Law Commons^™

Strategic Institutional Positioning: How We Have Come To Generate Environmental Law Without Congress, Donald J. Kochan

Donald J. Kochan

Federal Agencies In The Legislative Process: Technical Assistance In Statutory Drafting, Christopher J. Walker

Christopher J. Walker

Federal agencies draft statutes. Indeed, they are often the chief architects of the statutes they administer. Even when federal agencies are not the primary substantive authors, they routinely respond to congressional requests to provide technical assistance in statutory drafting. Yet despite their substantial role in the legislative process, our understanding about how agencies interact with Congress is greatly undertheorized and perhaps even less understood empirically. This Report, which was commissioned by the Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS), explores the latter role of federal agencies in the legislative process: the provision of technical assistance in statutory drafting.

To better …

Inside Regulatory Interpretation: A Research Note, Christopher J. Walker

Christopher J. Walker

In response to Kevin M. Stack, Interpreting Regulations, 111 Mich. L. Rev. 355 (2012).

In Interpreting Regulations, Professor Stack provides the first comprehensive approach to regulatory interpretation and situates this approach within the larger literature on legal interpretation. His theory of regulatory interpretation is simple yet pioneering: “a regulation should be read in light of its purposes, with the regulation’s text and the statement of basis and purpose constituting the privileged interpretive sources.” This Research Note takes a look inside regulatory interpretation to explore the empirical foundation for Professor Stack’s novel approach to regulatory interpretation.

In 2013, the author conducted …

Is The Chief Justice A Tax Lawyer?, Stephanie Hoffer, Christopher J. Walker

Christopher J. Walker

King v. Burwell is a crucial victory for the Obama Administration and for the future of the Affordable Care Act. It also has important implications for tax law and administration, as explored in the other terrific contributions to this Pepperdine Law Review Symposium. In this Essay, we turn to another tax-related feature of the Chief Justice’s opinion for the Court: It is hard to ignore the fingerprints of a tax lawyer throughout the opinion. This Essay focuses on two instances of a tax lawyer at work.

First, in the Chief’s approach to statutory interpretation one sees a tax lawyer as …

Take It To The Limit: The Illegal Regulation Prohibiting The Take Of Any Threatened Species Under The Endangered Species Act, Jonathan Wood

Jonathan Wood

The Endangered Species Act forbids the “take” – any activity that adversely affects – any member of an endangered species, but only endangered species. The statute also provides for the listing of threatened species, i.e. species that may become endangered, but protects them only by requiring agencies to consider the impacts of their projects on them. Shortly after the statute was adopted, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service reversed Congress’ policy choice by adopting a regulation that forbids the take of any threatened species. The regulation is not authorized by the Endangered Species Act, but …

A Program In Legislation, Dakota S. Rudesill, Daniel P. Tokaji, Christopher J. Walker

Christopher J. Walker

This Essay urges that Legislation be conceived of not just as a single course, but as a set of curricular and extracurricular offerings that collectively constitute an integrated program of instruction. The three of us teach at The Ohio State University’s Moritz College of Law, which may serve as a model of such a program. Since 1995, Moritz has required Legislation as a part of the first-year curriculum. We also have a variety of upper-level offerings and extracurricular activities that help students develop a practical understanding of the legislative process. This Essay makes the case for an integrated program of …

Public Actors In Private Markets: Toward A Developmental Finance State, Robert Hockett, Saule Omarova

Saule T. Omarova

The recent financial crisis brought into sharp relief fundamental questions about the social function and purpose of the financial system, including its relation to the “real” economy. This Article argues that, to answer these questions, we must recapture a distinctively American view of the proper relations among state, financial market, and development. This programmatic vision – captured in what we call a “developmental finance state” – is based on three key propositions: (1) that economic and social development is not an “end-state” but a continuing national policy priority; (2) that the modalities of finance are the most potent means of …

Proposed Implementing Procedures For Restore Act Awards Under Nepa, Sara Mammarella

Sara Mammarella

On April 20, 2010, what has been described as “the worst oil spill in U.S. history,” the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill, occurred off the Louisiana coast, affecting a five-state area in the Gulf region (Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas), dumping an estimated 4.9 billion barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. In response, Congress enacted the federal RESTORE Act to set up a mechanism for compensating the victims of the oils spill and to Repair the environmental harm caused by the oil spill.

