with whom Justice Brennan, Justice Blackmun, and Justice Rehnquist join, dissenting.
Since 1971, Congress has sought to lead the world, through -the repeated exercise of its power over foreign commerce, in preventing the extermination of whales and other threatened species of marine animals. I deeply regret that it will now *242have to act again before the Executive Branch will finally be compelled to obey the law. I believe that the Court has misunderstood the question posed by the case before us, and has reached an erroneous conclusion on a matter of intense worldwide concern. I therefore dissent.
Congress began its efforts with the Pelly Amendment, which directs that “[w]hen the Secretary of Commerce determines that nationals of a foreign country, directly or indirectly, are conducting fishing operations in a manner or under circumstances which diminish the effectiveness of an international fishery conservation program, the Secretary of Commerce shall certify such fact to the President.” 22 U. S. C. § 1978(a)(1). That Amendment, although apparently mandatory in its certification scheme, did not provide for a mandatory response from the President once the certification was made. Rather, the President was empowered, in his discretion, to impose sanctions on the certified nations or not to act at all. § 1978(a)(4).
This executive latitude in enforcement proved unsatisfactory. Between 1971 and 1978, every time that a nation exceeded international whaling quotas — on five occasions — the Secretary of Commerce duly certified to the President that the trespassing nation had exceeded whaling quotas set by the International Whaling Commission and had thus diminished the effectiveness of the conservation program. See App. 168, 177.* Although the offending nations had promised immediate compliance, the Secretary apparently believed that he was obliged to certify the past violations. Yet on the basis of those assurances, the President each time exercised his option under the Pelly Amendment to impose no sanctions on the violators. Id., at 193, 195.
Unhappy with the President’s failure to sanction clear violations of international whaling agreements, Congress re*243sponded in 1979 with the Packwood Amendment. That Amendment provides that if the Secretary of Commerce certifies that a country is diminishing the effectiveness of the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling, the Secretary of State must reduce the fishing allocation of the offending nation by at least 50 percent. 16 U. S. C. § 1821(e)(2). It also provides certain time limits within which the Executive Branch must act in imposing the mandatory sanctions. The automatic imposition of sanctions, it seemed, would improve the effectiveness of the Pelly Amendment by providing a definite consequence for any nation disregarding whaling limits. See 125 Cong. Rec. 22084 (1979) (statement of Rep. Oberstar).
In 1984, the Secretary of Commerce for the first time declined to certify a case of intentional whaling in excess of established quotas. Rather than calling into play the Packwood Amendment’s mandatory sanctions by certifying to the President Japan’s persistence in conducting whaling operations, Secretary Baldrige set about to negotiate with Japan, using his power of certification under domestic law to obtain certain promises of reduced violations in future years. In the resulting compromise, the Secretary agreed not to certify Japan, provided that Japan would promise to reduce its whaling until 1988 and then withdraw its objection to the international whaling quotas. Arguing that the Secretary had no discretion to withhold certification, respondents sought review of the Secretary’s action in federal court. Both the District Court, 604 F. Supp. 1398 (DC 1985), and the Court of Appeals, 247 U. S. App. D. C. 309, 768 F. 2d 426 (1985), found that Congress had not empowered the Secretary to decline to certify a clear violation of International Whaling Commission (IWC) quotas, and ordered the Secretary to make the statutory certification. This Court now renders illusory the mandatory language of the statutory scheme, and finds permissible exactly the result that Congress sought to *244prevent in the Packwood Amendment: executive compromise of a national policy of whale conservation.
I — H
The Court devotes its opinion to the question whether the language of the Pelly or the Packwood Amendment leaves room for discretion in the Secretary to determine that a violation of the whaling quota need not be certified. Although framed in the same way by the Court of Appeals and by the parties before this Court, that issue is not the most direct approach to resolving the dispute before us. Indeed, by focusing entirely on this question, the Court fails to take into account the most significant aspect of these cases: that even the Secretary himself has not taken the position that Japan’s past conduct is not the type of activity that diminishes the effectiveness of the whale conservation program, requiring his certification under the Pelly Amendment. In the face of an IWC determination that only a zero quota will protect the species, never has the Secretary concluded, nor could he conclude, that the intentional taking of large numbers of sperm whales does not diminish the effectiveness of the IWC program. Indeed, the Secretary has concluded just the opposite. Just four months before the execution of the bilateral agreement that spawned this litigation, Senator Packwood wrote to the Secretary as follows:
“It has been assumed by everyone involved in this issue, including the whaling nations, that a nation which continues commercial whaling after the IWC moratorium takes effect would definitely be certified. I share this assumption since I see no way around the logical conclusion that a nation which ignores the moratorium is diminishing the effectiveness of the IWC.
