Law Commons^™

Introduction: The doctrine of issue exhaustion generally bars a litigant challenging agency action from raising issues in court that were not raised first with the agency. Although the doctrine originated in the context of agency adjudication, it has been extended to judicial review of challenges to agency rulemakings. Scholars have observed that issue exhaustion cases "conspicuously lack discussion of whether, when, why, or how [the issue] exhaustion doctrine developed in the context of adjudication should be applied to rulemaking." 1. The Administrative Conference has studied the issue exhaustion doctrine in an effort to bring greater clarity to its application in …