I received an email this morning from a friend observing that “it’s like the D.C. Circuit is actively trying to undermine your column by never issuing any opinions!” Perhaps. We are two weeks into 2017 and the D.C. Circuit has said nothing.* What should I do? Take the week off I suppose. That said, here […]
Last week I wrote a special edition of D.C. Circuit Review – Reviewed dedicated to the Tenth Circuit’s Appointments Clause decision. This week, the D.C. Circuit issued no opinions. So I’ve decided to again look beyond the D.C. Circuit to see what else is happening in the wide, wide world of administrative law. It turns […]
“Arbitrary does not mean capricious.” That’s a pretty good line — I’m glad I wrote it!* Last year, I explained that although New Year’s Day is, in a sense, a silly holiday (Yay! Let’s celebrate the calendar!), “[t]he fact that January 1st is arbitrarily set as the first day of the year doesn’t mean we […]
Last year I flagged a hiring notice from the Administrative Conference of the United States. Let me do so again. Here is the hiring announcement: The Administrative Conference of the United States is an executive branch agency whose principal mission is to recommend empirically based improvements to administrative procedure and related matters to the President, […]
Extra, extra — Tenth Circuit explicitly disagrees with D.C. Circuit regarding SEC administrative law judges. This is a special, midweek edition of D.C. Circuit Review — Reviewed. The Tenth Circuit just created a circuit split with the D.C. Circuit about an important constitutional question. Earlier this year, the D.C. Circuit held that SEC Administrative Law […]
This Christmas Eve, I’ve decided to explore the D.C. Circuit’s history with Christmas. It turns out to be a pretty interesting history. (It also turns out that Christmas is not always a time of happiness.) Consider, for instance, the case of Anderson v. White, decided by the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia […]
This has been a fairly quiet week in the D.C. Circuit. We have four cases — none of which is a blockbuster. Yet one case in my particular caught my attention: Angelene Hardaway v. District of Columbia Housing. Here’s why: The prevailing attorneys (Dina B. Mishra and Steven H. Goldblatt) were “appointed by the court,” […]
This week has been busy in the D.C. Circuit. There are nine cases. But only three have anything to do with administrative law. That fact reminded me of a quirky tidbit that I discovered about the D.C. Circuit: The number of administrative appeals decided by the D.C. Circuit appears to have been declining over the […]
President-elect Trump has announced that he will nominate General James Mattis to serve as Secretary of Defense. This “legendary” general is talented and well-regarded, but his nomination may prompt a problem. Mattis, you see, “retired from the Marine Corps in 2013,” but federal statutory law states that “[a] person may not be appointed as Secretary […]
We find the PRC’s interpretation that “service standards” should be measured in conjunction with separately defined performance goals reasonable and entitled to deference. The PAEA requires the Postal Service to establish a set of service standards, not service guarantees. See 39 U.S.C. § 3691(a). These standards must be designed to ‘reasonably assure Postal Service customers […]
As noted, next week will be the ABA Section on Administrative Law & Regulatory Practice’s annual administrative law conference. Yet one conference is not nearly enough to contain all of admin law. That is why there also will be another conference going on next week, this one at the Center for the Study of the […]
If you are in Washington, D.C. next week, you should attend the ABA Section on Administrative Law & Regulatory Practice’s annual administrative law conference. It will be on December 8 and 9th. The relevant information can be found at this link. I went last year and it was a lot of fun — if “fun” […]
There are no D.C. Circuit opinions this week, but even so, we live in interesting times — especially in the world of administrative law. Right now, President-elect Trump is putting together his slate of cabinet nominees, Congress is paying close attention to the Congressional Review Act, and Chief Judge Garland is preparing to return to […]
I am also pleased to contribute to this symposium on the Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice’s 2016 Report to the President-Elect. My assignment? Regulatory cooperation between the United States and other countries. I strongly support such cooperation — well, at least most of the time. To begin, this is what the Report has […]
I have written about the Congressional Review Act before, so I will not repeat myself. Long story short, Congress will have the opportunity to review regulations promulgated by agencies late in the term of President Obama. This potentially matters a great deal. (Here is a link to Frequently Asked Questions about the CRA.) How the […]