Law Commons^™

Against Administrative Judges, Kent H. Barnett

Scholarly Works

The single largest cadre of federal adjudicators goes largely ignored by scholars, policymakers, courts, and even litigating parties. These Administrative Judges or “AJs,” often confused with well-known federal Administrative Law Judges or “ALJs,” operate by the thousands in numerous federal agencies. Yet unlike ALJs, the significantly more numerous AJs preside over less formal hearings and have no significant statutory protections to preserve their impartiality. The national press has recently called attention to the alleged unfairness of certain ALJ proceedings, and regulated parties have successfully enjoined agencies’ use of ALJs. While fixes are necessary for ALJ adjudication, any solution that ignores …

Minimally Democratic Administrative Law, Jud Mathews

Journal Articles

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 …

Controlling Presidential Control, Kathryn A. Watts

Articles

Presidents Reagan and Clinton laid the foundation for strong presidential control over the administrative state, institutionalizing White House review of agency regulations. Presidential control, however, did not stop there. To the contrary, it has evolved and deepened during the presidencies of George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Indeed, President Obama’s efforts to control agency action have dominated the headlines in recent months, touching on everything from immigration to drones to net neutrality.

Despite the entrenchment of presidential control over the modern regulatory state, administrative law has yet to adapt. To date, the most pervasive response both inside and outside the …

Codifying Chevmore, Kent H. Barnett

Scholarly Works

This Article considers the significance and promise of Congress’s unprecedented codification of the well-known Chevron and Skidmore judicial-deference doctrines (to which I refer collectively as “Chevmore”). Congress did so in the Dodd-Frank Act by instructing courts to apply the Skidmore deference factors when reviewing certain agency-preemption decisions and by referring to Chevron throughout.

This codification is meaningful because it informs the delegation theory that undergirds Chevmore (i.e., that Congress intends to delegate interpretive primacy over statutory interpretation to agencies under Chevron or courts under Skidmore). Scholars and at least three Supreme Court Justices have decried the judicial inquiry into congressional …

Means And Ends In City Of Arlington V. Fcc: Ignoring The Lawyer's Craft To Reshape The Scope Of Chevron Deference, Michael P. Healy

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

In last year's term, the United States Supreme Court considered the question of the scope of Chevron deference in City of Arlington v. FCC. This article discusses how the decision is an example of the work of an activist Court. The case should have been resolved by a straightforward determination under the analysis of United States v. Mead that Chevron deference simply did not apply to the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) legal determination. The Court ignored this restrained approach to the case and instead addressed the question the Justices desired to decide: the reach of Chevron deference. The article …

Formalism And Deference In Administration Law, Kristen E. Hickman, Jide O. Nzelibe, Thomas W. Merrill, Philip A. Hamburger, Jennifer Walker Elrod

Faculty Scholarship

The topic for discussion is formalism and deference in administrative law. As we know, the landmark case of Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council has changed the face of modern administrative law. The panel will address the rightness and limitations of Chevron deference, especially in the context of agency decisions on the scope of the agencies’ jurisdictional mandates. Should the federal courts defer, or should they not defer in this context? We need guidance. Justices Scalia and Thomas recently differed from Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Kennedy and Alito on these issues. Who is right, and why? Does the answer …

Unearthing The Lost History Of Seminole Rock, Amy J. Wildermuth, Sanne H. Knudsen

Articles

In 1945, the Supreme Court blessed a lesser known type of agency deference in Bowles v. Seminole Rock. Also known as Auer deference, it affords deference to agency interpretations of their own regulations. Courts regularly defer to agencies under this doctrine, regardless of where the interpretations first appear or how long-standing they are. Recently members of the Supreme Court have signaled a willingness to reconsider, and perhaps jettison, Seminole Rock. We agree. Seminole Rock has been widely accepted but surprisingly disconnected from any analysis of its origins and justifications. This Article — the first historical explication of Seminole …

Chevron At The Roberts Court: Still Failing After All These Years, Jack M. Beermann

