This has been a quiet week at the D.C. Circuit. There was only one published opinion—and it’s about attorneys’ fees. So with this extra time, why not think a little bit more about Amtrak? (Or, if you would rather spend your “five minutes a week” on something else, enjoy this or this instead.) Dan Hemel’s […]
In my next two posts, I will investigate the relationship between regulatory approval of vaccines and the response to the global public health emergency surrounding the spread of the Zika virus. That emergency has resurrected and brought into sharper relief some of the most vexing questions surrounding the regulatory state and pregnancy: the appropriate circumstances, […]
From his perch at Politico, Dan Diamond has launched what promises to be a terrific new health-policy podcast, Pulse Check, with an interview with CMS’s acting administrator, Andy Slavitt. The interview is refreshingly candid: among other things, Slavitt confesses that the Obama administration has a lot of work to do to win back the hearts […]
In a characteristically thoughtful post discussing the D.C. Circuit’s decision in American Association of Railroads v. Department of Transportation, Aaron Nielson writes: Imagine three companies—let’s call them A, B, and C. Each manufactures cars. Imagine further that Congress authorizes A to regulate B and C, and A uses that power to benefit itself, for instance […]
As I mentioned a couple weeks ago, RegBlog is celebrating its fifth birthday with a special series looking back on the last five years in regulation. This RegBlog@5 Series has been a lot of fun so far, and it epitomizes RegBlog’s ability to help bridge the gap between theory and practice in the regulatory state. […]
The ABA Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice, Government Personnel Committee will host two brown bag lunches this month on the latest developments at the Merit Systems Protection Board (“MSPB”) and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”), Office of Federal Operations. These brown bags are part of a larger series of discussions the Government Personnel […]
Imagine three companies—let’s call them A, B, and C. Each manufactures cars. Imagine further that Congress authorizes A to regulate B and C, and A uses that power to benefit itself, for instance by requiring B and C to provide valuable inputs to A on preferential terms. Would that be constitutional? Certainly not, at least […]
A D.C. Circuit panel held today that the Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act of 2008 (PRIIA) is unconstitutional. This is the second time the same panel has struck down the PRIIA (the first time the panel was reversed by the Supreme Court). The panel’s primary holding is that “the PRIIA violates the Fifth Amendment’s […]
Greetings from Andrew Emery and Susan Prosnitz, co-chairs of the ABA’s 2016 Fall Administrative Law Conference to be held on December 8-9, 2016, at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C. As is the customary practice of the ABA Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice, we would like you to propose topics […]
Especially in light of my interest in immigration adjudication—where immigration judges are administrative judges and not administrative law judges—I was particularly excited to read an earlier draft of Kent Barnett’s Against Administrative Judges, which is forthcoming in the UC Davis Law Review. You can download a draft of the paper here, and here’s the abstract: […]
Is there a constitutional right to snowboard? Before answering, know that Utah takes its snow very seriously—as it should. Few places have even a credible claim to “the greatest snow on Earth.” Utah is one of them (as is Hokkaido Island in Japan). But should that snow be used for skiing, snowboarding, or both? Again, […]
My many thanks again to Chris Walker, the Journal editors, and the many contributors for a very stimulating symposium on my book, The Power and Independence of the Federal Reserve. I wanted to write today (and, because these issues end up taking so much space to unpack, in a subsequent post as well) to push […]
Earlier this month we hosted a terrific online symposium reviewing my co-blogger Peter Conti-Brown’s important new book The Power and Independence of the Federal Reserve, which was recently published by the Princeton University Press. The contributions to the symposium were diverse and thought-provoking. For ease of reference, I thought I’d include links to all of […]
Earlier this week, the Seventh Circuit issued its opinion in Roberts v. Commissioner , holding that a taxpayer’s efforts regarding his race horses amounted to a business under the tax code, and not a mere hobby, such that the taxpayer could enjoy various deductions. The court reversed the Tax Court’s contrary determination, finding that the […]
Over at Procedurally Taxing last week, my colleague Stephanie Hoffer and I weighed in on a fascinating new decision out of the Tax Court that held that Chenery does not apply to preclude the IRS from making arguments in the judicial tax deficiency action that the IRS did not make at the agency level. The […]