Administrative Law Commons^™

Reducing The Overburden: The Doris Coal Presumption And Administrative Efficiency Under The Black Lung Benefits Act, Eric R. Olson

Michigan Law Review

Coal dust build-up prevents many coal miners' lungs from functioning properly. This condition, commonly referred to as black lung or pneumoconiosis, can make common activities nearly impossible. The Black Lung Benefits Act covers the cost of medical treatment for many affected miners, though procedural impediments often prevent miners from receiving care. The miner's current or former employer, when identifiable, must pay for medical care relating to the miner's black lung. Most disputes over miners' claims for medical care arise when the miner has a history of cigarette smoking and the need for medical care could arise from either coal dust …

Willard Hurst And The Administrative State: From Williams To Wisconsin, Daniel R. Ernst

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This article follows Willard Hurst from his undergraduate days at Williams College through the start of his teaching career at Wisconsin in the fall of 1937. During these years Hurst acquired an abiding interest in the rise of the administrative state as well as some of the insights he would use to account for it in his mature work. For the most part, the article proceeds chronologically through four episodes in Hurst's training: (1) his year-long study of Charles and Mary Beard's "Rise of American Civilization" undertaken as an undergraduate at Williams College; (2) his three years as a student …

Is The Clean Air Act Unconstitutional?, Cass R. Sunstein

Michigan Law Review

This Article deals with two linked questions. The first involves the future of the Clean Air Act. The particular concern is how the Environmental Protection Agency ("EPA") might be encouraged, with help from reviewing courts, to issue better ambient air quality standards, and in the process to shift from some of the anachronisms of 1970s environmentalism to a more fruitful approach to environmental protection. The second question involves the role of the nondelegation doctrine in American public law, a doctrine that shows unmistakable signs of revival. I will suggest that improved performance by EPA and agencies in general, operating in …

Zurko Raises Issue Of Patentability Standards, Thomas G. Field Jr.

Law Faculty Scholarship

In re Zurko isolated one of the oldest U.S. agencies from mainstream administrative law because the Federal Circuit has chosen to review the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office more as it would a federal district court. The case is important, if only because the Supreme Court rarely treats the PTO as an agency. Also, regardless of whether the issue or the Federal Circuit itself is the primary target, the decision could have a major effect on the type of case most commonly encountered by that court.

Brief Amici Curiae Of Intellectual Property Professors In Support Of Petitoner, Thomas G. Field Jr., John F. Duffy, Craig Allen Nard

Law Faculty Scholarship

Congress enacted the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) in 1946 as a comprehensive statute to regulate the field of federal administrative law. In holding that the PTO Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences is not subject to the standards of judicial review set forth in the APA, the [Zurko] decision isolates patent law from the rest of administrative law and undermines the APA’s goal of achieving consistency and uniformity in federal administrative law.

Amicus Brief Of Thomas G. Field, Jr., Pro Se Supporting In Principle, On Rehearing The Commissioner Of Patents And Trademarks, Thomas G. Field Jr.

Law Faculty Scholarship

To those unfamiliar with the long, often bitter, struggle over equally compelling needs to provide, on the one hand, innovators with an adequate opportunity to recoup risk capital and to avoid, on the other, erecting unwarranted barriers to competition, a dispute over the proper scope of review for Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) patent appeals will seem both trivial and arcane. This case involves more than semantics -- its resolution turns on the allocation of power among three, and arguably four, branches of government. This Court, itself, has a stake.

Salvaging The Welfare State?: The Prospects For Judicial Review Of The Canada Health & Social Transfer, Lorne Sossin

Dalhousie Law Journal

The Canadian Health and Social Transfer ("CHST"), which came into force on April 1, 1996, contains no national standards relating to the quality of social welfare. The goal of this new transfer was to promote provincial flexibility in the sphere of social policy. The author argues that this flexibility may undermine the core of the Canadian welfare state. Given the preoccupation of the provincial and federal governments with devolution, welfare recipients must turn to the judiciary to determine the "bottom line" of the welfare state. The author explores the various constitutional and administrative law grounds on which the federal government's …

Judicial Review Of Discount Rates Used In Regulatory Cost-Benefit Analysis, Edward R. Morrison

Faculty Scholarship

Executive orders, statutes, and precedent increasingly require cost-benefit analysis of regulations. Presidential executive orders have long required executive agencies to submit regulatory impact analyses to the Office of Management and Budget ("OMB") before issuing regulations, and recent federal legislation exhibits a trend toward mandatory cost-benefit analysis. For example, the Toxic Substances Control Act, the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act, and the recent Safe Drinking Water Act Amendments require the Environmental Protection Agency to balance costs and benefits in regulating chemicals and pesticides. In 1995, Congress passed the Unfunded Mandates Act, requiring cost-benefit analysis of all significant federal regulations that …

Why The New York State System For Obtaining A License To Carry A Concealed Weapon Is Unconstitutional, Suzanne Novak

Fordham Urban Law Journal

The New York State administrative system for obtaining a license to carry a concealed weapon violates the state constitution and the tenets of administrative law vital to a democratic society. This article discusses the failures of the New York State administrative procedures for issuing carry licenses. In addition, this article asserts that by avoiding policy determinations, the legislature has created a system that disadvantages both individual applicants and the public at large. This article concludes that both the New York Legislature and courts must act to rectify the state's unconstitutional and undemocratic scheme for issuing carry licenses.