Faculty Scholarship

This article looks at how Chevron deference has fared at the Supreme Court since John G. Roberts became Chief Justice. The article looks at Chevron deference at the Roberts Court from three distinct angles. First, the voting records of individual Justices in cases citing Chevron are examined to shed light on the strength of each Justice’s commitment to deference to agency statutory construction. Second, a select sample of opinions citing Chevron are qualitatively examined to see whether the Roberts Court has been any more successful than its predecessor in constructing a coherent Chevron doctrine. Third, the article looks closely at …

Improving Agencies’ Preemption Expertise With Chevmore Codification, Kent H. Barnett

Scholarly Works

After nearly thirty years, the judicially crafted Chevron and Skidmore judicial-review doctrines have found new life as exotic, yet familiar, legislative tools. When Chevron deference applies, courts employ two steps: they consider whether the statutory provision at issue is ambiguous, and, if so, they defer to an administering agency’s reasonable interpretation. Skidmore deference, in contrast, is a less deferential regime in which courts assume interpretative primacy over statutory ambiguities but defer to agency action based on four factors — the agency’s thoroughness, reasoning, consistency, and overall persuasiveness. In the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, Congress directed courts …

The Past, Present And Future Of Auer Deference: Mead, Form And Function In Judicial Review Of Agency Interpretations Of Regulations, Michael P. Healy

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

The law of judicial review of agency legal interpretations has undergone an important reshaping as a consequence of the Supreme Court decision in United States v. Mead Corp. That decision and the important follow-on decision in National Cable & Telecommunications Ass 'n v. Brand X Internet Services have changed the understanding of the Court's landmark 1984 decision in Chevron, U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. Chevron defined a new era of judicial deference to an agency's interpretation of an ambiguous statute, but the Chevron era has itself been transformed.

These legal developments had seemed to have little consequential …

The Puzzling Presumption Of Reviewability, Nicholas Bagley

Articles

The presumption in favor of judicial review of agency action is a cornerstone of administrative law, accepted by courts and commentators alike as both legally appropriate and obviously desirable. Yet the presumption is puzzling. As with any canon of statutory construction that serves a substantive end, it should find a source in history, positive law, the Constitution, or sound policy considerations. None of these, however, offers a plausible justification for the presumption. As for history, the sort of judicial review that the presumption favors - appellate-style arbitrariness review - was not only unheard of prior to the twentieth century, but …

The Puzzling Presumption Of Reviewability, Nicholas Bagley

Articles

The presumption in favor of judicial review of agency action is a cornerstone of administrative law, accepted by courts and commentators alike as both legally appropriate and obviously desirable. Yet the presumption is puzzling. As with any canon of statutory construction that serves a substantive end, it should find a source in history, positive law, the Constitution, or sound policy considerations. None of these, however, offers a plausible justification for the presumption. As for history, the sort of judicial review that the presumption favors - appellate-style arbitrariness review - was not only unheard of prior to the twentieth century, but …

A Framework For Judicial Review And Remand In Immigration Law, Collin D. Schueler

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

This Article breaks new ground at the intersection of administrative law and immigration law. One of the more important questions in both fields is whether a reviewing court should resolve a legal issue in the first instance or remand that issue to the agency. This Article advances the novel claim that courts should use the modem framework for judicial review of agency statutory interpretations to inform their resolution of this remand question. Then, using this framework, the Article identifies when remand is and is not appropriate in immigration cases. This critical analysis, which urges a departure from conventional academic wisdom, …

The Underappreciated Role Of The National Environmental Policy Act In Wilderness Designation And Management, Michael Blumm, Lorena Wisehart

Faculty Articles

On its 50th anniversary, the Wilderness Act owes much to the effect of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), both in terms of the number of acres in the national wilderness system and in the management of designated wilderness areas. Courts have closely scrutinized federal land management agency actions that threaten wilderness qualities — and this article maintains that the usual vehicle has been NEPA. Enacted a little over a half-decade after the Wilderness Act, NEPA was instrumental in the doubling of wilderness acres in the 1980s, as Congress added wilderness areas and released other areas to multiple uses in …

In Search Of Skidmore, Peter L. Strauss

Faculty Scholarship

Ever since 1827, the U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly observed that when a court is interpreting a statute that falls within the authority of an administrative agency, the court in reaching its own judgment about the statute's meaning should give substantial weight to the agency's view. Repeated again and again over the years in varying formulations, this proposition found its apotheosis in Skidmore v. Swift & Co., a unanimous opinion authored by Justice Jackson in 1944. His opinion took the proposition to be so obvious that no citation was required. Justice Jackson's typically incisive and memorable formulation stuck. It …

