It’s an exciting time for communications law. Later this month, the FCC is expected to reclassify broadband ISPs like Comcast and Verizon as “telecommunications carriers” subject to the requirements contained in Title II of the federal Communications Act. This action follows on the heels of President Obama’s November plea for reclassification. Supporters of the FCC’s […]
One of the strangest things about King v. Burwell is the challengers’ claim that the ACA clearly withholds tax credits from states that refused to set up exchanges. When asked why on earth Congress would do such a thing, the challengers insist that Congress badly wanted the states to establish their own exchanges. The tax […]
A hot topic in administrative law is how to deal with congressional delegation of lawmaking authority to multiple agencies—with Jody Freeman and Jim Rossi’s terrific 2012 article coming immediately to mind. Most of this inquiry has focused on agency rulemaking and the role of the President (via the OMB/OIRA) in coordinating multi-agency regulatory efforts. So […]
This week the House passed a bill (H.R. 50) to amend the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act, which requires agencies to assess the impact of their rules on state, local, and tribal governments. The bill would expand the Act in a number of important respects and has prompted a White House veto threat over concern that it […]
On February 3, 2015, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) issued a Request for Information (RFI) on “how the Department can increase the effectiveness of its significant regulations while minimizing the burden on regulated entities.” The RFI is a continuation of the agency’s efforts to comply with President Obama’s Executive Order 13563, which requires agencies […]
On December 15th, the Ninth Circuit heard en banc oral arguments in a contentious copyright case:Garcia v. Google. The core questions in the case are interesting enough: whether performer Cindy Lee Garcia can claim copyright protection for her five-second performance in the film Innocence of Muslims, and whether Google should consequently be enjoined from showing […]
Here is the January 2015 Edition of the most-downloaded recent papers (those announced in the last 60 days) from SSRN ‘s U.S. Administrative Law eJournal, which is edited by William Funk. For more on why SSRN and this eJournal are such terrific resources for administrative law scholars and practitioners, check out my first post on the […]
1. Where do you attend law school and what led you to law school? I am a second year student at Case Western Reserve University School of Law in Cleveland, OH and hold a Master’s in Applied Medical Ethics from Arizona State University. I became interested in law while researching issues in public health ethics. […]
The intersection of criminal law and administrative law is a fascinating one. It has been explored primarily and extensively in the context of immigration—so much so that there’s a whole field called crimmigration, with a terrific blog by César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández that covers the field. And most (though not all) of the focus there […]
The United States Department of Agriculture’s (“USDA’s”) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (“APHIS”) issued proposed changes to regulations regarding facilities that receive livestock moved in interstate commerce. This proposed rule includes several amendments to the conditions under which livestock may move to such facilities without official identification. The goal is to update rules specifically […]
This is the sixth in a series of my posts discussing some of the amicus briefs filed in King v. Burwell: The amici brief filed by the Galen Institute and a group of state legislators views King v. Burwell as an issue of state rights. That is, Section 36B can be understood through the lens […]
I was reading the ACA again yesterday—a pretty typical Sunday for me—when I came across another statutory clue that Congress could not have meant to strip tax credits from states with federally established exchanges. The ACA requires all individual and small-group insurers to cover the “essential health benefits,” but the statute was pretty vague about […]
The Department of Veterans Affairs (“VA”) seeks comment on a proposed rule regarding service animals on VA grounds. At present, VA facility heads or designees have the discretion to approve or bar the presence of service animals on VA property. In contrast, federal law, specifically the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”), more broadly permits guide […]
The Constitution vests all legislative powers in Congress, yet Congress grants expansive lawmaking authority to federal agencies. The conventional model for understanding this relationship between Congress and the administrative state—as positive political theorists have long explored—is to view it in principal-agent terms. In other words, Congress delegates authority to federal agencies, and those agencies are […]
Greetings from the frozen tundra of Northern Indiana! As a new Congress gets set to work, administrative law aficionados are focusing on the Regulatory Accountability Act (“RAA”), which would substantially amend the Administrative Procedure Act. The bill passed the House with a vote of 250-175 and the President is threatening to veto it on the […]