Ultra Vires And The Foundations Of Judicial Review, Paul Craig

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Judicial Restraint In The Administrative State: Beyond The Countermajoritarian Difficulty, Matthew D. Adler

Faculty Scholarship

Arguments for judicial restraint point to some kind of judicial deficit (such as a democratic or an epistemic deficit) as grounds for limiting judicial review. ("Judicial review" is used in this Article to mean, essentially, the judicial invalidation of statutes, rules, orders and actions in virtue of the Bill of Rights, or similar unwritten criteria.). The most influential argument for judicial restraint has been the Countermajoritarian Difficulty. This is a legislature-centered argument: one that points to features of *legislatures*, as grounds for courts to refrain from invalidating *statutes*. This Article seeks to recast scholarly debate about judicial restraint, and to …

Waivers, Flexibility, And Reviewability, Jim Rossi

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

In this Comment, I shall explore the issue of reviewability, as discussed by Krent, in the context of one flexible approach to regulation-- express agency waiver of regulations. Part I of this Comment addresses the increased need for flexible solutions in the administrative context, such as waiver of rules, and provides some examples. Part II argues that, especially in the context of flexible regulatory approaches, Heckler v. Chaney, a key case for determining whether courts will review agency decisions, should not be given a reading that precludes review of agency inaction. It should be read to value consistency with program …

Risk Assessment Perspectives, Peter L. Strauss

Faculty Scholarship

I have a slightly different subtitle for our session today, which I hope our panelists may consider in addressing the many challenges before them: Cost-Benefit Analysis and Risk Assessment under Diminished Resources. Allan Morrison introduced the resource problem at the end of yesterday's session. It is an important element of the problems we face.

I think another element of those problems is finding a reasoned way of addressing these issues. The contrast between reasoned decisionmaking and political football was also nicely in evidence yesterday, perhaps especially strongly for those of us who have been responsible for putting together these presentations. …

From Expertise To Politics: The Transformation Of American Rulemaking, Peter L. Strauss

Faculty Scholarship

In this speech to be given on November 15, 1996, as the American contribution to the week-long conference on administrative law sponsored by the Fundaci6n Estudios de Derecho Administrativo in Caracas, Venezuela, Professor Peter L. Strauss addresses the history and developing political character of rulemaking in federal law over the fifty years since enactment of the Administrative Procedure Act. As a framework, Professor Strauss sets forth a hierarchy of institutional rulemaking, from constitution through informal advising. He then develops his discussion of rulemaking by tracing the federal process of rulemaking through time, beginning with the enactment of the Administrative Procedure …

An American Perspective On Environmental Impact Assessment In Australia, Mark Squillace

Publications

No abstract provided.

Redeeming Judicial Review: The Hard Look Doctrine And Federal Regulatory Efforts To Restructure The Electric Utility Industry, Jim M. Rossi

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Recent policy-effect studies denounce judicial review for its adverse effects on agency decision-making. In its strong version, the policy-effect thesis suggests that judicial review has paralyzed innovative agency decision-making. Professor Rossi reacts to policy-effect studies, particularly as they have been used to attack the hard look doctrine in administrative law. He revisits Professor Richard Pierce's policy-effect description of the effects of judicial review of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). Professor Rossi's survey of recent FERC decision-making provides some support for an attenuated version of the policy-effect thesis but leads him to reject the strong version of the thesis. Much …

Administrative Appeal Reform: The Case Of The Forest Service, Robert L. Fischman, Bradley C. Bobertz

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Pluralism, The Prisoner's Dilemma, And The Behavior Of The Independent Judiciary, Thomas W. Merrill

Faculty Scholarship

Discussions of Thayer's conception of judicial review, as this symposium amply demonstrates, tend to be normative. Professor Nick Zeppos's paper, which offers more of a positive analysis, is therefore a welcome addition. Zeppos's paper includes three especially valuable insights. First, he demonstrates the close parallel between Thayer's theory of judicial review and the Supreme Court's Chevron doctrine. The former would have the judiciary enforce clear constitutional commands but otherwise defer to legislative understandings of constitutional meaning; the latter would have courts enforce clear legislative commands but otherwise defer to administrative interpretations of statutes. Second, he offers evidence that in both …

Putting The Correct "Spin" On Lucas, Richard J. Lazarus

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Part I describes and discusses the significance of the Lucas majority's desire to draft an opinion making environmental regulations more susceptible to takings challenges. Part II identifies the majority's antiquated notions of the physical and social function of real property as the source of the majority's misguided efforts. Finally, Part III describes how the majority's analytical framework may ultimately make it easier, rather than harder, for environmental protection measures to survive takings challenges.