This article will examine the effectiveness of the regulatory scheme in place that was …

Inside Agency Statutory Interpretation, Christopher J. Walker

Christopher J. Walker

The Constitution vests all legislative powers in Congress, yet Congress grants expansive lawmaking authority to federal agencies. As positive political theorists have long explored, Congress intends for federal agencies to faithfully exercise their delegated authority, but ensuring fidelity to congressional wishes is difficult due to asymmetries in information, expertise, and preferences that complicate congressional control and oversight. Indeed, this principal-agent problem has a democratic and constitutional dimension, as the legitimacy of administrative governance may well depend on whether the unelected bureaucracy is a faithful agent of Congress. Despite the predominance of lawmaking by regulation and the decades-long application of principal-agent …

Minding The Gaps: Fairness, Welfare, And The Constitutive Structure Of Distributive Assessment, Robert C. Hockett

Robert C. Hockett

Despite over a century’s disputation and attendant opportunity for clarification, the field of inquiry now loosely labeled “welfare economics” (WE) remains surprisingly prone to foundational confusions. The same holds of work done by many practitioners of WE’s influential offshoot, normative “law and economics” (LE). A conspicuous contemporary case of confusion turns up in recent discussion concerning “fairness versus welfare.” The very naming of this putative dispute signals a crude category error. “Welfare” denotes a proposed object of distribution. “Fairness” describes and appropriate pattern of distribution. Welfare itself is distributed fairly or unfairly. “Fairness versus welfare” is analytically on all fours …

Chevron Inside The Regulatory State: An Empirical Assessment, Christopher J. Walker

Christopher J. Walker

For three decades, scholars (as well as courts and litigants) have written thousands of articles (and opinions and briefs) concerning the impact of the Chevron deference regime on judicial review of agency statutory interpretation. Little attention, however, has been paid to how Chevron and its progeny have actually shaped statutory interpretation inside the regulatory state. As part of the Fordham Law Review symposium Chevron at 30: Looking Back and Looking Forward, this Essay presents the findings of the first comprehensive empirical investigation into the effect of Chevron and related doctrines on how federal agencies interpret statutes they administer.

The Essay …

Foreword — Chevron At 30: Looking Back And Looking Forward, Peter M. Shane, Christopher J. Walker

Christopher J. Walker

This Foreword introduces a Fordham Law Review symposium held in March 2014 to mark the thirtieth anniversary of Chevron U.S.A. v. Natural Resources Defense Council. The most-cited administrative-law decision of all time, Chevron has sparked thirty years of scholarly discussion concerning what Chevron deference means, when (or even if) it should apply, and what impact it has had on the administrative state. Part I of the Foreword discusses the symposium contributions that address Chevron’s scope and application, especially in light of City of Arlington v. FCC. Part II introduces the contributions that explore empirically and theoretically Chevron’s impact outside of …

Friend Or Faux: The Trademark Counterfeiting Act's Inability To Stop The Sale Of Counterfeit Sporting Goods, Jennifer Riso

Jennifer Riso

The demand for counterfeit sporting goods, such as jerseys and other apparel, is on the rise as the prices of authentic goods continue to increase. The Trademark Counterfeiting Act of 1984 criminalizes the import and sale of counterfeit goods, but is ineffective at addressing the demand side of counterfeit goods. This paper analyzes the history behind the Act and recommends ways to ensure that the act will stay relevant as technology makes it easier to purchase counterfeit goods.

The Ordinary Remand Rule And The Judicial Toolbox For Agency Dialogue, Christopher J. Walker

Christopher J. Walker

When a court concludes that an agency’s decision is erroneous, the ordinary rule is to remand to the agency to consider the issue anew (as opposed to the court deciding the issue itself). Despite that the Supreme Court first articulated this ordinary remand rule in the 1940s and has rearticulated it repeatedly over the years, little work has been done to understand how the rule works in practice, much less whether it promotes the separation-of-powers values that motivate the rule. This Article is the first to conduct such an investigation—focusing on judicial review of agency immigration adjudications and reviewing the …

In Defense Of Idea Due Process, Mark C. Weber

Mark C. Weber

Due Process hearing rights under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act are under attack. A major professional group and several academic commentators charge that the hearings system advantages middle class parents, that it is expensive, that it is futile, and that it is unmanageable. Some critics would abandon individual rights to a hearing and review in favor of bureaucratic enforcement or administrative mechanisms that do not include the right to an individual hearing before a neutral decision maker. This Article defends the right to a due process hearing. It contends that some criticisms of hearing rights are simply erroneous, and …

