Administrative Law Commons^™

Deference And Democracy, Lisa Schultz Bressman

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

In "Chevron, U.S.A. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc.", the Supreme Court famously held that judicial deference to agency interpretations of ambiguous statutes is appropriate largely because the executive branch is politically accountable for those policy choices. In recent cases, the Court has not displayed unwavering commitment to this decision or its principle of political accountability. This Article explores "Gonzales v. Oregon" as well as an earlier case, "FDA v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp.", in which the administrations possessed strong claims of accountability yet the Court did not defer to the agency determinations. In both, the Court justified its …

The Corporate Monitor: The New Corporate Czar?, Vikramaditya Khanna, Timothy L. Dickinson

Michigan Law Review

Following the recent spate of corporate scandals, government enforcement authorities have increasingly relied upon corporate monitors to help ensure law compliance and reduce the number of future violations. These monitors also permit enforcement authorities, such as the Securities & Exchange Commission and others, to leverage their enforcement resources in overseeing corporate behavior. However there are few descriptive or normative analyses of the role and scope of corporate monitors. This paper provides such an analysis. After sketching out the historical development of corporate monitors, the paper examines the most common features of the current set of monitor appointments supplemented by interviews …

Sox And Whistleblowing, Terry Morehead Dworkin

Michigan Law Review

The language of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act ("SOX") leaves no doubt that Congress intended whistleblowing to be an integral part of its enforcement mechanisms. The Act attempts to encourage and protect whistleblowers in a variety of ways, including providing for anonymous whistleblowing, establishing criminal penalties for retaliation against whistleblowers, and clearly defining whistleblowing channels. Unfortunately, these provisions give the illusion of protection for whistleblowers without effectively providing it. There is increasing evidence that virtually no whistleblower who has suffered retaliation and pursued remedies under SOX has been successful. Additionally, social science research and studies of whistleblowing laws indicate that SOX is …

Federalism And Accountability: State Attorneys General, Regulatory Litigation, And The New Federalism, Timothy L. Meyer

Scholarly Works

This Comment will examine how one particular state institution, state attorneys general (SAGs), has operated within a unique set of institutional and political constraints to create state-based regulation with nationwide impact in policy areas including consumer protection, antitrust, environmental regulation, and securities regulation. This state-based regulation casts doubt on one of the principle rationales advanced in the Supreme Court's anticommandeering line of cases for limiting federal power; namely, that such a move enhances electoral accountability, a concept central to our democracy. If in the absence of federal regulation a series of narrowly accountable state-based actors can create nationwide regulation in …

Warming Up To Climate Change Litigation, Jonathan H. Adler

Faculty Publications

There was never any doubt that Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency (“Mass. v. EPA”) would be a closely watched and hotly contested case. The surprise in Mass. v. EPA is the facility and ease with which the Court dispatched opposing arguments and redefined prior precedents. Not content to widen doctrines on the margins, Justice Stevens’s majority opinion blazed a new path through the law of standing and unearthed newfound regulatory authority for the EPA.

Now that EPA has authority to regulate greenhouse gases, regulatory controls on motor vehicles (as well as on other sources of greenhouse gases, including …

Slides: The Future Of Federal Wetlands Regulation, Mark Squillace

The Future of Federal Wetlands Regulation After Rapanos (May 10)

Presenter: Professor Mark Squillace, Director, Natural Resources Law Center, University of Colorado School of Law

35 slides

Agenda: The Future Of Federal Wetlands Regulation After Rapanos, University Of Colorado Boulder. Natural Resources Law Center

The Future of Federal Wetlands Regulation After Rapanos (May 10)

Hot-Topic Discussion held at Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck in Denver, Colorado on May 10, 2007 from 12:00 p.m. to 1:15 p.m.

Speaker: Mark Squillace, Director of the Natural Resources Law Center, University of Colorado School of Law.

