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 […]
I’ve already groused about the Supreme Court’s decision in Liberty Mutual v. Gobeille, which reads ERISA to preempt state laws that ask self-insured plans to share claims data with all-payer claims databases (APCDs). Not only is the decision wrong, but it will hamper price transparency and frustrate health-care research. Sensitive to the concerns, the Court […]
The ABA Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice Education Committee Presents Assessing the Federal Regulatory Response to Sexual Misconduct on Campus Teleconference Thursday, April 21, 2016 11:30 am – 12:30 pm Eastern Time Five years ago this month, the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights issued a “Dear Colleague” letter regarding sexual violence […]
On April 6, 2016, a Request for Comment on “The Benefits, Challenges, and Potential Roles for the Government in Fostering the Advancement of the Internet of Things” was published in the Federal Register. As noted in the preamble to the Notice, which was initiated by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration of the U.S. Department […]
Wednesday, April 20, 2016 | 4:00 PM – 5:00 PM Eastern | Teleconference Today the Supreme Court heard oral argument in United States v. Texas, one of the year’s most closely watched cases on constitutional and administrative law. The State of Texas and other plaintiffs challenge the Department of Homeland Security’s guidance on enforcement of […]
This month over at RegBlog they are celebrating their fifth birthday with a fifteen-part series on the last five years in regulation. (I’ll be contributing a piece later this month on developments regarding administrative law’s judicial deference doctrines.) [Update: The entire series and schedule can be found here.] RegBlog founder and Penn law professor Cary […]
I love a good headline. And boy, did I stumble across a great one today: “Never, Never—NEVER—Wake A Sleeping Tiger.” (The subheading is pretty great too: “Don’t even think about it.”) And sure enough, if you click through, you will see a video of one tiger waking another tiger, and then you’ll learn why you […]