Idea Class Actions After Wal-Mart V. Dukes, Mark C. Weber

Mark C. Weber

Wal-Mart v. Dukes overturned the certification of a class of a million and a half female employees alleging sex discrimination in Wal-Mart’s salary and promotion decisions. The Supreme Court ruled that the case did not satisfy the requirement that a class have a common question of law or fact, and said that the remedy sought was not the type of relief available under the portion of the class action rule permitting mandatory class actions. Over the last two years, courts have struggled with how to apply the ruling, especially how to apply it beyond its immediate context of employment discrimination …

Federalism And Fiduciaries: A New Framework For Protecting State Benefit Funds, Richard E. Mendales

Richard E. Mendales

The financial crisis has underlined difficulties faced by states and their subdivisions in paying benefits to their employees. The most spectacular example is Detroit's bankruptcy, but state and local employers across the country face sharp cuts in benefits as their employers fight for solvency. A federal solution such as ERISA is precluded by considerations of federalism and the impracticability of getting major legislation through Congress. This Article proposes an alternative solution: a uniform state code, following other uniform state laws such as the Uniform Commercial Code, that states could adopt to govern both state and local plans. It would finance …

Overcoming Obstacles To Religious Exercise In K-12 Education, Lewis M. Wasserman

Lewis M. Wasserman

Overcoming Obstacles to Religious Exercise in K-12 Education Lewis M. Wasserman Abstract Judicial decisions rendered during the last half-century have overwhelmingly favored educational agencies over claims by parents for religious accommodations to public education requirements, no matter what constitutional or statutory rights were pressed at the tribunal, or when the conflict arose. These claim failures are especially striking in the wake of the Religious Freedom Restoration Acts (“RFRAs”) passed by Congress in 1993 and, to date, by eighteen state legislatures thereafter, since the RFRAs were intended to (1) insulate religious adherents from injuries inflicted by the United States Supreme Court’s …

Snopa And The Ppa: Do You Know What It Means For You? If Snopa (Social Networking Online Protection Act) Or Ppa (Password Protection Act) Do Not Pass, The Snooping Could Cause You Trouble, Angela Goodrum

Angela Goodrum

No abstract provided.

Dodd-Frank Regulators, Cost-Benefit Analysis, And Agency Capture, Paul Rose, Christopher J. Walker

Christopher J. Walker

The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank) has raised the stakes for financial regulation by requiring more than twenty federal agencies to promulgate nearly 400 new rules. Scholars, regulated entities, Congress, courts, and the agencies themselves have all recognized — even before Dodd-Frank — the lack of rigorous cost-benefit analysis in the context of financial rulemaking. The D.C. Circuit has struck down several financial regulations because of inadequate cost-benefit analysis, with three more challenges to be decided this summer. Members of Congress have introduced legislation to address this problem, including a call for the President to intervene …

A Failure To Consider: Why Lawmakers Create Risk By Ignoring Trade Obligations, David R. Kocan Professor

David R. Kocan Professor

The U.S. Congress frequently passes laws facially unrelated to trade that significantly impact U.S. trade relations. These impacts are often harmful, significant, and long-lasting. Despite this fact, these bills rarely receive adequate consideration of how they will impact trade. Without this consideration, Congress cannot properly conduct a cost-benefit analysis necessary to pass effective laws. To remedy this problem, the U.S. Trade Representative should evaluate U.S. domestic law to determine whether it is consistent with international trade obligations. Moreover, the U.S. Congress committee structure should be amended so that laws that might impact trade are considered within that light. In the …

The Importance Of Cost-Benefit Analysis In Financial Regulation, Paul Rose, Christopher J. Walker

Christopher J. Walker

This report reviews the role, history, and application of cost-benefit analysis in rulemaking by financial services regulators.

For more than three decades — under both Democratic and Republican administrations — cost-benefit analysis has been a fundamental tool of effective regulation. There has been strong bipartisan support for ensuring regulators maximize the benefits of proposed regulations while implementing them in the most cost-effective manner possible. In short, it is both the right thing to do and the required thing to do.

