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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]