presidential power
Ranking Presidents on Climate Change
Seven presidents, seven very different legacies.
Although a 1977 memo alerted Jimmy Carter to the problem of climate change, the first tentative responses to climate change didn’t emerge until he left the White House. Since then, there have been seven very different men in the White House. You may find the rankings surprising. Here’s how I would rank them, from best …
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CONTINUE READINGPower Play: The Effects of Overruling Chevron
Who will win and who will lose if Chevron is overruled?
Next week, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments about whether to overrule the Chevron doctrine. That doctrine allows administrative agencies that implement statutes to resolve ambiguities in those statutes. Overruling the doctrine would shift that power to courts. Institutionally, then, judges would be the big winners, with more sway over how laws are implemented. …
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CONTINUE READINGThe Presidency Under Siege
The current Justices are no friends of presidential power.
As recent scholarship has shown, the Supreme Court has been increasingly aggressive in countering exercises of presidential power. From the environmental perspective, West Virginia v. EPA is the most relevant example of the Court’s efforts to cut the presidency down to size. True, the Court purported to be chastising EPA, part of the bureaucracy. Yet …
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CONTINUE READINGUnanswered Questions About Cost-Benefit Analysis
We have only fragmentary evidnece about how CBA actually functions in government decision-making.
Considering that people have been debating cost-benefit analysis at least since Reagan mandated its use in 1981, you would think we would have the answers to some basic questions about how it works. Yet we have very fragmentary information, generally based on the perspevtives of people at the agencies or in the White House Office …
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CONTINUE READINGPushing Back Against Presidential Power
It’s time to rethink the amount of power presidents have claimed over regulatory policy.
If there was ever a time to think hard about presidential power, that time is now. That’s a very broad question, but the part most relevant for this blog is the President’s role in controlling government regulation. There is no question that presidents have and will continue to have a huge influence on regulatory policy. …
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CONTINUE READINGNew Article Provides In-Depth Analysis of Limits to Presidential Authority Under the Antiquities Act
Analysis By Faculty at UCLA, University of Colorado, and UC Berkeley Concludes that Congress Alone, and Not the President, May Eliminate or Shrink National Monuments
[Updated June 12, 2017 to reflect availability of final published article] Mark Squillace of University of Colorado, Eric Biber of UC Berkeley, my UCLA colleague Nick Bryner, and I have co-authored a short academic article (published in Virginia Law Review Online) about the President’s authority to abolish or shrink national monuments. This article provides detailed historical research and …
CONTINUE READINGPoliticians and Commentators Who Criticize Recent National Monuments Are Making Up Their Own Version of History
Republican Presidents from Teddy Roosevelt to Herbert Hoover Designated Millions of Acres Under the Antiquities Act
As several colleagues and I noted here recently, President Trump recently issued an executive order that will result in “review” of national monuments created since 1996. (The Antiquities Act grants Presidents the authority to reserve federal lands as national monuments, protecting them from much new resource extraction and development that would otherwise potentially be available on those …
CONTINUE READINGNational Monuments: Presidents Can Create Them, But Only Congress Can Undo Them
Authored by Nicholas Bryner, Eric Biber, Mark Squillace, and Sean B. Hecht
Bears Ears National Monument, Utah. Bob Wick, BLM/Flickr, CC BY This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article. On April 26 President Trump issued an executive order calling for a review of national monuments designated under the Antiquities Act. This law authorizes presidents to set aside federal lands in order to …
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CONTINUE READINGHerein of Regulatory “Czars”
Some conservatives like Glenn Beck are now raising alarms about the power of “czars” within the Obama White House. Although the rhetoric is ridiculous, there is a serious question here. A long-term trend has been for Presidents to exert more centralized control over the bureaucracy, and as a practical matter that control has to be …
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