Law Commons^™

Public Services In Railway Freight Transport, Stefan A. Jarecki

internetowy Kwartalnik Antymonopolowy i Regulacyjny (internet Quarterly on Antitrust and Regulation)

So far, practitioners and academics generally believed that in land transport, the concept of public services could only refer to passenger traffic. Recently, this approach has changed. The European Commission has stated that public services can also be provided in railway freight transport. Railway freight transport services can only be qualified as public services when the given Member State establishes that there is a genuine need for such services, a need that is not, or is not sufficiently met by the market. Currently, to provide financing of some railway freight services, Member States have to fulfil the Altmark conditions, or …

The Lawlessness Of Sackett V. Epa, William W. Buzbee

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

When the Supreme Court speaks on a disputed statutory interpretation question, its words and edicts undoubtedly are the final judicial word, binding lower courts and the executive branch. Its majority opinions are the law. But the Court’s opinions can nonetheless be assessed for how well they hew to fundamental elements of respect for the rule of law. In particular, law-respecting versus law-neglecting or lawless judicial work by the Court can be assessed in the statutory interpretation, regulatory, and separation of power realms against the following key criteria, which in turn are based on some basic rule of law tenets: analysis …

Fears, Faith, And Facts In Environmental Law, William W. Buzbee

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Environmental law has long been shaped by both the particular nature of environmental harms and by the actors and institutions that cause such harms or can address them. This nation’s environmental statutes remain far from perfect, and a comprehensive law tailored to the challenges of climate change is still elusive. Nonetheless, America’s environmental laws provide lofty, express protective purposes and findings about reasons for their enactment. They also clearly state health and environmental goals, provide tailored criteria for action, and utilize procedures and diverse regulatory tools that reflect nuanced choices.

But the news is far from good. Despite the ambitious …

Loper Bright In A Larger Interpretive Perspective: Is This Justice Scalia’S Court Anymore?, Victoria Frances Nourse

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo has left administrative lawyers agog: Could the Supreme Court really reverse the “goliath” known as Chevron deference? For those who study the Court’s interpretive landscape more broadly, however, Chevron reversal may not be as unexpected as administrative lawyers believe. This Article will look at Loper Bright by linking three notable interpretive developments: the major questions doctrine, Chevron skepticism, and strict constructions of statutory text. These developments share the same risk: the Court is imposing a new “clarity tax” on both Congress and administrative agencies. Having said this, others’ grave worries about changes in Chevron are …

"Appropriate" Appropriations Challenges After Community Financial, Chad Squitieri

Scholarly Articles

The standard federal agency must come to Congress each year, hat in hand, and request another round of congressional funding. This annual appropriations process ensures that Congress maintains at least some influence over the vast array of rules and regulations that govern Americans' daily lives. Sure, Congress might have delegated broad authority to administrative agencies to develop national policy on Congress's behalf. But an agency reliant on annual appropriations is an agency with the financial incentive to exercise its delegated authority with an eye toward pleasing congressional appropriators. The annual appropriations process is therefore a sensible (even if insufficient) step …

Re/Descheduling Marijuana Through Administrative Action, Scott Bloomberg, Alexandra Harriman, Shane Pennington

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

Democratic Accountability And Tax Enforcement, Joshua D. Blank, Leigh Osofsky

Faculty Publications

One of the most powerful charges that can be leveled against the IRS is that it is targeting taxpayers. Charges of political targeting have dogged the IRS for over a century, including in major controversies such as the alleged Tea Party auditing scandal in 2013. Commentators and scholars have long critiqued the IRS for focusing audit resources on some of the lowest-income Americans. And, most recently, a group of researchers estimated that the IRS audits Black taxpayers at a 2.9 to 4.7 times greater rate, as compared to non-Black taxpayers. In response, legislators demanded action, there was widespread public consternation, …

The Toll Paid When Adjudicators Err: Reforming Appellate Review Standards For Refugees, Charles Shane Ellison

Faculty Scholarship

Deep, variegated, and unresolved tensions run between and within the U.S. courts of appeals’ standard of review classifications of the five core elements of the refugee definition. Several circuits have taken note of their dissonant jurisprudence, calling for either en banc or Supreme Court intervention. While existing scholarship raises cogent criticisms of excessive factual deference in U.S. immigration adjudications, very little attention has been paid to how the fact-law divide regarding the refugee definition maps onto review standards in the appellate context. This dearth of scholarly consideration is accompanied by the reality that standards of review often decide cases where …

