congress "shall lay down by legislative act an intelligible principle to which
the person or body authorized to [act] is directed to conform."

The Act before us seeks to create such a principle in three ways. The first is procedural. The Act tells the President that, in
"identifying dollar amounts [or] ... items ... for cancellation" (which I take to refer to his selection of the amounts or items he will
"prevent from having legal force or effect"), he is to "consider," among other things, "the legislative history, construction, and
purposes of the law which contains [those amounts or items, and] ... any specific sources of information referenced in such law
or ... the best available information...."

The second is purposive. The clear purpose behind the Act, confirmed by its legislative history, is to promote "greater fiscal
accountability" and to "eliminate wasteful federal spending and ... special tax breaks."

The third is substantive. The President must determine that, to "prevent" the item or amount "from having legal force or effect"
will "reduce the Federal budget deficit; ... not impair any essential Government functions; and ... not harm the national interest."

The resulting standards are broad. But this Court has upheld standards that are equally broad, or broader. . . .

The case before us does not involve any . . . "roving commission," nor does it involve delegation to private parties, nor does it
bring all of American industry within its scope. It is limited to one area of government, the budget, and it seeks to give the
President the power, in one portion of that budget, to tailor spending and special tax relief to what he concludes are the
demands of fiscal responsibility. Nor is the standard that governs his judgment, though broad, any broader than the standard
that currently governs the award of television licenses, namely "public convenience, interest, or necessity." To the contrary, (a)
the broadly phrased limitations in the Act, together with (b) its evident deficit reduction purpose, and (c) a procedure that
guarantees Presidential awareness of the reasons for including a particular provision in a budget bill, taken together, guide the
President's exercise of his discretionary powers. . . .

On the other hand, I must recognize that there are important differences between the delegation before us and other broad,
constitutionally- acceptable delegations to Executive Branch agencies--differences that argue against my conclusion. In
particular, a broad delegation of authority to an administrative agency differs from the delegation at issue here in that agencies
often develop subsidiary rules under the statute, rules that explain the general "public interest" language. Doing so diminishes the
risk that the agency will use the breadth of a grant of authority as a cloak for unreasonable or unfair implementation. Moreover,
agencies are typically subject to judicial review, which review provides an additional check against arbitrary implementation.
The President has not so narrowed his discretionary power through rule, nor is his implementation subject to judicial review
under the terms of the Administrative Procedure Act.

While I believe that these last-mentioned considerations are important, they are not determinative. The President, unlike most
agency decisionmakers, is an elected official. He is responsible to the voters, who, in principle, will judge the manner in which
he exercises his delegated authority. Whether the President's expenditure decisions, for example, are arbitrary is a matter that in
the past has been left primarily to those voters to consider. And this Court has made clear that judicial review is less
appropriate when the President's own discretion, rather than that of an agency, is at stake. These matters reflect in part the
Constitution's own delegation of "executive Power" to "a President," and we must take this into account when applying the
Constitution's nondelegation doctrine to questions of Presidential authority.

Consequently I believe that the power the Act grants the President to prevent spending items from taking effect does not violate
the "nondelegation" doctrine. . . .

In sum, I recognize that the Act before us is novel. In a sense, it skirts a constitutional edge. But that edge has to do with
means, not ends. The means chosen do not amount literally to the enactment, repeal, or amendment of a law. Nor, for that
matter, do they amount literally to the "line item veto" that the Act's title announces. Those means do not violate any basic
Separation of Powers principle. They do not improperly shift the constitutionally foreseen balance of power from Congress to
the President. Nor, since they comply with Separation of Powers principles, do they threaten the liberties of individual citizens.
They represent an experiment that may, or may not, help representative government work better. The Constitution, in my view,
authorizes Congress and the President to try novel methods in this way. Consequently, with respect, I dissent.