Responding To Agency Avoidance Of Oira, Nina A. Mendelson, Jonathan B. Wiener

Articles

This Article proceeds as follows: Part I provides a background of the system of presidential oversight of regulation through OIRA review. Part II analyzes: (1) the incentives for agencies to cooperate with or avoid OIRA, (2) a broad array of agency avoidance tactics, and (3) corresponding response options (especially in a repeat-player relationship). Part III argues that response options to agency avoidance should not be unquestioningly pursued or rejected. Instead, they should be evaluated using many of the same principles OIRA employs in reviewing agency regulation, including a systematic consideration of the benefits and costs of particular response actions and …

The Immigration Prosecutor And The Judge: Examining The Role Of The Judiciary In Prosecutorial Discretion Decisions, Shoba S. Wadhia

Journal Articles

Legal scholars and judges have long examined the role of judicial review in immigration matters, and also criticized the impacts of the “plenary power” doctrine and statutory deletions of judicial review for certain immigration cases. Absent from this scholarship is a serious examination of the judiciary’s role in immigration decisions involving prosecutorial discretion. I attribute this absence to both a silent concession that prosecutorial discretion decisions are automatically barred from judicial review because of the plain language of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA); the judicial review “exceptions” in the Administrative Procedures Act (APA), and the cases that analyze these …

Deference Lotteries, Jud Mathews

Journal Articles

When should courts defer to agency interpretations of statutes, and what measure of deference should agencies receive? Administrative law recognizes two main deference doctrines — the generous Chevron standard and the stingier Skidmore standard — but Supreme Court case law has not offered a bright-line rule for when each standard applies.

Many observers have concluded that courts’ deference practice is an unpredictable muddle. This Article argues that it is really a lottery, in the sense the term is used in expected utility theory. Agencies cannot predict which deference standard a court will apply or with what effect, but they have …

Simplifying The Standard Of Review In North Carolina Administrative Appeals, Sarah H. Ludington

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Belitung Shipwreck And Bukit Brown Cemetery: Legal Aspects, Jack Tsen-Ta Lee

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

No abstract provided.

Chevron Without The Courts? The Supreme Court's Recent Chevron Jurisprudence Through An Immigration Lens, Shruti Rana

Faculty Scholarship

The limits of administrative law are undergoing a seismic shift in the immigration arena. Chevron divides interpretive and decision-making authority between the federal courts and agencies in each of two steps. The Supreme Court may now be transforming this division in largely unrecognized ways. These shifts, currently playing out in the immigration context, may threaten to reshape deference jurisprudence by handing more power to the immigration agency just when the agency may be least able to handle that power effectively.

An unprecedented surge in immigration cases—now approximately 90% of the federal administrative docket—has arrived just as the Court is whittling …

Of Dialogue--And Democracy--In Administrative Law, Jim Rossi

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Linda Cohen and Matthew Spitzer's study, "The Government Litigant Advantage," sheds important light on how the Solicitor General's litigation behavior may impact the Supreme Court's decision making agenda and outcomes for regulatory and administrative law cases. By emphasizing how the Solicitor General affects cases that the Supreme Court decides, Cohen and Spitzer's findings confirm that administrative law's emphasis on lower appellate court decisions is not misplaced. Some say that D.C. Circuit cases carry equal-if not more-precedential weight than Supreme Court decisions in resolving administrative law issues. Cohen and Spitzer use positive political theory to provide a novel explanation for some …

Serial Litigation In Administrative Law: What Can Repeat Cases Tell Us About Judicial Review, Gillian E. Metzger

Faculty Scholarship

In Deference and Dialogue in Administrative Law, Emily Meazell takes up the topic of serial administrative law litigation. These repeated rounds of challenges and remands, which Meazell finds are particularly prevalent in contexts of risk regulation, provide a new lens on court-agency relationships. Meazell closely reviews several instances of such litigation, spanning topics as diverse as endangered species, potential workplace carcinogens, and financial qualifications of nuclear plant operators. She argues that such close examination reveals a process of dialogue, with agencies ultimately (if not immediately) responding to judicial concerns and courts in turn acknowledging administrative responses.

