Agencies have long known that the formal promulgation of rules is a regimented process, involving codification of requirements and consideration of public comments. The natural curb on agency evasion of this onerous process is the potential threat of lawsuits under the APA, but EO 13771 generates another, possibly more stringent curb. The Jan. 30, […]
Despite recent Republican warnings that the Senate will work 24/7 to overcome Democratic delay tactics, Republicans are unlikely to execute that strategy. Floor time is the most valuable resource that Senate Republicans have and they have a number of pressing issues. Senate Republicans only have limited time to use the Congressional Review Act and its […]
In a previous post on Notice & Comment, I argued that the Obama administration leveraged a judicial settlement with Volkswagen to circumvent the Congress’s power of the purse. In this post, I argue that the same settlement also infringes on President Trump’s Article II authority. Here’s the backstory. In 2011, President Obama announced his administration’s […]
President Trump’s “Executive Order on Reducing Regulation and Controlling Regulatory Costs” has received a fair amount of attention for its “2-for-1” formula: if an agency wishes to promulgate a new regulation, it must “identify at least two existing regulations to be repealed.” But there is an additional requirement built into the executive order that has […]
This past week Washington state jumped into the fight against President Trump’s executive order limiting immigration, filing suit in district court in Washington. The district court issued a nationwide temporary stay of the order, and the United States has now appealed to the Ninth Circuit. One of the major issues in the case is whether […]
In Michigan v. EPA (2015), one of Justice Scalia’s last major administrative law opinions, the Court said that the Environmental Protection Agency must consider costs, including compliance costs, when deciding whether it is “appropriate and necessary” to regulate mercury and other hazardous emissions from power plants, under the Clean Air Act. I’ve been seeing suggestions […]
Apparently Trump’s HHS doesn’t think so. From Jonathan Cohn at the Huffington Post: HHS has already submitted a proposal of new rules to OMB. [Under the proposal,] insurers would have more leeway to vary prices by age, so that premiums for the oldest customers could be 3.49 times as large as those for younger customers. […]
On January 30, President Trump issued an Executive Order entitled “Reducing Regulation and Controlling Regulatory Costs,” which if properly implemented may herald the most significant changes in the federal regulatory process since 1981, when President Reagan instituted formal White House Regulatory Review of rules issued by Executive departments and agencies. At this stage, analysis of […]
Next Friday I will moderate a teleconference on behalf of the ABA Section of Administrative Law & Regulator Practice. The panel will discuss rulemaking in the new administration. It’s free, but you have to RSVP. Here is the relevant information: Friday, February 10, 2017 1:15 pm – 2:15 pm Eastern Time With a new President […]
I have a confession: I don’t really care about this year’s Super Bowl. Atlanta is a lovely place — I’ve been there once — but I have literally no opinion about the Atlanta Falcons. And although I lived in Massachusetts for a time, I prefer not to think about it.* But one thing about the […]
Much of the commentary on President Trump and the Foreign Emoluments Clause has assumed that foreign government payments made to the Trump Organization should be treated as payments to the President himself. In this post, I want to informally explain how the presence of the business entities comprising the Trump Organization complicates the analysis. For […]
I’ve got an article up at Vox on the possibility that Donald Trump might suspend enforcement of the ACA’s individual mandate. Would that be legal? The short answer is no. The longer answer is more complicated, but it’s also instructive. At key points, President Barack Obama delayed aspects of the ACA in an effort to […]
It’s a new year for administrative law scholarship, one full of promise with so many fascinating adlaw issues arising with a change in presidential administration. We have new executive orders and other executive actions, chatter about the removal of the CFPB director, agencies with new leadership with new agendas, unified government with perhaps unusual alliances for […]
Yale Law School Professor Nick Parrillo must have a crystal ball. His just-posted article, The Endgame of Administrative Law: Governmental Disobedience and the Judicial Contempt Power, seems to have anticipated today’s headlines. The controversies over Trump’s ill-considered Immigration Executive Order, Trump’s summary firing of Acting Attorney General Sally Yates for refusing to defend the […]
In the past few days a number of people have asked me about Judge Thomas Hardiman and administrative law. Each time my answer was, “Well, I actually don’t know.” There has been some good writing on Judge Gorsuch and administrative law, in particular with respect to his recently voiced skepticism toward judicial deference to agency […]