Commentators: Wayne Forman and Michelle Kales, attorneys, Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck

"Rapanos v. United States, 547 U.S. 715 (2006), was a United States Supreme Court case challenging federal jurisdiction to regulate isolated wetlands under the Clean Water Act. It was the first major environmental case heard by the newly appointed Chief Justice, John Roberts and Associate Justice, Samuel Alito. The Supreme Court …

Summary Of Savage V. Pierson, 123 Nev. Adv. Op. 12, Judy Carol Cox

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

Debtor filed Chapter 7 bankruptcy and tried to claim that the security deposit for his residential lease was exempt under Nevada’s dwelling exemption. Trustee objected because debtor had no equity in the lease-hold. Due to a lack of state law precedent, the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Nevada submitted the following certified question to the Nevada Supreme Court: Is a security deposit in a residential lease exempt from the claim of creditors either as a part of an exempt dwelling under NRS 21.090(1)(m) or as a homestead under NRS 21.090(1)(l)? The Court concluded that it was not exempt …

Summary Of Silver State Elec. V. State, Dep’T Of Tax, 123 Nev. Adv. Op. 11, Judy Carol Cox

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

A company appealed a district court’s dismissal of its petition for judicial review of a tax commission decision that it had not met the necessary requirements under NRS 360.395 in order to avoid having to immediately pay the determination amount.

Note, Searching For Balance In The Aftermath Of The 2006 Takings Initiatives, Hannah J. Wiseman

Scholarly Publications

The partial regulatory takings movement seeks to compensate private landowners when regulations diminish their land values. This movement has grown in recent years, particularly at the state level. Scholars have focused thus far on the cost of compensation and its effect on the regulations that governments enact or enforce. In addition to exploring those concerns, this Note argues that partial regulatory takings regimes threaten to constrain residents’ ability to influence their communities’ growth and character. The greatest impact could fall on low-income communities, many of which contain disproportionate levels of undesirable land uses and lack adequate financial resources to influence …

Process Patents: Hearing Before The S. Comm. On The Judiciary, 110th Cong., May 1, 2007 (Statement Of John R. Thomas, Geo. U. L. Center), John R. Thomas

Testimony Before Congress

No abstract provided.

Legitimacy, Selectivity, And The Disunitary Executive: A Reply To Sally Katzen, Lisa Schultz Bressman, Michael P. Vandenbergh

Michigan Law Review

This reply addresses the thoughtful comments that former OIRA Administrator Sally Katzen has provided on our Article, Inside the Administrative State: A Critical Look at the Practice of Presidential Control. Our Article is the first to investigate the agency perspective on White House involvement in agency rule-making. We interviewed 30 of the 35 top political officials in the Environmental Protection Agency ("EPA") during the George H.W. Bush ("Bush I") and the William J. Clinton Administrations during 1989-2001. Prior to our study, empirical studies of White House involvement in agency rule-making had focused almost exclusively on the White House side, …

Judicial Deference And The Credibility Of Agency Commitments, Jonathan Masur

Vanderbilt Law Review

Consider the following situation: In late 2004, towards the end of President George W. Bush's first term, the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration ("NHTSA"), pursuant to its congressionally delegated authority, promulgates a rule that would relax inspection and testing regimes for automobile manufacturers- thereby saving those firms substantial amounts of money-if the manufacturers independently deployed cutting-edge vehicle safety technology. The research and development of this technology will require significant up-front expenditures, and automobile manufacturers must decide whether to invest the funds necessary to bring the technology to market. However, the cost-benefit analysis is not so straightforward. The predicament, as the …

Can Happy Subjects Have An Enlightened Despot? Customer Satisfaction Among Army Corps Permit Applicants, Kim Diana Connolly

Other Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Survey Says: Army Corps No Scalian Despot, Kim Diana Connolly

Journal Articles

Justice Antonin Scalia and others have described the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers ('the Corps') administration of the permitting process as burdensome and inefficient. Empirical data gathered from the Corps, however, do not bear out this assessment. In this Article, Kim Diana Connolly evaluates data collected from Corps Customer Service Surveys as well as the apparent disconnect between applicant experiences and the public's negative perception of the permitting process. She begins the Article with an overview of the Corps' regulatory permitting process, then lays out the history of and context for the Corps' Customer Service Surveys. Next, she summarizes available …

Can Happy Subjects Have An Enlightened Despot? Customer Satisfaction Among Army Corps Permit Applicants, Kim Diana Connolly

Journal Articles

No abstract provided.

