The Administrative Conference of the United States will soon begin fall committee meetings on a slate of projects targeted for completion at the 68th annual plenary session, to be held in December. These projects include: (1) Plain Language in Regulatory Drafting; (2) Agency Guidance; (3) Regulatory Waivers and Exemptions; and (4) Regulatory Experimentation. A description (taken […]
The White House has just announced a slate of new nominations, including a new ACUS Chairman. From the press release: Jonathan F. Mitchell of Washington to be Chairman of the Administrative Conference of the United States for a term of 5 years. Mr. Mitchell most recently served as a Visiting Professor of Law at Stanford Law […]
If you’re going to be in the DC area on September 29 and are interested in benefit-cost analysis, here’s the event for you! The Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS), the Society for Benefit-Cost Analysis (SBCA), and the GWU Regulatory Studies Center are co-sponsoring an afternoon of discussion on New Developments in Regulatory Benefit-Cost […]
At its 67th Plenary Session, held Friday, June 16th, the Assembly of the Administrative Conference adopted two new recommendations: Recommendation 2017-1, Adjudication Materials on Agency Websites and Recommendation 2017-2, Negotiated Rulemaking and Other Options for Public Engagement. As described on ACUS’s website: Recommendation 2017-1, Adjudication Materials on Agency Websites provides guidance regarding the online dissemination of administrative […]
Technology has promised big benefits for public participation in notice-and comment rulemaking, but it has also presented new challenges for agencies. For example, as the number of rulemaking comments has increased, so too has the administrative burden of reviewing those comments. Can an agency use computer software to help ease this burden while still discharging its obligations under the APA? Melissa Mortazavi addresses […]
The Administrative Conference of the United States will hold its 67th Annual Plenary Session on Friday, June 16th from 10:00 am to 2:00 pm. The Assembly will consider proposed recommendations on two subjects. From the Federal Register notice: Adjudication Materials on Agency Web sites. This proposed recommendation provides guidance regarding the online dissemination of administrative […]
Getting information about federal spending–a key consideration in policymaking–just got a whole lot easier. The Digital Accountability and Transparency Act of 2014 (DATA Act) required federal agencies to use a standardized data format to report spending information. The goal was to make the information more readily available and useful, thereby improving transparency and oversight. The Office of […]
For your weekend reading pleasure, I offer my latest article, The Agency Declaratory Judgment, which is now available on SSRN and is forthcoming in the Ohio State Law Journal. The article examines a useful provision of the APA with which you may be unfamiliar (really!). That provision is 5 U.S.C. 554(e). It states that an agency “with like effect as […]
Political control of administrative agencies is a hot topic these days. And Brian D. Feinstein has a timely new article, Congress in the Administrative State, forthcoming in the Washington University Law Review that empirically evaluates how Congressional oversight hearings fit into the picture. Using an original dataset constructed from inspectors general semiannual reports, Government Accountability Office annual “top management challenges” lists, […]
The Administrative Conference has announced new committee meeting dates for another of its spring projects, all of which I recently previewed. The new dates are as follows: The Committee on Regulation will meet to discuss the Marketable Permits project on Tuesday, March 28 at 2 pm and Thursday, April 13 at 2 pm. Please also note that the […]
Kate Klonick has a fascinating new article forthcoming in the Harvard Law Review examining how private online platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, regulate user speech. Entitled The New Governors: The People, Rules, and Processes Governing Online Speech, the article is an important contribution to the understanding of how private entities regulate conduct and enforce public law norms […]
The Administrative Conference has announced new committee meeting dates for one of its spring projects, which I recently previewed. The new dates are as follows: The Committee on Rulemaking will meet to discuss the Negotiated Rulemaking project on Thursday, March 23 at 9:30 am and Thursday, April 13 at 9:30 am. If you would like […]
The Administrative Conference of the United States will soon begin spring committee meetings on a slate of projects targeted for completion at the 67th annual plenary session, to be held in June. These projects include: (1) Adjudication Materials on Agency Websites; (2) Negotiated Rulemaking; (3) Electronic Case Management in Federal Administrative Adjudication; and (4) Marketable […]
At its 66th Plenary Session, held December 13th and 14th, 2016, the Administrative Conference adopted four new recommendations. From the Federal Register notice, which is on public inspection today, these four recommendations include: Recommendation 2016-3, Special Procedural Rules for Social Security Litigation in District Court. This recommendation encourages the Judicial Conference of the United States to develop […]
Over the last several weeks, we have hosted an online symposium on the 2016 Report to the President-Elect on Improving the Administrative Process, which was released by the ABA Section on Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice in advance of the presidential election. The symposium has generated a robust, diverse discussion of many of the recommendations […]