Law Commons^™

Did The Supreme Court In Transunion V. Ramirez Transform The Article Iii Standing Injury In Fact Test?: The Circuit Split Over Ada Tester Standing And Broader Theoretical Considerations, Bradford Mank

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

Some commentators have criticized the Supreme Court’s 2016 decision in Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins and especially the Court’s 2021 decision in TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez for limiting Congress’ authority to confer standing by statute. For example, in his article, Injury in Fact Transformed, Professor Cass Sunstein argues that TransUnion is a “radical ruling” that uses the injury in fact standing requirement to limit the authority of Congress to enact only statutes that address harms that have a close relationship to traditional or common law harms. By contrast, Professor Ernst Young argues that the Supreme Court’s injury in fact doctrine is …

Facebook, Welfare, And Natural Monopoly: A Quantitative Analysis Of Antitrust Remedies, Felix B. Chang, Seth Benzell

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

This Article advances a novel theoretical model for assessing policy interventions against Facebook. As prosecutors barrel forward against digital platforms, soon it will fall upon courts and, eventually, regulators to devise remedies. We argue that any sensible solution must include quantification of the welfare effects on the platform’s various constituents. Our model prioritizes the effects upon total societal welfare—or, in economists’ terms, social welfare. Applied to Facebook, the model calculates social welfare as the sum of four components: (i) consumer welfare; (ii) advertising profits; (iii) tax revenues; and (iv) the value of a large user base.

Drawing on surveys of …

Mining The Harvard Caselaw Access Project, Felix B. Chang, Erin Mccabe, James Lee

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

This Essay illustrates how machine learning can disrupt legal scholarship through the algorithmic extraction and analysis of big data. Specifically, we utilize data from Harvard Law School’s Caselaw Access Project to model how courts tackle two thorny question in antitrust: the measure of market power and the balance between antitrust and regulation.

Gridlock, Lobbying, And Democracy, Joseph P. Tomain

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

With the refusal to fill the Supreme Court vacancy left by Antonin Scalia, the Senate adds another layer of gridlock in Washington. In the recent past, congressional gridlock has threatened to shut down the legislative process by such maneuvers as creating a faux debt crisis and by regularly assailing the president and the executive branch over so-called job-killing regulations. Through these efforts, obstructionist Republicans have attempted a gridlock hat-trick by trying to shut down each of the three branches of government-at least as far as the headlines go. The political reality, however, is more nuanced, and gridlock is more complicated …

The Twin Demons Of The Trump-Bannon Assault On Democracy, Joseph P. Tomain

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

On January 30, 2017, President Donald Trump signed an executive order "Reducing Regulation and Controlling Regulatory Costs." Then, on February 24, he signed an executive order on “Enforcing the Regulatory Reform Agenda.” Together these two executive orders constitute a severe threat to American society and the American economy. In the words of Stephen Bannon, Trump’s chief strategist, they represent a plan for “the deconstruction of the administrative state.”

The purpose of the administrative state can be most simply stated this way: Unless otherwise stated in the enabling legislation, government regulation makes sense when the benefits of regulation outweigh the costs …

Financial Market Bottlenecks And The 'Openness' Mandate, Felix B. Chang

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

Financial market infrastructures (“FMIs”), which facilitate the execution of financial transactions, exhibit such strong economies of scale that they are natural monopolies. In each market, production is controlled by a few dominant players. Federal courts have traditionally checked the abuses of natural monopolies under the Sherman Act. Yet recent Supreme Court decisions have reined in the role of antitrust in regulated industries, where administrative bodies set and enforce standards. To this effect, financial regulations require certain FMIs to grant open, nondiscriminatory access to users.

This Article argues that weak “openness” regulations must be buttressed by their antitrust counterpart — specifically, …

Traditionally-Structured Electric Utilities In A Distributed Generation World, Joseph P. Tomain

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

This article argues that the twenty-first century challenge to the electric industry is different in kind from previous challenges. Further, past responses to past challenges are inadequate to meet the convergence of demands posed on investor owned electric utilities by new technologies, new markets, and new regulations. Instead, the twenty-first century challenge requires a dramatic new response as electric utilities face a new economic order and as they seek revenue protection and assurances of financial stability from their regulators.

This article will first explore current industry characteristics and challenges in Part II. Part III will then discuss the current situation …

On Regulating Conflicts Of Interest In The Credit Rating Industry, Lin (Lynn) Bai

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

This paper discusses issues giving rise to conflict of interest concerns in the credit rating industry and examines whether and how those issues are addressed in the current regulation that builds on the guidelines of the Credit Rating Agency Reform Act of 2006, the SEC rules that were initially adopted in 2007 and recently amended in 2009, and the internal code of conducts of rating agencies. The examination leads to a conclusion that conflict of interest at the individual rating analyst level and some concerns of conflict of interest at the agency level have been largely addressed in the current …

'Steel In The Ground': Greening The Grid With The Iutility, Joseph P. Tomain

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

As the United States addresses climate change through carbon reduction strategies, it must focus on the two major parts of our energy portfolio - oil and electricity. Electricity is a central focus because over one-half of all electricity generated is derived from coal-burning power plants, which are notoriously dirty. Other cleaner and renewable sources of electricity, such as wind and solar power, are available. However, over the last hundred years, the electricity industry has been constructed to serve large-scale, centralized and capital-intensive coal and nuclear plants.