Reconciling Chevron, Mead, And The Review Of Agency Discretion: Source Of Law And The Standards Of Judicial Review, Michael P. Healy

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Although the Supreme Court's watershed decision in Chevron U.S.A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. has been understood by many as defining the framework for judicial review of agency legal determinations, there have been longstanding questions about the application of the standards for reviewing administrative action. These questions have become more troublesome following the Supreme Court's 2001 decision in United States v. Mead Corp. Mead established that Chevron review only applies when defined requirements are met and held that so-called Skidmore deference applies when Chevron deference does not apply. Surveying the aftermath of Mead and its effect on the …

End The Failed Chevron Experiment Now: How Chevron Has Failed And Why It Can And Should Be Overruled, Jack M. Beermann

Faculty Scholarship

In Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. NRDC, decided in 1984, the Supreme Court announced a startling new approach to judicial review of statutory interpretation by administrative agencies, which requires courts to defer to agency interpretations of ambiguous statutes. Although it was perhaps hoped that Chevron would simplify judicial review and increase deference to agency interpretation, the opposite has occurred. Chevron has complicated judicial review and at best it is uncertain whether it has resulted in increased deference to agency interpretation. In fact, for numerous reasons, Chevron has been a failure on any reasonable measure and should be overruled. Further, overruling Chevron …

“To Remand, Or Not To Remand”: Ventura’S Ordinary Remand Rule And The Evolving Jurisprudence Of Futility, Patrick J. Glen

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

It is a foundational principle of administrative law that a reviewing court should not dispose of a petition for review or appeal on grounds not relied upon by the agency, and should not reach issues in the first instance not addressed administratively. In such circumstances, there is a strong presumption that the reviewing court should remand the case to the agency for further proceedings rather than reach out to decide the disputed issues. The United States Supreme Court explicitly extended operation of the “ordinary remand rule” to the immigration context in its 2002 decision in INS v. Ventura. Notwithstanding subsequent …

Slides: Rethinking Western Water Law: Restoring The Public Interest In Western Water Law, Mark Squillace

Western Water Law, Policy and Management: Ripples, Currents, and New Channels for Inquiry (Martz Summer Conference, June 3-5)

Presenter: Mark Squillace, Director, Natural Resources Law Center, University of Colorado Law School

20 slides

"Streamlining" The Rule Of Law: How The Department Of Justice Is Undermining Judicial Review Of Agency Action, Shruti Rana

Faculty Scholarship

Judicial review of administrative decision making is an essential institutional check on agency power. Recently, however, the Department of Justice dramatically revised its regulations in an attempt to insulate its decision making from public and federal court scrutiny. These “streamlining” rules, carried out in the name of national security and immigration reform, have led to a breakdown in the rule of law in our judicial system. While much attention has been focused on the Department of Justice’s recent attempts to shield executive power from the reach of Congress, its efforts to undermine judicial review have so far escaped such scrutiny. …

Reclaiming The Legal Fiction Of Congressional Delegation, Lisa Schultz Bressman

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

The framework for judicial review of agency statutory interpretations is based on a legal fiction – namely, that Congress intends to delegate interpretive authority to agencies. Critics argue that the fiction is false because Congress is unlikely to think about the delegation of interpretive authority at all, or in the way that the Court imagines. They also contend that the fiction is fraudulent because the Court does actually care about whether Congress intends to delegate interpretive authority in any particular instance, but applies a presumption triggered by statutory ambiguity or a particularized analysis involving factors unrelated to congressional delegation. In …

On Capturing The Possible Significance Of Institutional Design And Ethos, Peter L. Strauss

Faculty Scholarship

At a recent conference, a new judge from one of the federal courts of appeal – for the United States, the front line in judicial control of administrative action-made a plea to the lawyers in attendance. Please, he urged, in briefing and arguing cases reviewing agency actions, help us judges to understand their broader contexts. So often, he complained, the briefs and arguments are limited to the particular small issues of the case. We get little sense of the broad context in which it arises – the agency responsibilities in their largest sense, the institutional issues that may be at …