West Virginia V. Epa: Maybe A Big Deal, But Maybe Not, Michael Lewyn

Scholarly Works

In West Virginia v. EPA, the Supreme Court ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) lacked the statutory authority to implement the Clean Power Plan, a regulation designed to reduce coal-fired power plant emissions by encouraging the use of non-coal energy sources. The Court’s decision was primarily grounded in the "major questions doctrine," which asserts that courts may reject agency actions that involve significant and consequential powers not reasonably inferred from Congressional intent, even if a statute is unclear. This decision raised concerns among commentators that it might severely restrict environmental regulations and the broader administrative state. However, the …

Chaney Step Zero: Judicial Review Of Fec Deadlock Dismissals, Natalie R. Schmidt

Scholarly Articles

Partisan polarization has infected our politics at levels not seen in decades. But what happens when the contamination spreads to the institutions responsible for regulating the political process itself? At the Federal Election Commission, nothing. Under the FEC’s governing statute, the Federal Election Campaign Act, any serious action the agency undertakes must be supported by a bipartisan supermajority of commissioners. When the six commissioners fail to reach such consensus—or “deadlock”—due to partisanship or otherwise, nothing happens at all: no investigations, no regulations, no enforcement of federal campaign finance laws. For the first few decades of the FEC’s existence, these deadlocks …

Administrative Virtues, Chad Squitieri

Scholarly Articles

Administrative law has developed to incorporate insights from two philosophical perspectives: deontology and consequentialism. This Article elucidates administrative law’s reliance on those two perspectives and proposes that administrative law further develop to incorporate insights from a third perspective—virtue ethics—which the legal community has, in large part, ignored.

Unlike deontology (which focuses on actions) and consequentialism (which focuses on actions’ consequences), virtue ethics focuses on actors. Thus, to begin incorporating virtue ethics’ insights into administrative law—a task that a wide range of scholars and jurists can embrace—this Article explores how a virtuous agency official might act in accordance with the virtues …

Barring Judicial Review, Laura E. Dolbow

Publications

Whether judicial review is available is one of the most hotly contested issues in administrative law. Recently, laws that prohibit judicial review have sparked debate in the Medicare, immigration, and patent contexts. These debates are continuing in challenges to the recently created Medicare price negotiation program. Yet despite debates about the removal of judicial review, little is known about how often, and in what contexts, Congress has expressly precluded review. This Article provides new insights about express preclusion by conducting an empirical study of the U.S. Code. It creates an original dataset of laws that expressly preclude judicial review of …

The Delegation Doctrine, Jonathan H. Adler

Faculty Publications

Despite the focus on the Court’s recent major questions cases, signs of an emergent delegation doctrine can also be found elsewhere. Most significantly, seeds of a delegation doctrine have been planted within the Court’s Chevron jurisprudence. The Court’s increased reluctance to grant Chevron deference to administrative agencies--and its insistence that courts first conclude that interpretive authority has been delegated before deferring to any agency interpretation—rests on the same core premise as the Court’s recent major questions doctrine decisions. It also suggests that the “new” major questions doctrine is not as new as it might seem, but rather a logical outgrowth …

Not Why, But How: Applying The Sharp Edge Of The Law In Administrative Law Judicial Review In Singapore, Tan K. B. Eugene

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The management and control of power, and, in particular, the endeavour to strike the appropriate balance between affording governments the ability to act swiftly and decisively in the public interest while providing for adequate safeguards against governmental excess, is an intensely difficult undertaking. There is no one model that is correct for all times and all places.