Through the use of cost-benefit analysis in financial services regulation, regulators can determine if their proposals will actually work to …

Three-Dimensional Sovereign Immunity, Sarah L. Brinton

Sarah L Brinton

The Supreme Court has erred on sovereign immunity. The current federal immunity doctrine wrongly gives Congress the exclusive authority to waive immunity (“exclusive congressional waiver”), but the Constitution mandates that Congress share the waiver power with the Court. This Article develops the doctrine of a two-way shared waiver and then explores a third possibility: the sharing of the immunity waiver power among all three branches of government.

Functional Government In 3-D, Robert L. Glicksman, Alejandro E. Camacho

Robert L. Glicksman

The creation of new administrative agencies and the realignment of existing governmental authority are commonplace and high-stakes events, as illustrated by the recent creation of the Department of Homeland Security after 9/11 and of new financial regulatory agencies after the global recession of 2009. Scholars and policymakers have not devoted sufficient attention to this subject, failing to clearly identify the different dimensions along which government authority may be structured or to consider the relationships among them. Analysis of these institutional design issues typically also gives short shrift to whether authority should be allocated differently based on agency function. These failures …

Regulating The Family: The Impact Of Pro-Family Policy Making Assessments On Women And Non-Traditional Families, Robin S. Maril

Robin S. Maril

Beginning in the 1980s, pro-family advocates lobbied the Reagan administration to take a stronger, more direct role in enforcing traditional family norms through agency rulemaking. In 1986 the White House Working Group on the Family published a report entitled, The Family: Preserving America’s Future, detailing what its authors perceived to be the biggest threats to the “American household of persons related by blood, marriage or adoption – the traditional . . . family.” These threats included a lax sexual culture carried over from the 1960s, resulting in rising divorce rates, children born “out of wedlock,” and increased acceptance of “alternative …

Dodd-Frank Act And Remittances To Post-Conflict Countries: The Law Of Unintended Consequences Strikes Again, Raymond Natter

Raymond Natter

The Dodd-Frank Act established a new Federal framework for the regulation of international remittance payments that originate in the U.S. However, the statute and implementing regulations may have the unintended consequence of disrupting the flow of remittance funds to post-conflict nations.

How To Win The Deference Lottery, Christopher J. Walker

Christopher J. Walker

In response to Jud Mathews, Deference Lotteries, 91 Texas Law Review 1349 (2013).

In Deference Lotteries, Jud Mathews proposes that the deference framework in administrative law be viewed through the game theory lens of a lottery. Such an approach helps us think critically about how varying standards of review may affect the behavior of agencies and courts engaged in the judicial review process. This Response suggests that the lottery lens can also help agencies think more strategically about how to develop and defend interpretations of statutes they administer. Assuming the validity of the lottery framework, the Response suggests a playbook …

Card Check Labor Certification: Lessons From New York, William A. Herbert

William A. Herbert

During the debate over the card check proposal in the Employee Free Choice Act of 2009 (EFCA), there has been a notable lack of discussion about New York’s fifty-year history and experience with card check certification. This article challenges and contradicts much of the prior scholarship and debate over EFCA by examining New York’s development and administration of card check procedures. The article begins with an overview of the history of New York public sector labor relations prior to the establishment of collective bargaining rights. As part of that historical overview, it examines the development of informal employee organization representation, …

Delivering The Goods: Herein Of Mead, Delegations, And Authority, Patrick Mckinley Brennan

Patrick McKinley Brennan

This paper argues, first, that the natural law position, according to which it is the function of human law and political authorities to instantiate certain individual goods and the common good of the political community, does not entail judges' having the power or authority to speak the natural law directly. It goes on to argue, second, that lawmaking power/authority must be delegated by the people or their representatives. It then argues, third, that success in making law depends not just on the exercise of delegated power/authority, but also on the exercise of care and deliberation or, in the article's terms, …

Adequate Access Or Equal Treatment: Looking Beyond The Idea To Section 504 In A Post-Schaffer Public School, Christopher J. Walker

Christopher J. Walker

In light of the Supreme Court's decision this Term in Schaffer v. Weast, this Note analyzes the current state of special education law and argues that parents, attorneys, and advocates should look beyond the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) to Section 504 in the post-Schaffer public school. This Note shows how these two standards operate in the context of state special schools for the blind and deaf. A state-by-state survey of thirty states' special school admission policies and practices reveals the IDEA's limitations and Section 504's potentially complementary role.

Although other works have briefly compared the IDEA and Section …