OIRA is, of course, very much in the news lately. What great timing, because the American Enterprise Institute will host a conference this week on the last few years’ developments—the Trump Administration’s approach to regulatory budgeting, and the Biden Administration’s newer and broader reforms. It will be the afternoon of Wednesday, May 17. Full details, […]
Having closely followed the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau since its inception, I’m struck by the arguments that the CFPB is now making to the Supreme Court. After all, they squarely contradict a decade’s worth of the CFPB’s own statements. I’ve detailed that on Notice & Comment and elsewhere, but here is one more example, involving […]
In one of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s first strategic plans, the then-new agency highlighted Congress’s decision to vest it with a completely independent source of revenue: “providing the CFPB with funding outside of the congressional appropriations process,” Congress had “ensure[d] full independence” for the agency. The agency’s declaration of independence from future congressional appropriations […]
The news of Judge Laurence Silberman’s passing on October 2 spurred a wave of remembrances from colleagues, admirers, former proteges, Supreme Court justices, and many more. Some of my AEI colleagues contributed writings of their own: Robert Doar, Yuval Levin, and John Yoo. His contributions to the law—particularly in respecting and reinforcing the Constitution’s separation of powers—were immense, as many of his […]
What have we learned so far about regulatory budgets, and what might the next iteration of Executive Order 13771 look like? Although E.O. 13771 is not currently on the books, future presidential administrations may decide to formulate their own versions of regulatory budgeting under OIRA’s management and oversight. So it’s good to learn from the […]
Financial regulators are reshaping themselves into tools of climate policy, and this transformation presents myriad problems—some legal, some practical. And the controversy surrounding recent nomination to the Federal Reserve remind us of yet another problem—one that seems to be catching some observers by surprise, but which is all too familiar to those of us who […]
The Supreme Court’s latest abortion cases, being argued this morning, aren’t actually about abortion. They’re about administration, and the role of courts in it. At least, the point I try to make this morning in a short essay elsewhere, which may be of interest to Notice & Comment‘s readers. It’s natural for Court-watchers to group […]
*This is the seventh post in a series on Andrew Rudalevige’s new book, By Executive Order: Bureaucratic Management and the Limits of Presidential Power. For other posts in the series, click here. Any book on the constitutional executive will contain more than a little Alexander Hamilton. It’s ironic: Hamilton’s famous argument for “energy in the executive,” so […]
This year seems a good time to take stock of “presidential administration,” both in theory and in practice. It is, after all, a year of presidential transition, illustrating the ever-growing changes in law and policy that follow every succession of one presidency after the last. It’s also the twentieth anniversary of Elena Kagan’s landmark article. […]
After Judge Stephen F. Williams died last year, during the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Yale Journal on Regulation published many tributes from his clerks and other admirers. They appeared here at N&C (see here, here, and here); later, the Journal published a symposium issue (Vol. 38, No. 3) with contributions from Judge […]
In an era when Congress seems nearly incapable of producing significant legislation, because the Senate’s filibuster effectively requires significant bipartisan support, it is only natural to feel the temptation to simply short-cut the entire institutional ordeal. And it feels all the more urgent on an issue like immigration, where the stakes are especially high and […]
When George Shultz passed away last week, America lost one of the 20th Century’s greatest statesmen. His death, months after his 100th birthday, spurred an outpouring of obituaries and remembrances, a fitting tribute to an extraordinary man. He had an unparalleled career of public service, in four cabinet positions — Director of the Office of […]
This year the Supreme Court prohibited the Trump Administration from undoing the Obama Administration’s “DACA” policy without first providing a more thorough justification; a year earlier it prohibited the Trump Administration from adding the citizenship question without first providing a more candid justification. The common line connecting the cases is clear, and it suggests a trend of slight reinvigoration of judicial […]
This morning the Supreme Court issued its decision in Department of Homeland Security v. Regents of the University of California—better known as the DACA Repeal Case. In striking down the Trump Administration’s effort to rescind the Obama Administration’s immigration enforcement policy, Chief Justice Roberts’s opinion for the Court highlighted the Court’s role in scrutinizing agency […]
By the time he actually signed it, President Trump’s “Executive Order on Preventing Online Censorship” was no surprise. His complaints about social media platforms, and his calls for Congress to rescind Internet platform companies’ immunity under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, are long-familiar refrains. More recently, he practically shouted his intentions to take […]