United States Food Law Update, A. Bryan Endres

Journal of Food Law & Policy

Michael T. Roberts and Margie Alsbrook noted in the Journal's inaugural Food Law Update that "[t]he one constancy about food law in the United States is change, especially in a rapidly-developing food industry." This observation holds true today and also augurs a change in authorship of this section of the Journal. I hope to follow my colleagues' lead and provide timely and cogent updates of the federal (and occasionally state) statutes, regulations, and judicial decisions impacting food law and policy. It is both an honor and a duty, as food and its legal implications remain in many respects "the world's …

A Reality Check On An Empirical Study: Comments On "Inside The Administrative State", Sally Katzen

Michigan Law Review

Presidential control is the term used for the process (or some would say, the model) by which agency decision-making (more particularly, rulemaking) is brought under the direction of the president to "render such decision- making accountable and effective." Until now scholars, who have generally endorsed both the theory and the practice of the process, have written from the perspective of those who exercise presidential control - those at the White House or the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs ("OIRA"). In a recent article in the Michigan Law Review, Lisa Schultz Bressman and Michael Vandenbergh ("the authors") decided to …

Immigration Reform In America: Past, Present, And Future, Thaddeus Coffman

Undergraduate Theses and Capstone Projects

This paper examines immigration legislation throughout the history of the United States. The author has divided the focus of legislative activity into four main eras: the Laissez- Fair Era (1789-1875), the Anti-Asian Era (1876-1920), the National Origin Quotas Era (1921-1953), and the Illegal Immigration Era (1954-present). While these eras are not all inclusive, they are indicative of the main focus of legislation passed during their time. The author then compares the impact of major legislation passed during these eras to three current proposals aimed at addressing the increasing issue of illegal immigration: two versions of a guest-worker program and amnesty/legalization …

The Patent Reform Act Of 2007: Hearing Before The Subcomm. On Courts, The Internet, And Intellectual Property Of The H. Comm. On The Judiciary, 110th Cong., April 26, 2007 (Statement Of John R. Thomas, Geo. U. L. Center), John R. Thomas

Testimony Before Congress

No abstract provided.

Cityland – Vol. 4, No. 3, Center For New York City Law

CityLand - 2007

The April 2007 issue of CityLand covers major land use, preservation, and development actions across New York City. The City Council approved redevelopment of the former Jamaica Courthouse into a mixed-use building incorporating the historic facade. The Planning Commission approved the sale of a former firehouse with a restriction for community use and a 369-space garage in Battery Park City. BSA decisions included a contentious appeal over a Breezy Point home, variances for residential buildings in Tribeca, and legalization of a NoHo hotel. Landmarks held a new hearing on re-inclusion of a Douglaston home into a historic district and calendared …

Abu-Madigam V. Israel Land Administration, Salim Joubran, Edna Arbel, Miriam Naor

Translated Opinions

Facts: In response to large scale incursions onto state land in the Negev by Bedouins and their planting of agricultural crops on that land, the respondents decided to destroy the crops by spraying herbicide from the air. The petitioners challenged this policy on the grounds that the spraying of herbicide was done ultra vires and also endangered the health and dignity of Bedouins in the vicinity of the spraying. The respondents denied that the herbicide used presented any risks to health.

Held: (Justice Joubran) The respondents have no power under the law to spray herbicide in order to prevent incursions …

Summary Of Byford V. State, 123 Nev. Adv. Op. 9, Joshua Woodbury

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

Byford appeals an order of the Eighth Judicial District Court, Clark County, denying a postconviction writ of habeas corpus.

Summary Of Richardson Constr. V. Clark Cty. Sch. Dist., 123 Nev. Adv. Op. 8, Joshua Woodbury

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

Richardson Construction appeals a district court order determining that NRS 338.1381 does not permit a private cause of action.

Science, Policy, And Politics: The Impact Of The Information Quality Act On Risk-Based Regulatory Activity At The Epa, Kirk T. O'Reilly

Buffalo Environmental Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Rescuing Science From Politics: Regulation And The Distortion Of Scientific Research, As Reviewed By, Matthew B. Powers

Buffalo Environmental Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Of Rules And Standards: Reconciling Statutory Limitations On "Arising Under" Jurisdiction, Richard D. Freer

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Judicial Review Of Agency Noncompliance With Public Land Manuals, Robert L. Fischman

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Is There A Possible Role For Regulatory Enforcement In The Effort To Value, Protect, And Restore Ecosystem Services?, David Markell

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

"Quotidian" Judges Vs. Al-Qaeda, Mark S. Davies

Michigan Law Review

In Terror in the Balance: Security, Liberty, and the Courts, University of Chicago law professors Eric A. Posner and Adrian Vermeule invite those of us worried about the American response to al-Qaeda to consider the proper role of judges. Judges, of course, are not being dispatched to the hills of Pakistan nor are they securing our borders or buildings. But as the executive seeks to implement a range of new policies in the name of protecting us from al-Qaeda, the judicial treatment of these policies shapes the American response. Posner and Vermeule suggest a kind of Hippocratic view of …