The Eleventh Circuit decided one administrative law case of note in the second half of May. In Citadel Securities LLC v. SEC, a panel of Judges Rosenbaum, Lagoa, and Marcus unanimously denied a petition for review of the SEC’s approval of a new options exchange under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Among other things, the […]
The D.C. Circuit issued four opinions last week; two were in cases related to admin law. (The others were a criminal case and a Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act case). The most interesting admin law case addressed when the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) can find a violation based on conduct not expressly included in the […]
Recent Rulemakings Reviewed is a new monthly quantitative snapshot of federal regulatory activity, drawn from FRTracker—a platform that ingests Federal Register documents and decomposes binding rules into structured “obligations.” The purpose of the FRTracker project is to make federal regulatory activity quantitatively trackable—rather than counting documents, FRTracker counts and analyzes the regulated duties inside them. An “obligation” in this […]
Today’s Ad Law Reading Room entry is “The Limits of Text,” by Farah Peterson, which is forthcoming in the Yale Law Journal. Here is the abstract: Let’s say the “laws” are the rules that actually constrain power, organize government, and coerce people. That is, let’s define the law as the system of rules we experience, […]
As part of a terrific University of Chicago Legal Forum Authority, Oversight, and Accountability Symposium, I’ve penned an essay entitled Preserving Both Agency Expertise and Accountability in the Unitary Executive. I took this opportunity to flesh out the traditional conservative defense of the civil service, in terms of both law and policy. This essays builds […]
Last month, Kazia Nowacki posted that “the Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS) … is seeking consultants for six projects directed towards the development of formal recommendation to federal agencies and, where appropriate, Congress, the President, and the Judicial Conference.” The deadline to submit a proposal for the following projects is June 12, 2026, 5:00 […]
Last week, the D.C. Circuit issued two opinions summarized below but also heard oral argument in the much-discussed dispute between AI developer Anthropic and the Defense/War Department. Let’s start with the oral argument. A panel of the D.C. Circuit comprised of Judges Henderson, Katsas, and Rao heard oral argument in Anthropic PBC v. U.S. Department […]
Learning Resources v. Trump was a big deal. The Supreme Court held the President could not rely on an emergency statute, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), to impose his universal tariffs or any tariffs at all. The Court’s rebuke of the President on the eve of the State of the Union address had […]
No opinions out of the D.C. Circuit last week, on administrative law or otherwise. The Court was busy hearing arguments. One in particular caught my eye (ear?), not least because it was argued by my excellent former co-clerk, Robert Stander. Michigan v. Department of Energy concerns the authority of the Secretary of Energy to order […]
Today’s Ad Law Reading Room entry is “The Original Role of Article III in Federal Imprisonment,” by Con Reynolds, which is forthcoming in the University of Pennsylvania Law Review. Here is the abstract: Since the late 1970s, the Supreme Court has pushed federal courts to defer to prison administrators. This deferential attitude and its justifications-namely, […]
In Chiles v. Salazar, 607 U.S. ___, 146 S.Ct. 1010 (March 31, 2026), slip opinion accessible here, the Supreme Court invalidated Colorado’s ban on providing conversion therapy to minor patients as violative of the Free Speech Clause. In a precursor to the ruling, National Institute of Family and Life Advocates v. Becerra, 585 U.S. 755, […]
During the first half of May, the Eleventh Circuit decided one administrative law case of note. In Alvarez v. Warden, a divided panel affirmed the grant of habeas relief to two unlawfully present aliens challenging their detention without bond. In an opinion written by Judge Marcus and joined by Judge Rosenbaum, the court held that 8 […]
In Loper Bright, the Supreme Court repudiated Chevron’s across-the-board presumption that statutory ambiguities should be treated as implied delegations of discretion to agencies. But Loper Bright did not repudiate the possibility that a court might properly find implied delegation in some cases. Although Loper Bright declared that “statutes, no matter how impenetrable, do—in fact, must—have […]
The Trump administration’s fiscal year 2027 budget proposal to require that compounding pharmacies disclose prominently that their products have never been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is long overdue; this is a reasonable requirement that advances consumer protection. Unfortunately, the administration couples this sensible proposal to increase transparency with a broader effort […]
New attention is being paid to the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan after the New York Times published memos revealing the Supreme Court’s hurried deliberations before blocking its implementation. The Clean Power Plan, a regulation intended to cut power plants’ climate-changing carbon pollution, never went into effect. Yet it has the distinction of coming […]