As readers are no doubt aware, the Trump administration has attempted to “pause” various spending programs for an initial period at the start of Trump’s new term. Two first-day executive orders mandated such pauses for certain grants and foreign aid pending a review for compliance with administration policies. On January 27, the Office of Management […]
There were no opinions out of the D.C. Circuit last week–only an order granting a motion for summary affirmance in False Claims Act appeal. While there are interesting Article II questions surrounding qui tam actions, the order simply applies settled law that pro se litigants cannot pursue claims on behalf of the United States. For […]
Welcome back to Ninth Circuit Review-Reviewed, your periodic recap of administrative law before arguably “the second most important court in the land.” Since my last post in late 2024, the Ninth Circuit published several significant decisions involving agency adjudications. These cases—and their doctrinal implications—are discussed below. Panel Applies Decker Coal Doctrine in Denying ‘Double Tenure’ […]
Today’s Ad Law Reading Room entry is “Standard Textualism,” by James Macleod. Here is the abstract: For as long as legal scholars have been writing about the rules-versus-standards distinction, textualism has been presumed to produce typically rule-like law. This Article argues for the opposite view. Far from generating the “law of rules” that Scalia famously […]
INTRODUCTION In the aftermath of Donald Trump’s return to the White House, a flurry of executive orders and memoranda has once again brought the concept of “national emergency” to the forefront of American governance. Within hours of taking office, the administration declared a “national emergency at the southern border,” villainized immigration, and raised the specter […]
The D.C. Circuit issued only one opinion last week, and it wasn’t about administrative law. (The case involved a civil contempt motion to enforce an injunction that protected free-exercise rights under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.) The court did hear arguments on several administrative-law cases, including: More opinions to come soon!
Here is the December 2024 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. For more on why SSRN and this eJournal are such terrific resources for administrative law scholars and practitioners, check out my first post on the subject here. You can […]
On January 27, the Trump administration directed federal agencies to pause the obligation and disbursement of all federal financial assistance. This is the first shot in an impending struggle over impoundment, which is a President’s refusal to spend Congressional appropriations on time, or at all. Former Trump administration officials and current nominees for the new administration have repeatedly argued that the President has […]
An argument lurking just beneath the surface in a pending Fifth Circuit case could stem the bleeding from the Supreme Court’s decision in SEC v. Jarkesy. Last summer, Jarkesy held that agencies seeking to impose monetary penalties on enforcement targets for securities fraud and other common law-ish claims must proceed in court, not their own administrative forums. Now, Burgess v. […]
The D.C. Circuit decided four administrative law cases last week. This post focuses on Cigar Association of America v. FDA. The district court (Mehta, J.) vacated an FDA regulation on the ground that it arbitrarily and capriciously applied to “premium cigars.” In an opinion by Judge Randolph, the D.C. Circuit agreed on the merits. But it […]
The D.C. Circuit published two opinions in the week of January 13th. Both involved FERC, and the more interesting of the two raised questions about standing doctrine. Industrial Energy Consumers of America v. FERC was the standing case. The petitioners, various organizations representing energy consumers, petitioned for review of FERC orders granting stage one approval […]
On Tuesday, many law students received a rather unfortunate email from the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Office of Attorney Recruitment & Management. The email read: “This email is about your application to the Attorney General’s Honors Program. Pursuant to the hiring freeze announced January 20, 2025, your job offer has been revoked.” Soon, rumors spread […]
This is a quick post to share some easy-to-read explainers about what different agency heads and civil servants do, how the civil service works, and Trump’s early and antagonistic actions towards our civil service system. Sometimes the government can seem like a black box. My view is that as you hear about early actions of […]
In a recent post in this space, “The (Likely) End of the FCC’s Long-Running Net Neutrality Saga,” I explained why the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit’s decision in Ohio Telecom Association v. FCC on January 2 likely signals the end of the FCC’s lengthy history of imposing, abandoning, and reimposing “net neutrality” mandates on Internet service providers, […]
Doctors learn about removing stitches. Dentists train to take off those pesky braces. Lawyers, however, spend little of their education studying when a law needs to come off the books. This isn’t a new problem. As noted by Karl Llewellyn in 1935, law students come to think that “for too much law, more law will be […]