Judicial Review Of Administration In The People's Republic Of China, Jyh-Pin Fa, Shao-Chuan Leng

Maryland Series in Contemporary Asian Studies

No abstract provided.

Judicial Deference To Executive Precedent, Thomas W. Merrill

Faculty Scholarship

In 1984, the Supreme Court adopted a new framework for determining when courts should defer to interpretations of statutes by administrative agencies. Previous decisions had looked to multiple contextual factors in answering this question. Chevron U.S., Inc. v. National Resources Defense Council, Inc. appeared to reject this approach and require that federal courts defer to any reasonable interpretation by an agency charged with administration of a statute, provided Congress has not clearly specified a contrary answer. The Court justified this new general rule of deference by positing that Congress has implicitly delegated interpretative authority to all agencies charged with enforcing …

Due Process, Judicial Review, And The Rights Of The Individual, Edward D. Re

Cleveland State Law Review

As a federal judge I fully appreciate the role of the judiciary in reviewing the actions of administrative agencies. Hence, I am pleased to discuss the concepts of due process, judicial review, and the rights of the individual. Since it cannot be questioned that public officers and administrative agencies vitally affect the lives and interests of all persons, it is important to know the legal controls and remedies that are available to assure that public officials act lawfully. This, of course, implies that all administrators and officers of government must act within the bounds of their delegated authority and comply …

The International Court Of Justice And Administrative Tribunals Of International Organizations, Joanna Gomula

Michigan Journal of International Law

This paper will explore the origins of the Court's unusual system of review and underscore some of its problems. Surprisingly, this issue has not been adequately expounded, although occasionally different authors have discussed particular problems, such as the participation of individuals in proceedings before the Court.

Considering Political Alternatives To "Hard Look" Review, Peter L. Strauss

Faculty Scholarship

That is absolutely right. I am sufficiently confused by the facts that are already on the table – two of them in particular. One (the dog that I thought was barking in that interesting first chart Don Elliott put up, on which he did not remark), is that the first two periods of judicial review he showed us had 337 and 294 cases of judicial review each; for the third period, for the same length of time, the figure is about 800. Something is going on there. The other is just a square conflict that our moderator is much better …

A Proposal For An Outrageous, Albeit Effective, Strategy To Prevent Groundwater Pollution, George Cameron Coggins

Water Quality Control: Integrating Beneficial Use and Environmental Protection (Summer Conference, June 1-3)

14 pages.

Administrative Law In A Global Era: Progress, Deregulatory Change, And The Rise Of The Administrative Presidency, Alfred C. Aman

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Standards For Judicial Review Of Forest Plans: Will The Courts Not See The Forest For The Trees, Wells D. Burgess

The Public Lands During the Remainder of the 20th Century: Planning, Law, and Policy in the Federal Land Agencies (Summer Conference, June 8-10)

50 pages.

Contains 2 attachments.

Public Interest Review Of Water Right Allocation And Transfer In The West: Recognition Of Public Values, Douglas L. Grant

Water as a Public Resource: Emerging Rights and Obligations (Summer Conference, June 1-3)

37 pages.

Contains references.

One Hundred Fifty Cases Per Year: Some Implications Of The Supreme Court's Limited Resources For Judicial Review Of Agency Action, Peter L. Strauss

Faculty Scholarship

Recent writing about the Supreme Court has stressed the implications of the extraordinary growth in the Court's docket – and, even more, the growth in the overall level of judicial activity in the nation's courts – for its performance of its judicial task. Generally, this writing seeks first to determine whether the Court has been forced to bypass questions it ought normally to hear (for example, square conflicts between two of the federal circuits), editorializes about the increasing bureaucratization of the Court, and passes on to normative questions about what if anything ought to be done to ease the Court's …

Jurisdiction, Fairness And Reasonableness, Julius H. Grey, Lynne-Marie Casgrain

Dalhousie Law Journal

There is no doubt that in the days of procedural refinements, arbitrary distinctions and uncertainty as to the purpose of judicial review, the subject was exceedingly complicated and unnecessarily subtle. With the new dominance of relatively simple concepts, and more obvious policy goals, we may reduce the subject to a wholesome simplicity, so that both the government and the citizens can know and understand their rights. To do so, we have to consider the fundamental concepts one by one, and then apply them to recent jurisprudence and to the policy of modern administrative law.