“What I am asking, Mac, is that you provide me with an assurance that it is the position of the Commerce Department that any nation which continues whaling after the moratorium takes effect will be certified under *245Packwood-Magnuson.” App. 197 (letter from Sen. Packwood to Secretary Baldrige, June 28, 1984).
The Secretary expressed his agreement:
“You noted in your letter the widespread view that any continued commercial whaling after the International Whaling Commission (IWC) moratorium decision takes effect would be subject to certification. I agree, since any such whaling attributable to the policies of a foreign government would clearly diminish the effectiveness of the IWC.” Id., at 198 (letter from Secretary Baldrige to Sen. Packwood, July 24, 1984).
It has not been disputed that Japan’s whaling activities have been just as described in that correspondence. The Secretary’s expressed view is borne out by his apparent belief, four months later, that he held sufficient power under domestic law to threaten certification in an effort to extract promises from Japan regarding its future violations. Presumably he would not threaten such certification without believing that the factual predicate for that action existed.
I cannot but-conclude that the Secretary has determined in these cases, not that Japan’s past violations are so negligible that they should not be understood to trigger the certification obligation, but that he would prefer to impose a penalty different from that which Congress prescribed in the Packwood Amendment. Significantly, the Secretary argues here that the agreement he negotiated with Japan will — in the future— protect the whaling ban more effectively than imposing sanctions now. Brief for Federal Petitioners 43. But the regulation of future conduct is irrelevant to the certification scheme, which affects future violations only by punishing past ones. The Secretary’s manipulation of the certification process to affect punishment is thus an attempt to evade the statutory sanctions rather than a genuine judgment that the effectiveness of the quota has not been diminished.
*246The Secretary would rewrite the law. Congress removed from the Executive Branch any power over penalties when it passed the Packwood Amendment. Indeed, the Secretary’s compromise in these cases is precisely the type of action, previously taken by the President, that led Congress to enact the mandatory sanctions of the Packwood Amendment: in 1978, five nations had been found to have exceeded quotas, but the President had withheld sanctions upon the promise of future compliance with international norms. Here, the future “compliance” is even less satisfactory than that exacted in the past instances: instead of immediate compliance, the Secretary has settled for continued violations until 1988. And in 1988 all that Japan has promised is to withdraw its formal objection to the IWC moratorium; I see no indication that Japan has pledged to “cease commercial whaling by 1988,” ante, at 228, or to “dismantle its commercial whaling industry.” Brief for Federal Petitioners 43. The important question here, however, is not whether the Secretary’s choice of sanctions was wise or effective, but whether it was authorized. The Court does not deny that Congress intended the consequences of actions diminishing the effectiveness of a whaling ban to be governed exclusively by the sanctions enumerated in the Packwood Amendment, with the optional addition of those provided in the Pelly Amendment. Thus, when the Secretary’s action here, well intentioned or no, is seen for what it really is — a substitute of his judgment for Congress’ on the issue of how best to respond to a foreign nation’s intentional past violation of quotas — there can be no question but that the Secretary has flouted the express will of Congress and exceeded his own authority. On that basis alone, I would affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals.
I — ! 1 — 1
A quite separate concern is raised by the majority’s treatment of the issue that it does address. The Court peremptorily rejects the Court of Appeals’ conclusion that Congress in*247tended the Pelly Amendment to impose a nondiscretionary duty on the Secretary of Commerce to certify whenever a nation has exceeded whaling quotas. Asserting that “we find nothing in the legislative history of either Amendment that addresses the nature of the Secretary’s duty and requires him to certify every departure from the IWC’s scheduled limits on whaling,” ante, at 234, the Court has simply ignored the many specific citations put forth by respondents and the Court of Appeals to just such authority, and has offered nothing to contradict them.
