Articles

The Congressional Review Act should be one of the nation's least controversial laws. To restore some measure of democratic accountability to the administrative state, it requires federal agencies to submit the rules they impose on us to our elected representatives for review before they go into effect. That's it! The law imposes a simple paperwo ...

As many Pacific Legal Foundation employees have written about before, the power of administrative agencies has increased greatly over the last century. Many Americans are now subject to rules adopted not by elected officials, but by unelected bureaucrats in the "fourth branch of government." Even worse, it is common practice for courts to defer to ...

This morning, the Ninth Circuit held that federal agencies cannot escape judicial scrutiny for illegal actions simply because they have violated the law before. In PLF's sea otter case, we represent fishermen in a challenge to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's recent decision to terminate congressionally mandated protections for them and their ...

This morning, a divided panel of the Eighth Circuit held that a Minnesota law regulating greenhouse gas emissions beyond the state's borders is invalid. This is a welcome result. PLF, joined by NFIB, filed an amicus brief in the case, supporting the challenge, arguing that the Constitution's Dormant Commerce Clause forbids extraterritorial state la ...

In August, PLF filed a petition against the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) on behalf of William Thomas, claiming that the FWC was stepping beyond its statutory authority with its proposal to severely limit boat speeds in two Pinellas County water basins. Thomas, a retiree and boating enthusiast, lives in Indian Rocks Beach ...

Todd Gaziano, Executive Director of PLF's DC Center, co-authored this blogpost. Last week, Pacific Legal Foundation filed an amicus brief in the Supreme Court of the United States in support of Century Exploration New Orleans LLC (Century) in its dispute with the United States Department of the Interior (Interior). Century is seeking Supreme Court ...

When Pacific Legal Foundation agreed to represent The Crafted Keg in its challenge to the State of Florida's ban on craft-beer growlers, PLF had no idea of the attention that the case would receive. PLF should have known of course, since experts in the field of beer recognize its importance to human culture. A variety of publications have picked ...

caption id="attachment_27114" align="alignright" width="169" "Dedicated to Fishermen Lost at Sea"/caption William Kent Suter, Former Clerk of the Supreme Court of the United States, recently observed that the federal government had "lost four cases dealing with fundamental rights in unanimous decisions," and that "the positions taken by the gove ...

This week the Fraser Institute released its Economic Freedom of the World: 2012 Annual Report. The announcement comes with good news and bad news.  The good news: the report is available for free and contains thought-provoking research about nearly 150 countries. The bad news: the United States has dropped to number eighteen in the unadjusted ranki ...