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Administrative Law

Selected Works

Donald J. Kochan

Articles 1 - 14 of 14

Full-Text Articles in Law

Reason-Giving, Rulemaking, And The Rule Of Law, Donald J. Kochan Dec 2018

Reason-Giving, Rulemaking, And The Rule Of Law, Donald J. Kochan

Donald J. Kochan

The requirement that agencies give reasons for their actions and in support of their interpretations in administrative law serves important Rule of Law values. It forces agencies to consider how and whether their actions can be justified and provides a means of accountability, allowing the public to judge the agency actions by the reasons offered. One of the areas where reason-giving is most debated is in the face of a new administration that seeks to alter, amend, or repeal a rule that has already gone through the strenuous notice and comment rulemaking process. Administrative law allows such changes so long …

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Strategic Institutional Positioning: How We Have Come To Generate Environmental Law Without Congress, Donald J. Kochan Dec 2018

Strategic Institutional Positioning: How We Have Come To Generate Environmental Law Without Congress, Donald J. Kochan

Donald J. Kochan

When examining legislation authorizing administrative agencies to promulgate rules, we are often left asking whether Congress “delegates” away its lawmaking authority by giving agencies too much power and discretion to decide what rules should be promulgated and to determine how rich to make their content. If the agencies get broad authority, it is not too hard to understand why they would fulsomely embrace the grant to its fullest. Once agencies are let loose by broad grants of rulemaking authority and they are off to the races, we are also often left scratching our heads wondering why Congress fails to intervene …

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The Commenting Power: Agency Accountability Through Public Participation, Donald J. Kochan Dec 2017

The Commenting Power: Agency Accountability Through Public Participation, Donald J. Kochan

Donald J. Kochan

Whether you are a member of the resistance movement or a cheerleader for the new Trump Administration’s regulatory reform agenda, this Essay intends to engage your passion. (Of course, scholars, students, and agency officials should be interested too.) The notice and comment rulemaking process governing the creation of most regulations generated by federal agencies includes an obligation that agencies respond to public comments. This public participation requirement, with its “two way street” obligation to dialogue, is a critical check on agency power. The laws in this area are ones about which anyone interested in regulation should know more. Describing general …

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Incumbent Landscapes, Disruptive Uses: Perspectives On Marijuana-Related Land Use Control, Donald J. Kochan Dec 2015

Incumbent Landscapes, Disruptive Uses: Perspectives On Marijuana-Related Land Use Control, Donald J. Kochan

Donald J. Kochan

The story behind the move toward marijuana’s legality is a story of disruptive forces to the incumbent legal and physical landscape. It affects incumbent markets, incumbent places, the incumbent regulatory structure, and the legal system in general which must mediate the battles involving the push for relaxation of illegality and adaptation to accepting new marijuana-related land uses, against efforts toward entrenchment, resilience, and resistance to that disruption.

This Article is entirely agnostic on the issue of whether we should or should not decriminalize, legalize, or otherwise increase legal tolerance for marijuana or any other drugs. Nonetheless, we must grapple with …

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Bubbles (Or, Some Reflections On The Basic Laws Of Human Relations), Donald J. Kochan Dec 2014

Bubbles (Or, Some Reflections On The Basic Laws Of Human Relations), Donald J. Kochan

Donald J. Kochan

Very few of us want to live in the absolute isolation of a “bubble.” Most humans cherish the capacity to interact with their external environment even when we know that, at times, such exposure makes us susceptible to all sorts of negative effects ranging from mere annoyance to the contraction of deadly illnesses. Yet, because there are so many positive elements and benefits from that interaction and exposure, we often are willing to take the bitter with the sweet. We tolerate much external exposure to bad things in order to take advantage of the collisions with the good things that …

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Economics-Based Environmentalism In The Fourth Generation Of Environmental Law, Donald J. Kochan Dec 2014

Economics-Based Environmentalism In The Fourth Generation Of Environmental Law, Donald J. Kochan

Donald J. Kochan

Environmental protection and economic concerns are not mutually exclusive. This article explores some of the issues of economic analysis that might arise as we approach the fourth generation of environmental law. It explains ways that economic analysis can be employed to generate the best environmental rules, including measures under what this article terms as "economics-based environmentalism." Economics-based environmentalism contends that the advantages of using economic principles within a “polycentric toolbox” of environmental law come from the benefits available in private ordering, markets, property rights, liability regimes and incentives structures that will better protect the environment than alternatives like state-based interventionist, …

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A Framework For Understanding Property Regulation And Land Use Control From A Dynamic Perspective, Donald J. Kochan Dec 2014

A Framework For Understanding Property Regulation And Land Use Control From A Dynamic Perspective, Donald J. Kochan

Donald J. Kochan

Our land use control system operates across a variety of multidimensional and dynamic categories. Learning to navigate within and between these categories requires an appreciation for their interconnected, dynamic, and textured components and an awareness of alternative mechanisms for achieving one’s land use control preferences and one’s desired ends. Whether seeking to minimize controls as a property owner or attempting to place controls on the land uses of another, one should take time to understand the full ecology of the system. This Article looks at four broad categories of control: (1) no controls, or the state of nature; (2) judicial …

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Constituencies And Contemporaneousness In Reason-Giving: Thoughts And Direction After T-Mobile, Donald J. Kochan Dec 2014

Constituencies And Contemporaneousness In Reason-Giving: Thoughts And Direction After T-Mobile, Donald J. Kochan

