*This post is part of a symposium on Modernizing Regulatory Review. For other posts in the series, click here. I was pleased to see the new proposed Circular A-4 acknowledge right up front that the “[r]egulatory analysis [it] describe[s] does not supplant any analytic requirements . . . set out in the statutes that authorize or require agency […]
Electromagnetic radio spectrum is the fuel that powers the American commercial wireless industry. And this commercial wireless industry, in turn, powers the American economy with advanced 5G connectivity, ranging the full gamut from facilitating remote work and telemedicine to helping utilities manage their grids more efficiently and allowing farmers increase the productivity of their crops and […]
*This post is part of a symposium on Modernizing Regulatory Review. For other posts in the series, click here. Circular A-4 should include a mandatory process of robust and transparent pre-proposal public collaboration for rules that remain subject to review under the revised EO 12866 guidance. Multiple executive orders subsequent to EO 12866 have required more substantive collaboration with affected persons, […]
ACUS 79th Plenary Session: Save the Date & Agenda Announced The Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS) will convene in its 79th Plenary Session on Thursday, June 15, 2023, at The George Washington University Law School in Washington, D.C. On Tuesday, May 23, 2023, the ACUS Council assembled to consider committee-approved draft recommendations and […]
*This post is part of a symposium on Modernizing Regulatory Review. For other posts in the series, click here. A comparison between the current Circular A-4 and the draft revised Circular A-4 publicized for comment by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) shows that many of the proposed revisions are small textual changes that seem at first blush merely […]
The D.C. Circuit issued two decisions this past week, both in criminal cases (one about challenging Armed Career Criminal Act sentences on collateral review and one reversing a conviction for a Brady violation). With arguments over for the term, and in lieu of any admin law decisions to discuss (though I expect the usual summer […]
*This post is part of a symposium on Modernizing Regulatory Review. For other posts in the series, click here. Public notice of regulatory proposals, with an opportunity for public comment, has long been part of the federal regulatory process in the U.S., and I hope it always will be. Public comments inform regulatory choices at agencies, […]
There is considerable buzz that the demise of Chevron is at hand. The Court expressly teed up the issue when it granted certiorari in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, No. 22-451 (U.S. May 1, 2023). In part, the Court agreed to consider whether it “should overrule Chevron.” Loper, though, may warrant more than mere buzz; it could prove far more significant than […]
*This post is part of a symposium on Modernizing Regulatory Review. For other posts in the series, click here. For the most part, Executive Order 14,094 (“the Order”) closely follows in the footsteps of President Biden’s January 2021 memorandum on “Modernizing Regulatory Review” (“the Memorandum”). For instance, it is no surprise that the Order features both updated methodology for cost-benefit […]
*This post is part of a symposium on Modernizing Regulatory Review. For other posts in the series, click here. Analytic transparency offers enormous potential. Through the tools of economics and science, a good benefit-cost analysis enables regulators to identify the regulatory alternative among the options studied that leaves society best off. And disclosing that analysis enables outside […]
*This post is part of a symposium on Modernizing Regulatory Review. For other posts in the series, click here. Cost-benefit analysis is a critical part of rulemaking because it helps the government efficiently allocate its resources. Sometimes efficiency must be sacrificed to ensure that regulations are equitable. Policymakers must balance efficiency and equity in a judicious […]
Previously arcane arguments over the constitutionality of the public debt limit now make headlines.[1] At the same time, debate swirls around whether the President of the United States has the constitutional authority, resting on Section Four of the 14th Amendment, to ignore the debt limit. If the debt ceiling is unconstitutional, does it automatically default […]
*This post is part of a symposium on Modernizing Regulatory Review. For other posts in the series, click here. “The perfect is the enemy of the good,” a wise old saying cautions. That aphorism captures the fundamental human predicament of limited cognitive capacity, an often overlooked point for which my favorite polymath, Herbert Simon, won the Nobel prize […]
*This post is part of a symposium on Modernizing Regulatory Review. For other posts in the series, click here. The Biden administration’s recent proposed revisions to Circular A-4 — the official instruction manual for agencies on how to perform cost-benefit analysis for their new rules — represent a fundamental rethinking of not only the methodologies and techniques for […]
*This post is part of a symposium on Modernizing Regulatory Review. For other posts in the series, click here. President Joe Biden’s recent Executive Order on Modernizing Regulatory Review makes explicit mention of the potential for artificial intelligence (AI) to impact the public comment process in agency notice-and-comment rulemaking. But the Biden Administration needs to be careful how […]