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Last year we covered Executive Order 13,563 ("Improving Regulation and Regulatory Review") outlining the Obama administration's regulatory strategy. One of the prongs of that strategy was the retrospective analysis of existing rules that...
On several occasions this blog has referred to the Obama Administration's initiatives to promote open government (see, e.g., here , here , and here ). Yesterday the White House released a Status Report on this topic ( The Obama Administration's...
In 1994, Susan Rose-Ackerman asked the following provocative question: American administrative law under siege: Is Germany a model? (107 Harv. L. Rev. 1279 (1994), also available here ). She noted: "The American regulatory state is under attack....
In a post on the White House Blog yesterday, entitled " Putting it plainly ," Cass Sunstein, the Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, describes the huge difference that the use of plain language on the part of federal...
Chief Justice Roberts delivered today the 8-0 decision of the Supreme Court in the case Federal Communications Commission v. AT&T (Justice Kagan took no part in the case). The Court held unanimously that the protection in FOIA against disclosure of...
Today, President Obama signed an Executive Order (the text of which is available here ) outlining his regulatory strategy. This Executive Order "is supplemental to and reaffirms the principles, structures, and definitions governing contemporary regulatory...
The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. § 552 , allows citizens to access government documents unless one of nine numerated exemptions applies. Exemption 2 [5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(2)] exempts from disclosure records "related solely to...
A piece in today's Wall Street Journal (Ianthe Jeanne Dugan, In California, a Road to Recovery Stirs Unrest ) describes the legal challenge against the new highway to the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco. This $1 billion project is a public-private...
There has been a lot of coverage in the press and the blogosphere of President Obama's appointment of Professor Elizabeth Warren as special adviser to the White House to oversee the development of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (for...
One of the difficult administrative law questions facing most legal systems today is the tradeoff between independence and accountability. Last Monday, June 28, the US Supreme Court handed down a 5-4 decision in the case of Free Enterprise Fund v. Public...
In an article, entitled " White House to seek input on roles of private contractors, federal workers ," the Washington Post reports today that the Obama administration will begin seeking formal input from stakeholders on a pair of questions...
The Washington Post reports today that federal auditors on Monday put a stop to Army plans to award a $1 billion training program for Afghan police officers to the company formerly known as Blackwater (now Xe Services), concluding that other companies...
As RegBlog reports, the White House recently announced the online availability of extensive government datasets through Data.gov . On December 8, 2009, the White House issued the Open Government Directive, instructing Executive Departments to publish...
The Environmental Protection Agency moved closer Monday to issuing regulations on greenhouse gases, a step that would enable it to limit emissions across the economy even if Congress does not pass climate legislation. According to an article published...
The Supreme Court heard oral argument on Monday in Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (08-861), an important separation of powers case. In 2002, Congress passed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which created the Public Company Accounting...
Washington Post has an article today on President Obama scolding business groups that have fought his plan to create a new federal agency (Consumer Financial Protection Agency) to oversee mortgages, credit cards and other consumer financial products,...
U.S. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson announced yesterday a proposal requiring large industrial facilities that emit at least 25,000 tons of greenhouse gases (GHGs) a year to obtain construction and operating permits covering these emissions. These permits...
The OIRA Draft 2009 Report to Congress on the Benefits and Costs of Federal Regulations is available here . According to the summary provided in the Federal Register Notice of Availability and Request for Comments (which is also available on that same...
In an op-ed published in the Washington Post of September 13, 2009 (available here , Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Tex.) argues that the deployment of a great number of White House "czars" "sets a dangerous precedent that undermines the...
The Senate confirmed Professor Cass Sunstein to be Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Office of Management and Budget, on September 10, 2009 (see New York Times ). He was approved 57 to 40, with the vast majority of his...