Donald J. Kochan

This Article presents a framework for reason giving requirements in administrative law that includes a demand on agencies that reasons be produced contemporaneously with agency decisions where multiple constituencies (including regulated entities) and not just the courts (and judiciary review) are served and respected as consumers of the reasons. The Article postulates that the January 2015 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of T-Mobile South, LLC v. City of Roswell may prove to be groundbreaking and stir this framework to the forefront of administrative law decisionmaking. There are some fundamental yet very understated lessons in the T-Mobile …

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The "Reason Giving" Lawyer: An Ethical, Practical, And Pedagogical Perspective, Donald J. Kochan Dec 2012

The "Reason Giving" Lawyer: An Ethical, Practical, And Pedagogical Perspective, Donald J. Kochan

Donald J. Kochan

Whether as a matter of duty or utility, lawyers give reasons for their actions all the time. In the various venues in which legal skills must be employed, reason giving is required in some, expected in others, desired in many, and useful in most. This Essay underscores the pervasiveness of reason giving in the practice of law and the consequent necessity of lawyers developing a skill at giving reasons. This Essay examines reason giving as an innate human characteristic related directly to our need for answers and our constant yearning to understand the answer to the question “why.” It briefly …

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Ripe Standing Vines And The Jurisprudential Tasting Of Matured Legal Wines – And Law & Bananas: Property And Public Choice In The Permitting Process, Donald J. Kochan Dec 2008

Ripe Standing Vines And The Jurisprudential Tasting Of Matured Legal Wines – And Law & Bananas: Property And Public Choice In The Permitting Process, Donald J. Kochan

Donald J. Kochan

From produce to wine, we only consume things when they are ready. The courts are no different. That concept of “readiness” is how courts address cases and controversies as well. Justiciability doctrines, particularly ripeness, have a particularly important role in takings challenges to permitting decisions. The courts largely hold that a single permit denial does not give them enough information to evaluate whether the denial is in violation of law. As a result of this jurisprudential reality, regulators with discretion have an incentive to use their power to extract rents from those that need their permission. Non-justiciability of permit denials …

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Much Ado About Pluralities: Pride And Precedent Amidst The Cacophy Of Concurrences, And Re-Percolation After Rapanos, Donald J. Kochan, Melissa M. Berry, Matthew J. Parlow Dec 2007

Much Ado About Pluralities: Pride And Precedent Amidst The Cacophy Of Concurrences, And Re-Percolation After Rapanos, Donald J. Kochan, Melissa M. Berry, Matthew J. Parlow

Donald J. Kochan

Conflicts created by concurrences and pluralities in court decisions create confusion in law and lower court interpretation. Rule of law values require that individuals be able to identify controlling legal principles. That task is complicated when pluralities and concurrences contribute to the vagueness or uncertainty that leaves us wondering what the controlling rule is or attempting to predict what it will evolve to become. The rule of law is at least handicapped when continuity or confidence or confusion infuse our understanding of the applicable rules. This Article uses the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision in Rapanos v. United States to …

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In The Heat Of The Law, It's Not Just Steam: Geothermal Resources And The Impact On Thermophile Biodiversity, Donald J. Kochan, Tiffany Grant Dec 2006

In The Heat Of The Law, It's Not Just Steam: Geothermal Resources And The Impact On Thermophile Biodiversity, Donald J. Kochan, Tiffany Grant

Donald J. Kochan

Significant research has been conducted into the utilization of geothermal resources as a ‘green’ energy source. However, minimal research has been conducted into geothermal resource utilization and depletion impacts on thermophile biodiversity. Thermophiles are organisms which have adapted over millions of year to extreme temperature and chemical compositions and exist in hot springs and other geothermal resources. Their ability to withstand high temperatures makes them invaluable to scientific and medical research. Current federal and California case law classify geothermal resources as a mineral, not a water resource. Acquisition of rights to develop a geothermal resource owned or reserved by the …

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Runoff And Reality: Externalities, Economics, And Traceability Issues In Urban Runoff Regulation, Donald J. Kochan Dec 2005

Runoff And Reality: Externalities, Economics, And Traceability Issues In Urban Runoff Regulation, Donald J. Kochan

Donald J. Kochan

It has long eluded regulators and private enforcers how to control the imposition of negative externalities. This paper will examine: (1) Whether existing authorities (like the Clean Water Act) are capable of providing regulation of urban runoff; (2) Whether, in light of economic controls, regulation of these activities are necessary; (3) A summary of recent runoff litigation; and (4) What is next; what should be next? Although each of these questions form background, the primary emphasis currently anticipated for this presentation is on traceability, collective action, and free rider problems that motivate regulation in this area. Often runoff is described …

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State Laws And The Independent Judiciary: An Analysis Of The Effects Of The Seventeenth Amendment On The Number Of Supreme Court Cases Holding State Laws Unconstitutional, Donald J. Kochan Dec 2002

State Laws And The Independent Judiciary: An Analysis Of The Effects Of The Seventeenth Amendment On The Number Of Supreme Court Cases Holding State Laws Unconstitutional, Donald J. Kochan

Donald J. Kochan

In recent years, the Seventeenth Amendment has been the subject of legal scholarship, congressional hearings and debate, Supreme Court opinions, popular press articles and commentary, state legislative efforts aimed at repeal, and activist repeal movements. To date, the literature on the effects of the Seventeenth Amendment has focused almost exclusively on the effects on the political production of legislation and competition between legislative bodies. Very little attention has been given to the potential adverse effects of the Seventeenth Amendment on the relationship between state legislatures and the federal courts. This Article seeks to fill part of that literature gap, applying …

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