Articles

Faced with a Congress that would not endorse his expansive regulatory agenda, President Obama famously remarked, “I’ve got a pen and I’ve got a phone.” Almost 10 years later, governing by executive fiat continues. The latest round of policymaking by pen and phone came when President Biden designated 53,804 acres of land in n ...

The Clean Water Act turns 50 this fall—and like most things at age 50, it no longer functions like it once did.  Congress passed the Clean Water Act (CWA) on October 18, 1972, to combat pollution in the country’s more-than-25,000 miles of waterways. But 50 years later, the government isn’t enforcing the CWA as a … ...

Entering its second year in office, the Biden Administration continues to undermine statutory constraints on the administrative state. Most recently, it proposed repealing the Securing Updated and Necessary Statutory Evaluations Timely rule, or Sunset Rule, that had previously been adopted by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)� ...

On December 7, 2021, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Army posted their hefty, proposed re-write of a major water regulation in the Federal Register.  During the comment period that followed, the agencies’ “Revised Definition of Waters of the United States” collected more than 93,000 comments—a remarka ...

With President Biden’s first 100 days well under way, the Trump administration’s regulatory reform agenda might seem like a distant memory. But one rule, known as Securing Updated and Necessary Statutory Evaluations Timely (SUNSET), finalized by the Department of Health and Human Services on the previous administration’s last full ...

In a letter written late in his life to Kentucky legislator William Barry, James Madison warned that a “popular Government without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy; or, perhaps both.” In the context of the sprawling and often unaccountable modern administrative state these wor ...

Following two successive PLF lawsuits, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service last month reclassified the golden conure from endangered to threatened. The decision—which, according to Congress’ wishes, should have been finalized much earlier—recognizes the bird’s improved status and removes unnecessary federal regulations. Native to the ...