Law Commons^™

Privatizing Regulatory Enforcement: A Preliminary Assessment Of Citizen Suits Under Federal Environmental Laws, Barry Boyer, Errol Meidinger

Errol Meidinger

This article provides a preliminary assessment of the potential effects of the privatization of regulatory enforcement and speculates on what such a realignment might portend for the regulatory process. Based primarily on an indepth review of the first wave of citizen suits brought under the federal Clean Water and Clean Air Acts, it identifies four key problems that can undermine the citizen suit as a device for regulatory enforcement: (1) Citizen suits must surmount a series of doctrinal barriers that could make it difficult or impossible to mount an effective private enforcement campaign. Courts have generally been able to control …

Survey Says: Army Corps No Scalian Despot, Kim Diana Connolly

Kim Diana Connolly

Justice Antonin Scalia and others have described the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers ('the Corps') administration of the permitting process as burdensome and inefficient. Empirical data gathered from the Corps, however, do not bear out this assessment. In this Article, Kim Diana Connolly evaluates data collected from Corps Customer Service Surveys as well as the apparent disconnect between applicant experiences and the public's negative perception of the permitting process. She begins the Article with an overview of the Corps' regulatory permitting process, then lays out the history of and context for the Corps' Customer Service Surveys. Next, she summarizes available …

Can Happy Subjects Have An Enlightened Despot? Customer Satisfaction Among Army Corps Permit Applicants, Kim Diana Connolly

Kim Diana Connolly

No abstract provided.

Has The Field Grown Too Complex For A State-Specific "Handbook" On Environmental Law? (Reviewing The Government Institute's South Carolina Environmental Law Handbook (3rd Ed. 2000)), Kim Diana Connolly

Kim Diana Connolly

No abstract provided.

Forces Of Federalism, Safety Nets, And Waivers, Edward H. Stiglitz

Jed Stiglitz

Inequality is the defining feature of our times. Many argue it calls for a policy response, yet the most obvious policy responses require legislative action. And if inequality is the defining feature of our times, partisan acrimony and gridlock are the defining features of the legislature. So being, it is worth considering what role administrative agencies, and administrative law, might play in ameliorating or exacerbating economic inequality. Here, I focus on American safety net programs, many of which are joint operations between federal administrative agencies and state governments. In this context, a central mode of bureaucratic policy innovation comes in …

Strategic Rulemaking Disclosure, Jennifer Nou, Edward H. Stiglitz

Jed Stiglitz

Congressional enactments and executive orders instruct agencies to publish their anticipated rules in what is known as the Unified Agenda. The Agenda’s stated purpose is to ensure that political actors can monitor regulatory development. Agencies have come under fire in recent years, however, for conspicuous omissions and irregularities. Critics allege that agencies hide their regulations from the public strategically, that is, to thwart potential political opposition. Others contend that such behavior is benign, perhaps the inevitable result of changing internal priorities or unforeseen events. To examine these competing hypotheses, this Article uses a new dataset spanning over thirty years of …

Collaborative Gatekeepers, Stavros Gadinis, Colby Mangels University Of California - Berkeley

Stavros Gadinis

In their efforts to hold financial institutions accountable after the 2007 financial crisis, U.S. regulators have repeatedly turned to anti-money-laundering laws. Initially designed to fight drug cartels and terrorists, these laws have recently yielded billion-dollar fines for all types of bank engagement in fraud and have spurred an overhaul of financial institutions’ internal compliance. This increased reliance on anti-money-laundering laws, we argue, is due to distinct features that can better help regulators gain insights into financial fraud. Most other financial laws enlist private firms as gatekeepers and hold them liable if they knowingly or negligently engage in client fraud. Yet, …

Cooperative Enforcement In Immigration Law, Amanda Frost

Amanda Frost

Scaling "Local": The Implications Of Greenhouse Gas Regulation In San Bernardino County, Hari M. Osofsky

