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INSIGHT: White House EOs Shed Light, Restore Constitutional Limits on Government Power
In the News
President Trump’s two executive orders bring federal agency guidance out of the darkness and promote transparency and fairness. Peggy Little, senior litigation counsel with the New Civil Liberties Alliance, says they should be cheered by Americans across political divides. Nearly 20 years ago, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals invalidated “guidance” wielded as law by…
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The Next Level of Rulemaking Madness
Harriet Hageman
Despite the fact that both the Constitution and Administrative Procedure Act prohibit the practice, federal agencies often engage in the common-place tactic of issuing informal interpretations, fact sheets, and other forms of “guidance,” the practical outcome of which is to surreptitiously force the regulated community to comply with a variety of “policy positions” that are…
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Trump's New Executive Orders To Restrain the Administrative State
In the News
President Donald Trump just announced two executive orders to rein in unlawful administrative state action. The first order declares that its goal is “to ensure that Americans are subject to only those binding rules imposed through duly enacted statutes or through regulations lawfully promulgated under them, and that Americans have fair notice of their obligations.” …
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President Trump Rightfully Orders Agencies to be Transparent and Fair; USDA Should be the First to Comply
Despite the fact that the Constitution and Administrative Procedure Act prohibit the practice, federal agencies often engage in the commonplace tactic of issuing informal interpretations, factsheets, and other forms of “guidance,” to force compliance with a slew of “policy positions” that are not supposed to be legally binding. The agencies, in other words, use purportedly…
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The Wholesale Nullification of FOIA
Adi Dynar
The Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, is one of the most important legal tools Americans have for ensuring the federal government is transparent. Given the mammoth size of the federal bureaucracy, FOIA helps inform Americans of “what their government is up to,” in the words of Henry Steele Commager…
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Ignoring Reality and the Law of Unintended Consequences
Harriet Hageman
The United States Forest Service (“USFS”) dropped the “Roadless Rule” (66 Fed.Reg. 3244) on the public in the last ten days of the Clinton administration, the outcome of which was to essentially deny access to and management of 58.5 million acres of National Forest lands throughout the Country. That Rule covered a full 30%…
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