Konstitusionalitas Proses Pemilihan Kepala Otorita Ibu Kota Nusantara Berdasarkan Undang-Undang Nomor 3 Tahun 2022 Tengan Ibu Kota Negara, Riskayati Subandi

Jurnal Konstitusi & Demokrasi

The establishment of the Government of the Special Territory of the Capital of Nusantara (Special Regional Government of IKN) as the location of the new capital of Indonesia has raised controversy, especially as regards its position as the special regional government held by the Nusantara Capital Authority Institution (IKN Authority), as well as the differences in the process for selecting government heads. The research was conducted using a normative jurisprudence method that focuses on the analysis of secondary data to determine the constitutionality of regulations relating to the position and process of election of the head of government in the …

Analysis Of Marine Zone Management In Disputed Island Territories, Khomsin Khomsin, Danar Guruh Pratomo, Ayu Isnania Zahra

Journal of Environmental Science and Sustainable Development

Indonesia has 17,204 islands registered, named, and coordinated by Geospatial Information Agency (BIG). The number of islands can threaten maritime boundary disputes between provinces, districts, and cities. One of the disputes is the claim over Pulau Tujuh, which is mutually contested for ownership by the Province of Bangka Belitung and the Province of Riau Islands. This study aims to analyze the marine management zone of the Pulau Tujuh claim. It is carried out using the cartometric method. This study of regional boundaries refers to the Regulation of The Minister of Home Affairs of The Republic of Indonesia 141 of 2017, …

Kedudukan Otorita Ibu Kota Nusantara Dalam Ketatanegaraan Indonesia, Syarif Anwar Said Al-Hamid, Ade Arif Firmansyah, Siti Khoiriah

Jurnal Hukum & Pembangunan

Otorita of the capital city of the nusantara is a state institution formed by Law Number 3 of 2022 concerning the State Capital which is then regulated in more detail through Presidential Regulation Number 62 of 2022 concerning Otorita of the capital city of the nusantara which becomes a special regional government for the national capital in implementing the development of the capital city archipelago. Head of otorita the capital city of the nusantara is the head of the regional government specifically for the national capital who is elected, appointed and dismissed by the president with the approval of the …

How (Not) To Deal With The Bubble Effect In Cyberspace: The Case Of The Eu And Digital Services Act, João Tornada

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

Deliberative democracies are based on an ideal process of speech and dialogue that fosters an “uninhibited, robust, and wide-open” public discourse sphere. In cyberspace, social networks and search engine platforms largely operate with recommender systems that tailor content according to the users' interests and online behavior (“profiling”), thus segregating them from different points of view (“bubble effect”). While this personalization of content is particularly efficient to promote commercial goods and services, when it comes to information of common interest, especially on political matters, it undermines consensus-building dialogue and threatens democratic ideals. The theory of a free “marketplace of ideas” justifies …

Enough Excuses On Drug Importation: A New Transnational Paradigm For Fda Regulation And Lower Us Drug Prices, Gabriel Levitt

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which enforces drug safety laws, asserts that under most circumstances the importation of prescription drugs is illegal. Yet because of high drug prices in the United States, over the past couple of decades, tens of millions of Americans have imported prescription drugs for personal use. For many, this was their only way to afford them. A unique array of federal laws, regulations, and policies, including the de facto decriminalization of the practice of personal drug importation, have in effect permitted personal drug importation. The same exceptions, however, are not available for commercial drug …

Kesultanan Buton Dalam Bingkai Ketatanegaraan Dan Budaya Indonesia, Rahmadhona Rahmadhona

Jurnal Hukum & Pembangunan

Buton is a region located in Bau-Bau City, Southeast Sulawesi. The Sultanate of Buton began to show its existence since the beginning of the 15th century after previously running a government system with royal government. The Buton Sultanate, based on Islam, ran a democratic system of government. The state administration of the Buton Sultanate is interesting to discuss because its power structure is controlled by two groups, but all of its people have the same position in voice and politics. This paper is compiled using the literature study method and presents the results descriptively.

Penanaman Modal Asing Di Ibu Kota Nusantara Melalui Skema Kerja Sama Pemerintah Dengan Badan Usaha, Riki Taufik Rakhmani

Jurnal Hukum & Pembangunan

One of the sources of funding for the development of Ibu Kota Nusantara is through the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) scheme. From the private sector's perspective, the PPP scheme provides access, particularly for foreign investors, to participate in providing infrastructure for the public's benefit. In order to attract foreign investors to participate in PPP for Ibu Kota Nusantara, the government can provide support, including transaction preparation and implementation facilities, feasibility support, tax incentives, government guarantees, and/or the use of state-owned assets. Guarantee for infrastructure provision through PPP is given against infrastructure risks caused by factors determined in the Minister of Finance …

Hak Warga Masyarakat Terhadap Kebijakan Pemutusan Akses Penyelenggara Sistem Elektronik Lingkup Privat Yang Tidak Terdaftar, Rinalvin Achmad Wiryawan