Hari Osofsky

This Essay analyzes local climate regulation in San Bernardino County as a window into the complexities of defining a local scale in an interconnected world. In so doing, it aims to contribute to the Symposium's broader dialogue about "Territory Without Boundaries" and the Panel's more specific discussion of "Urban Territory in a Global World." As a purely territorial matter, U.S. cities and counties differ substantially in their sizes, the quantity and physical characteristics of their land, the size and density of their populations, and the needs of their citizens. Structurally, these localities remain administrative subunits of states, but they also …

The President’S Pen And The Bureaucrat’S Fiefdom, John C. Eastman

John C. Eastman

The Lender As Unconventional Fiduciary, Niels Schaumann

Niels Schaumann

This Article examines one kind of fiduciary relationship—one that develops from an ordinary, arms-length commercial relationship between a lender and a borrower. Although this prototype relationship exists in the broader context of “lender liability,” to which academic commentators and the practicing bar have paid a good deal of attention in recent years, the suggested analysis has as much to do with fiduciary relationships generally as it does with issues of lender liability. The unconventional fiduciary relationship examined here differs in several respects from the conventional fiduciary relationship, for example that of trustee-beneficiary. Perhaps the most obvious difference is that the …

A New Coalescence In The Housing Finance Reform Debate?, Patricia Mccoy, Susan Wachter

Patricia A. McCoy

This policy brief examines recent proposals for reform of the housing finance system.

Representations And Warranties: Why They Did Not Stop The Crisis, Patricia Mccoy, Susan Wachter

Patricia A. McCoy

During the run-up to the 2008 financial crisis, representations and warranties (contractual statements enforceable through legal action) may have given investors false assurance that mortgage loans were being properly underwritten. This assurance in turn may have contributed to overinvestment in mortgage-backed securities in two ways. First, the assumption that legally enforceable penalties associated with reps and warranties would deter lax underwriting may have led to less monitoring of these contracts than would otherwise have occurred. In turn, the lack of monitoring of actual underwriting practices enabled the spread of lax lending practices. The existence of these reps and warranties and …

Proposed Arbitration Ban Would Be Bad Law And Bad Policy, Daniel A. Lyons

Daniel Lyons

No abstract provided.

Net Neutrality’S Path To The Supreme Court: Chevron And The “Major Questions” Exception, Daniel A. Lyons

Daniel Lyons

No abstract provided.

How Should Courts Consider Agency Remarks During The Comment Period?, Daniel A. Lyons

Daniel Lyons

No abstract provided.

Minimally Democratic Administrative Law, Jud Mathews

Jud Mathews

A persistent challenge for the American administrative state is reconciling the vast powers of unelected agencies with our commitment to government by the people. Many features of contemporary administrative law — from the right to participate in agency processes, to the reason-giving requirements on agencies, to the presidential review of rulemaking — have been justified, at least in part, as means to square the realities of agency power with our democratic commitments. At the root of any such effort there lies a theory of democracy, whether fully articulated or only implicit: some conception of what democracy is about, and what …

Proportionality Review In Administrative Law, Jud Mathews

Jud Mathews

At the most basic level, the principle of proportionality captures the common-sensical proposition that, when the government acts, the means it chooses should be well-adapted to achieve the ends it is pursuing. The proportionality principle is an admonition, as German administrative law scholar Fritz Fleiner famously wrote many decades ago, that “the police should not shoot at sparrows with cannons”. The use of proportionality review in constitutional and international law has received ample attention from scholars in recent years, but less has been said about proportionality’s role within administrative law. This piece suggest that we can understand the differences in …

Crafting Comment Letters: Teach Policy, Develop Skills, And Shape Pending Regulation, Nicole G. Iannarone, Benjamin P. Edwards

Nicole G. Iannarone

This essay unpacks the regulatory comment letter process and how to incorporate it into the law school curriculum. Participating in live rulemaking offers unique opportunities for students, from mastering the substantive area of law, developing critical thinking skills, and developing their professional identities and expertise. We describe our own experiences in incorporating students into the regulatory rulemaking process. Because of our focus on securities law, our students review and comment on proposed actions by securities regulators — the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). After providing an overview of the pedagogical and practical rationale for …

Presidential Administration In The Obama Era, Jud Mathews

Jud Mathews

Executive Action And Nonaction, Tom Campbell

Tom Campbell