The Court of Appeals devoted voluminous portions of its opinion to excerpts from legislative history establishing that Congress expected that substantial violations of whaling quotas would always result in certification. Illustrative of these are the following exchanges between Members of Congress and Richard A. Frank, Administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, discussing the meaning of the Pelly Amendment in preparation for the 1979 legislation:
“Mr.'McCLOSKEY. . . . Now, it seems to me the discretion then is left with the President and the Secretary of the Treasury, not with the Secretary of Commerce. If you have determined, as you in your testimony indicate, that Japan is importing non-IWC whale products, I do not see where you have any discretion to politely say to the Japanese you are violating our rules, but we will withhold certifying if you will change. . . . [T]he certification is a mandatory act under the law. It is not a discretionary act.
“Mr. FRANK. That is correct.
“Mr. BREAUX. I understand, Mr. Frank, that actually what we are talking about under the Pelly amendment is a two-stage process. First, if a country is violating the terms of an international treaty, the Secretary of Commerce has to certify that he is doing that, and that is not a discretionary thing. But after he certi*248fies that there is a violation, and there is discretion on the part of the President to impose any import quotas, or the elimination of any imported fish products from that country and, the second part is the optional authority that the President has.
“Mr. FRANK. That is correct. The first one is mandatory on the Secretary of Commerce. The second is discretionary on the part of the President.” Hearings on Whaling Policy and International Whaling Commission Oversight before the Subcommittee on Fisheries and Wildlife Conservation and the Environment of the House Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries, 96th Cong., 1st Sess., 301, 322-323 (1979) (emphasis added).
Representative Breaux summarized the administration’s representations to Congress:
“Apparently Dick Frank is saying that the taking of whales in violation of IWC quotas is something that automatically would require the Department of Commerce to certify that nation as being in violation of the taking provision. Then you get into two other categories, not supplying enough data and the importation of whale meat [which involve discretion on the part of the Secretary].” Id., at 359 (remarks of Rep. Breaux).
This and other legislative history relied on by the Court of Appeals demonstrate that Congress believed that, under the Pelly Amendment, when a nation clearly violated IWC quotas, the only discretion in the Executive Branch lay in the choice of sanction. The Packwood Amendment removed that discretion. The majority speculates that “it would have been a simple matter to say that the Secretary must certify deliberate taking of whales in excess of IWC limits,” ante, at 232. However, because everyone in the Congress and the Executive Branch appeared to share an understanding that quota violations would always be considered to diminish the *249effectiveness of a conservation program, in accord with the consistent interpretations of past Secretaries of Commerce, there was no need to amend the statute. It was only when Secretary Baldrige became dissatisfied with the Packwood Amendment sanctions that the certification obligation was ever questioned.
The sole support that the Court offers for its position is the unobjectionable proposition, in a House Report, that “‘[a]n isolated, individual violation of a convention provision will not ordinarily warrant certification under this section.’” Ante, at 237 (quoting H. R. Rep. No. 95-1029, p. 15 (1978)). Petitioners indeed have a respectable argument that the Secretary was left with some inherent discretion to ignore violations of a de minimis nature. Such an argument, however, has no relevance to these cases. It is uncontested here that Japan’s taking of whales has been flagrant, consistent, and substantial. Such gross disregard for international norms set for the benefit of the entire world represents the core of what Congress set about to punish and to deter with the weapon of reduced fishing rights in United States waters. The Court’s decision today leaves Congress no closer to achieving that goal than it was in 1971, before either Amendment was passed.
Ill
I would affirm the judgment below on the ground that the Secretary has exceeded his authority by using his power of certification, not as a means for identifying serious whaling violations, but as a means for evading the constraints of the Packwood Amendment. Even focusing, as the Court does, upon the distinct question whether the statute prevents the Secretary from determining that the effectiveness of a conservation program is not diminished by a substantial transgression of whaling quotas, I find the Court’s conclusion utterly unsupported. I am troubled that this Court is empowering an officer of the Executive Branch, sworn to uphold and defend the laws of the United States, to ignore Congress’ *250pointed response to a question long pondered: “whether Leviathan can long endure so wide a chase, and so remorseless a havoc; whether he must not at last be exterminated from the waters, and the last whale, like the last man, smoke his last pipe, and then himself evaporate in the final puff.” H. Melville, Moby Dick 436 (Signet ed. 1961).
Citations to “App.” refer to the joint appendix filed by the parties in the Court of Appeals; the Solicitor General sought and was granted leave not to file a joint appendix in this Court. 475 U. S. 1007 (1986).