This paper presents the results of the only publicly available empirical study of what agreements governing subprime securitized mortgages say about mortgage modifications. The mortgage and foreclosure crisis continues to transfix the nation, even as housing markets across the country show signs of improvement. The government has tried to promote mortgage modifications to allow homeowners […]
Critics of the Obama Administration’s recently announced efforts to control climate pollution seek to discredit the idea of existing power plant greenhouse gas emissions limits based on legal arguments that are both shortsighted and unfounded. These arguments have most recently appeared in an essay posted on the Yale Journal on Regulation Online by attorney Brian […]
The phrase “government failure” as a term of art originated in the critique of government regulation that emerged in the 1960s. This critique premised that “market failures” were the only legitimate rationale for regulation. Although the phrase is a popular currency in scholarship and politics, people attribute to it different values. As a result, all […]
President Obama has rightly called on government agencies to establish ongoing routines for reviewing existing regulations to determine if they need modification or repeal. Over the last two years, the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) has overseen a signature regulatory “lookback” initiative that has prompted dozens of federal agencies to review […]
This Comment argues that plaintiffs have painted “club deals” with a broad brush as anticompetitive, whereas applying the facts alleged plaintiffs themselves to the antitrust regulators’ measurement of market concentration—the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index—implies a more nuanced conclusion: consortium bidding can be pro-competitive for large targets, small bidders and small clubs. “We will have to trust [K]inder […]
President Obama released his Climate Action Plan to much fanfare on June 25, 2013 in an attempt to reduce the country’s greenhouse gas emissions “in the range of 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020.” The centerpiece of the plan is to have the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issue carbon dioxide (CO2) standards for new […]
Introduction The question of when a war exists has been extensively considered in international law, but the subject is greatly important in the regulation of government contracting because of the little-known Wartime Suspension of Limitations Act (WSLA). The Act declares that when the nation is “at war,” the statute of limitations on fraud committed against […]
The CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 was passed in an attempt to stop “the extremely rapid growth in the volume of unsolicited commercial electronic mail” and thereby reduce the costs to recipients and internet service providers of transmitting, accessing, and discarding unwanted email. The Act obligates the senders of commercial email to utilize accurate header information, […]
People hold strong views about regulation, but do they know what “regulation” means? National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) is a landmark in regulation jurisprudence, yet the NFIB Court was divided over the meaning of the term “to regulate.” Long ago, John Stuart Mill observed that “we do not [always] understand the grounds of our opinion. But when we […]
With President Obama’s nomination of Gina McCarthy as the new Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), much attention has turned to her record as the EPA official in charge of air pollution programs, experience as the head of two states’ environmental agencies, and views on specific policies and priorities. And with the President’s nomination […]
Some local communities in the United States, particularly in the Northeast, are scrambling to oppose natural gas production enabled by hydraulic fracturing (or fracing, fracking, or hydrofracking) in shale formations. Local opposition to the impacts of fracking is understandable, but recent proposals for national bans ignore a key, more potent threat. Due to a mismatch […]
In 2011, Congress passed the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (AIA) and reformed the U.S. patent system. Most significantly, the Act replaced the “first-to-invent” patent system with a “first-to-file” system. The law is now the subject of a constitutional challenge. In this short Essay, I will explore two obstacles to this challenge: one that I view […]
I. Introduction Over the past decade, operating costs in the hedge fund industry have ballooned as the rate of new institutional investment in hedge funds has rapidly accelerated. These new institutional investors are demanding greater portfolio and operational transparency, more conscientious compliance, and tighter internal controls. This correlation—between the institutionalization of hedge funds and their […]