On March 3, the Supreme Court heard argument on the constitutionality of the structure of the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (CFPB). The question presented in Seila Law LLC v. CFPB is “whether the vesting of substantial executive authority in the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an independent agency led by a single director, violates the separation […]
From the GSA Blog: GSA has launched a pilot to test a new application programming interface (API) to support better automated downloads from Regulations.gov, as well as enable a new API to support automated comment uploads. GSA manages Regulations.gov, a federal shared service that provides the public with one-stop access to regulatory and deregulatory actions […]
The Supreme Court recently granted certiorari in Trump v. Pennsylvania, agency regulations under the Affordable Care Act. The district court granted, and the Third Circuit affirmed, a universal injunction: the court ordered the agencies not to enforce the regulation as to anyone, not just the plaintiffs. In support of the universal scope of the injunction, the […]
From the Notre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics and Public Policy and the Notre Dame Law School Program on Ethics, Compliance & Inclusion (call for papers here): Our national faith in the ethics of our leaders forms the very basis of our democracy. We elect leaders under the assumption that they will not only act […]
Here is the March 2020 Edition of the most-downloaded recent papers (those announced in the last 60 days) from SSRN’s U.S. Administrative Law eJournal, which is edited by Bill Funk. Delegation at the Founding by Julian Davis Mortenson & Nicholas Bagley (Columbia Law Review forthcoming) Presidential Review: The President’s Statutory Authority Over Independent Agencies by […]
Back in March 2000, I published an essay in Legal Times titled, “Any Volunteers?” The piece argued that the Federal Communications Commission’s merger review process is often tainted by the agency’s extraction of so-called “voluntary” conditions from merger applicants during the agency’s consideration of a proposed transaction. Now, two decades later, the Court of Appeals […]
Politico has an article earlier this week (titled “Recovery law allows Fed to rope off public as it spends billions“) that brought to my attention a section of the recently enacted Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act: Section 4009 allows the Federal Reserve Board to conduct meetings through December 31, 2020 without regard to […]
Last April, the Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS) called for proposals for a new project on “Mass, Computer-Generated, and Fraudulent Comments in Agency Rulemaking.” The request for proposals (RFP) signaled that ACUS was looking for a team of research consultants to take on the work, in concert with the Conference’s Research Director. Assembling […]
I recently posted about the states that had rejected deference in the past several years and noted that several more states were likely to reconsider deference in 2020. One state that I did not expect to see make the change was Arkansas whose state Supreme Court had as recently as 2014 had employed a highly […]
I know many law professors make an effort to highlight role models for our students, and to emphasize a diversity of legal luminaries during class. In this post I offer a few reflections on why I find it useful to do so, and share excerpts from my slides highlighting diverse role models that come up […]
I received an email a few days ago from a student looking to clerk.* He has authorized me to post it here. Re: Mailing Clerkship Applications to Chambers During Quarantine Professor Nielson, I’ve been working on clerkship applications over the past week and just realized that judges are unlikely to be in chambers to receive […]
Since notice-and-comment rulemaking moved on-line, insiders have been concerned by, and spoken out against, a tendency to see public comment as a kind of referendum. While there is disagreement at the margin about whether a strong consensus among commenters as to a bottom line ought to influence an agency decision, the traditional, and still “official,” […]
Welcome back to Ninth Circuit Review-Reviewed, your monthly recap of administrative law before arguably “the second most important court in the land.” Let’s get straight to business. A Divided Court Cannot Stand Every month, I read at least one indignant—and often incredulous—dissent in a major immigration controversy before the Ninth Circuit. March was no exception. Early in the […]
Tomorrow, August 19th, from 1-2:30PM, the ABA’s Young Lawyers’ Division is hosting a webinar, cosponsored by the ABA’s Administrative Law Section, entitled What Lawyers Need to Know About Agency Guidance. The webinar is free for ABA members, and you can register here. Here are some more details: Learn how Agency Guidance is created by client […]
Cooperative federalism often involves information sharing between different levels of government. What are the implications of such information sharing for application of federal and state freedom of information/public records statutes? When private entities are required to share information with state governments under a federal mandate, is release of that information governed by the federal Freedom […]