Jurnal Hukum & Pembangunan

The policy of terminating access to Private Scope Electronic System Providers (Private Scope PSE), to several internet platforms including: Paypal, Yahoo, Epic Games, Steam, Dota, Counter Strike, Xandr.com, and Origin, which occurred on July 30, 2022. The termination of Private Scope PSE Access is due to the unregistered Private Scope PSE, whose provisions are regulated in the Permenkominfo PSE Private Scope. The policy of terminating access to the Private Scope PSE by the government is detrimental to citizens as users of the Private Scope PSE platform services whose access is terminated by the Government. Citizens have the right to communicate …

Putusan Pengadilan Mengenai Biaya Ganti Rugi Lingkungan: Aplikasinya Dalam Pemulihan Lingkungan, Rizqya Nafila Putri, Dadang Epi Sukarsa, Imamulhadi Imamulhadi

Jurnal Hukum & Pembangunan

Abstract

Indonesia through Law Number 32 of 2009 concerning Environmental Protection and Management regulates the government has the right to file claims for compensation and certain actions. Minister of the Environment Regulation Number 7 of 2014 concerning Compensation for Environmental Pollution and/or Damage, as a derivative regulation, regulates that environmental compensation costs that have been paid are entered into the Treasury Fund as Non-Tax State Revenue (PNBP). This research identifies the mechanism for using environmental compensation costs, the implementation of court decisions containing environmental compensation before Supreme Court Regulation Number 1 of 2023 concerning Guidelines for Adjudicating Environmental Cases, and …

Covid-19 Response In An Alternative America: Legal Tools That The Us Government Failed To Invoke, Neil Davey

Minnesota Journal of Law, Science & Technology

No abstract provided.

Artificial Intelligence And The Administrative State: Regulating The Government Use Of Decision-Making Technology, Gordon Unzen

Minnesota Journal of Law, Science & Technology

No abstract provided.

A New Cobell: The Need For A Continued Buy-Back Program, Liam C. Conrad

American Indian Law Journal

The General Allotment Act of 1887 divided Indian reservations into smaller plots for the supposed benefit of individual Indians. Today, these allotments are severely fractionated, with some 160-acre plots having as many as a thousand owners. Since allotment, Congress has repeatedly attempted to solve this problem. However, only the Cobell Land Buy-Back Program has made any sizeable impact on fractionation levels. This paper examines the fractionation problem and the Cobell Program. Now that the Cobell Program has ended in November 2022, this paper argues that Congress must quickly reauthorize a similar program or fractionation will soon exceed pre-Cobell levels.

Reclaiming Sacred Homelands: Asserting Treaty Rights And The Path Towards Restoration Of The Badger-Two Medicine, Sarah Greenberg

American Indian Law Journal

“In order for law to have an influence in the lives of ordinary people, it must have something to do with the emotional feelings of justice, it must speak to our basic humanity, and it must give us common sense directions as to what behavior and beliefs are right and wrong"

Seeking Higher Ground: Developing A Tribal Model Code For Disaster And Emergency Management In A Complex Jurisdictional Environment, Brian Candelaria

American Indian Law Journal

“The teepee is much better to live in;

always clean, warm in winter, cool in summer; easy to move. The white man builds his big house, cost much money, like big cage, shut out sun, can never move; always sick. Indians and animals know better how to live than white man; nobody can be in good health if does not have all the time fresh air, sunshine, and good water.”

- Chief Flying Hawk[1]

In 2019, I opened my submission for the Sovereignty Symposium’s Doolin Award with the statement above. The entry was accepted and reprinted in the American …

Case Law On American Indians: October 2022 - August 2023, Thomas P. Schlosser

American Indian Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Political Polarization In America: Its Impact On Industrial Democracy And Labor Law, Leonard Bierman, Rafael Gely

Brooklyn Law Review

By virtually all accounts, American society has become increasingly polarized during the past couple of decades. Indeed, the degree of political polarization on issues such as voting rights, gun control, abortion rights, and COVID vaccines has been so extreme that political scientists have worried about whether the conditions necessary for the United States to maintain a democratic society have broken down. This article examines this issue in the context of federal labor law and labor relations. It argues that American labor law is framed around an "industrial democracy narrative" that is today being sharply threatened by extant political polarization. It …