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Articles 1 - 7 of 7
Full-Text Articles in Law
Center For Biological Diversity V. Zinke, Ryan Hickey
Center For Biological Diversity V. Zinke, Ryan Hickey
Public Land & Resources Law Review
The oft-cited “arbitrary and capricious” standard revived the Center for Biological Diversity’s most recent legal challenge in its decades-long quest to see arctic grayling listed under the Endangered Species Act. While this Ninth Circuit decision did not grant grayling ESA protections, it did require the United States Fish and Wildlife Service to reconsider its 2014 finding that listing grayling as threatened or endangered was unwarranted. In doing so, the court found “range,” as used in the ESA, vague while endorsing the FWS’s 2014 clarification of that term. Finally, this holding identified specific shortcomings of the challenged FWS finding, highlighting how …
Friends Of Animals V. United States Fish & Wildlife Service, Bradley E. Tinker
Friends Of Animals V. United States Fish & Wildlife Service, Bradley E. Tinker
Public Land & Resources Law Review
In Friends of Animals v. United States Fish & Wildlife Service, the Ninth Circuit held that the plain language of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act allows for the removal of one species of bird to benefit another species. Friends of Animals argued that the Service’s experiment permitting the taking of one species––the barred owl––to advance the conservation of a different species––the northern spotted owl––violated the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. The court, however, found that the Act delegates broad implementing discretion to the Secretary of the Interior, and neither the Act nor the underlying international conventions limit the taking of …
In Defense Of A Little Judiciary: A Textual And Constitutional Foundation For Chevron, Terence J. Mccarrick Jr.
In Defense Of A Little Judiciary: A Textual And Constitutional Foundation For Chevron, Terence J. Mccarrick Jr.
San Diego Law Review
This Article hopes to help fill that “important gap in the administrative law literature.” And it proceeds in three parts. Part II offers a brief history of the Chevron doctrine and its discontents. It traces the doctrine’s origin and scope and ends by articulating the textualist and originalist critique of Chevron described above. Part III grapples with that criticism and offers a textualist and originalist defense of Chevron. Section III.A describes the textual footing for Chevron in the APA and argues that Chevron—if not commanded by the APA—does not upset the role it envisions for courts. Section III.B describes the …
The Role Of The Courts In Guarding Against Privatization Of Important Public Environmental Resources, Melissa K. Scanlan
The Role Of The Courts In Guarding Against Privatization Of Important Public Environmental Resources, Melissa K. Scanlan
Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law
Drinking water, beaches, a livable climate, clean air, forests, fisheries, and parks are all commons, shared by many users with diffuse and overlapping interests. These public natural resources are susceptible to depletion, overuse, erosion, and extinction; and they are under increasing pressures to become privatized. The Public Trust Doctrine provides a legal basis to guard against privatizing important public resources or commons. As such, it is a critical doctrine to counter the ever-increasing enclosure and privatization of the commons as well as ensure government trustees protect current and future generations. This Article considers separation of powers and statutory interpretation in …
Administrative Law's Political Dynamics, Kent H. Barnett, Christina L. Boyd, Christopher J. Walker
Administrative Law's Political Dynamics, Kent H. Barnett, Christina L. Boyd, Christopher J. Walker
Scholarly Works
Over thirty years ago, the Supreme Court in Chevron, U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. commanded courts to uphold federal agency interpretations of ambiguous statutes as long as those interpretations are reasonable. This Chevron deference doctrine was based in part on the Court’s desire to temper administrative law’s political dynamics by vesting federal agencies, not courts, with primary authority to make policy judgments about ambiguous laws Congress charged the agencies to administer. Despite this express objective, scholars such as Frank Cross, Emerson Tiller, and Cass Sunstein have empirically documented how politics influence circuit court review of agency statutory …
Chevron Step Two's Domain, Kent H. Barnett, Christopher J. Walker
Chevron Step Two's Domain, Kent H. Barnett, Christopher J. Walker
Scholarly Works
An increasing number of judges, policymakers, and scholars have advocated eliminating or narrowing Chevron deference—a two-step inquiry under which courts defer to federal agencies’ reasonable interpretations of ambiguous statutes the agencies administer. Much of the debate centers on either Chevron’s domain (i.e., when Chevron should apply at all) or how courts ascertain statutory ambiguity at Chevron’s first step. Largely lost in this debate on constraining agency discretion is the role of Chevron’s second step: whether the agency’s resolution of a statutory ambiguity is reasonable. Drawing on the most comprehensive study of Chevron in the circuit courts, this Essay explores how …
Improving Regulatory Analysis At Independent Agencies, Cary Coglianese
Improving Regulatory Analysis At Independent Agencies, Cary Coglianese
All Faculty Scholarship
Each year, independent regulatory agencies—such as the Federal Communications Commission, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and Securities and Exchange Commission—issue highly consequential regulations. When they issue their regulations, however, they do not have to meet the same requirements for analysis that apply to other agencies. Consequently, courts, policymakers, and scholars have voiced serious reservations about a general lack of high-quality prospective analysis of new regulations at independent agencies. These agencies’ track records with retrospective analysis of their existing regulations raise similar concerns. In this article, I approach the quality of regulatory analysis at independent agencies as a policy problem, assessing the current …