There are good economic reasons for building large power plants. Economies of scale can …

Can Administrative Regulations Interpret Rights Enforceable Under Section 1983?: Why Chevron Deference Survives Sandoval And Gonzaga, Bradford Mank

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

There is a split in the circuits regarding whether and when agency regulations may establish rights enforceable through 42 U.S.C. Section 1983. In 1987, in Wright v. City of Roanoke, the Supreme Court held that a statute and regulations interpreting the statute could create enforceable rights under Section 1983, but left unclear to what extent it had relied on the regulations alone to reach this conclusion. The District of Columbia Circuit and Sixth Circuit have held that at least some valid federal regulations may create rights enforceable through Section 1983. Concluding that only Congress by enacting a statute may create …

Entering The U.S. Securities Markets: Regulation Of Non-U.S. Issuers, Barbara Black

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

The U.S. securities markets offer the greatest opportunities for businesses that wish to raise additional capital or expand their shareholder base. Large non-U.S. corporations regularly tap the U.S. market for infusions of capital, and the securities of many non-U.S. corporations are listed on the New York Stock Exchange or traded on NASDAQ. Smaller non-U.S. entities, however, may be deterred from entering the U.S. markets because of concerns about the burdens of U.S. securities regulation. These concerns are legitimate: a decision to enter the highly-regulated U.S. securities markets should not be made lightly. For non-U.S. private issuers, perhaps the greatest difficulty …

The Past And Future Of Electricity Regulation, Joseph P. Tomain

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

Electric industry restructuring has been an activity not free from difficulties. The California energy crisis of the summer of 2000, the world crisis after September 11, as well as the implosion of Enron have raised questions about the future of electricity restructuring. As a policy matter, the move to reduce command-and-control regulation of the electric industry and to promote competition enjoys widespread support. The industry, however, is not one that can be totally deregulated. This Article argues that the California and Enron crises may slow restructuring, but restructuring should continue as a matter of sound industrial policy. In addition, the …

Networkindustries.Gov.Reg, Joseph P. Tomain

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

This essay is part of a Symposium entitled "American Regulatory Policy: Have We Found A Third Way?" The paper looks at the changes in the regulation of what were once called public utilities and are now called network industries. Traditional regulation is described and compared with the current form and structure of the regulation of these industries. The paper makes the argument that, even though deregulation is occurring consistent with Third Way thinking, it is occurring not only because of changes in world global economic views. Rather, it is changing because of what traditional regulation has accomplished.

Traditional regulation constructed …

The Environmental Protection Agency's Project Xl And Other Regulatory Reform Initiatives: The Need For Legislative Authorization, Bradford Mank

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

The focus of this Article is twofold. First, the Article will show that EPA's reform initiatives are severely hampered by a lack of legal authority, and proposes that Congress give EPA sufficient authority to enact needed reforms. Second, this Article will address concerns that reform will lead to inferior environmental protection and public participation. This Article proposes a number of statutory provisions to ensure that, once EPA has sufficient authority to pursue its reform agenda the agency will do so in a way that avoids a diminution of public health safeguards.

Electricity Restructuring: A Case Study In Government Regulation, Joseph P. Tomain

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

Understanding the electric power industry can at times be overwhelming given the amount of information, technical jargon, economic forecasts, and detail involved with such a complex field. For the sanguine (or the cynical), the more regulatory or deregulatory initiatives the better because the industry needs the regulatory services of lawyers and other consultants. For the less sanguine (or the less cynical), there is a desire for some stillness in this ongoing change in the regulation of the electric power industry. It is the intent of this article to provide some relief through a brief regulatory history of the electric industry. …

The Rule Of Capture: Government And The Oil Industry, Joseph P. Tomain

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

The Oil Follies of 1970-1980 by Robert Sherrill, is a broad account of an important decade for energy law and politics. In a capsule review of the book, I noted that it is a journalistic, rather than an academic, look at the theory of capture as a way of talking about government regulation. Because Sherrill was writing for a predominantly lay audience, he did not undertake a systematic and rigorous analysis of the legal regulations concerning the petroleum industry. Nevertheless, his book does provoke a serious question: Is Big Oil bad, and if so, how should government regulate it? This …

Compensable Regulations And An Alternative Compensation System, Joseph P. Tomain

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

The traditional dichotomy between governmental regulation and takings law no longer represents a viable means of accomplishing present day societal or individual goals with respect to land use. This author believes that a system can be created that considers both the interests of the government and the individual, attempting to reach an equitable and practical result with respect to each. This article explores the potential use of an alternative compensation system relating to governmental activity in the field of land use-a system based not upon the highest and best use principle, but rather upon the use of compensable regulations. The …

Elimination Of The Highest And Best Use Principle: Another Path Through The Middle Way, Joseph P. Tomain

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

Traditional land use law categorizes governmental activities that affect the value of private property as exercises of either the state's police power or eminent domain power. This dichotomy has created what Professor John J. Costonis describes as the "disparity issue": if in a legitimate exercise of its police power a state reduces the value of land, no compensation is required; if the governmental action devalues land too much, however, it is deemed a taking within the eminent domain power and full compensation according to the land's "highest and best use" is required. Often, this compensation exceeds the land's present value. …

Land Use Controls In Iowa, Joseph P. Tomain

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

Land use controls in Iowa, as in other states, exist in a variety of forms. Both the substance and structure of these controls continually change to meet the needs of a developing society. Recent and rapid technological growth, together with the spread of population, indicate that there is a growing interdependence between land use and land users. As a result of this interdependence and the complex nature of our technological and economic environment, the number of governmental regulations is increasing rapidly. This Article will focus on the two predominant governmental controls utilized in Iowa-zoning and planning. Next, the Article will …