Going back nearly 130 years, presidential appointees to an array of multimember federal administrative agencies have been given statutory for-cause protections against dismissal. And for more than ninety of those years these protections had the constitutional imprimatur of Humphrey’s Executor v. U. S. Last January I warned in these pages that if, as then expected, […]
For decades, the United States has maintained global leadership in fundamental research and applied science by investing in research to answer questions of greatest concern to our health and well-being and the advancement of society. Federal science funding has powered breakthroughs that shape our daily lives. These advances often begin with long-term research investments that can take decades to deliver real-world impact. A proposed rule by the Trump Administration’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) puts American scientific progress, leadership, and implementation at risk.
“The curious task of economics,” Hayek once wrote in The Fatal Conceit, “is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design” (76).That line could just as easily serve as an epigraph for administrative law. Agencies are routinely tasked with designing solutions to problems—market failures, externalities, the consequences […]
We all know old cranks who obsess about their pet peeves. Once triggered, they drive directly into the pothole of their obsession and insist there was no other way to move forward. Well, I have a pet peeve that you may dismiss as a rant from just another aging crank, but it has been with […]
The AALS Administrative Law Section is seeking paper nominations for the annual emerging scholar award. Here’s the announcement: The AALS Administrative Law Section invites nominations for the 2027 Emerging Scholar Award. The award will be based on scholarship published between September 1, 2025, and August 31, 2026. Full-time faculty members without tenure at the time […]
Last week, the D.C. Circuit issued four administrative-law opinions. The first, Advanced Energy United v. FERC, involved the nation’s backlogged interconnection queue—a waiting list of proposed energy-generating facilities seeking to connect to the power grid. Before 2023, a developer seeking to connect a new facility would submit an interconnection request to the transmission provider, which […]
From the Duke Law Journal editors: The Duke Law Journal invites papers for its 57th Annual Administrative Law Symposium, to be held on February 26, 2027, at Duke University School of Law in Durham, North Carolina. Papers can be submitted through Duke Law Journal’s Scholastica portal starting on August 1 and will be considered on a rolling basis. We […]
The Eleventh Circuit decided two administrative law cases of note in July. In the first, it rejected Florida’s constitutional challenges to the Department of Education’s use of private educational accreditors. In the second, the Eleventh Circuit sided with the IRS in a taxpayer’s challenge to the agency’s rejection of a deduction. Constitutional Challenges to Private […]
(The following post is by our new contributor, Alexis Abboud, who does not yet have login credentials). It was a busy week at the D.C. Circuit last week! The court issued eight administrative-law-related opinions across a range of domains plus a contracts case wearing administrative-law clothing, so it’s a longer post. I’ve tried my best […]
The 2026 summer supplement to our federal administrative law casebook can be downloaded here. From the introduction to the supplement: Administrative law is a dynamic field, and there are always interesting new cases being decided and new debates unfolding. The past three years have seen some big administrative law cases from the Supreme Court. In […]
The midterms and mail-in voting are approaching, and as they do, the federal courts are already deciding cases about postal operations. One such case began in the summer of 2020, a time of pandemic and postal policy changes. The policy changes “included a reduction in the number of high-speed mail sorting machines, a decrease in […]
From Professor Tim Lytton: Each May I organize a book manuscript workshop in the areas of torts, administrative law, or legal history. Georgia State University provides funding to invite 10-15 leading scholars from around the country for a one-day in-person workshop. Previous manuscripts include: I am currently seeking a suitable manuscript for May 2027. Authors must […]
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has made significant progress over the past 18 months in developing a workable framework for crypto under the federal securities laws. A key milestone was the Commission’s March 2026 interpretation (the “Interpretation”) of how the definition of “security” applies to crypto assets and related transactions. The Interpretation divides crypto […]
Over the last several months, attorneys who practice before and litigate against the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (“CFIUS”) have been paying close attention to United States v. Suirui, a CFIUS enforcement action in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. In Suirui, the government seeks to enforce a presidential […]
Today’s Ad Law Reading Room entry is “The Case for Administrative Law Pluralism,” by Lev Menand and Noah Rosenblum, which is forthcoming in Building Democratic Capacity: Essays on Administrative Law’s Futures (Blake Emerson, Joshua Macey, Sabeel Rahman & Bijal Shah eds., Cambridge Univ. Press forthcoming). Here is the abstract: Federal administrative law is in flux. […]