LRS

enforced Endangered Species Act halting a nearly complete dam - plain text/statute is clear then enforce even if consequences are costly

When text produces results clearly out of legislative purpose, invoke purpose to narrow

Legislative history can be used to resolve ambiguity between overlapping statutes

Legislative history can help interpret flexible terms like "reasonable"; may rebut unduly narrow interpretation

Legislative history can aid interpretation, but courts should be cautious as they often don't reflect Congress as a whole, representativeness problem

Where statutory text is clear, courts need to apply as written even if results are harsh, harsh doesn't equal absurd

Shouldn't extend terms beyon ordinary meaning; expresio unious - the expresion of one implies the exclusion of another

Ordinary statutory meaning okay even when result is harsh, plain text controls even if penalties are disproportionate

Absurdity canon - courts can depart from literal statutory text when literal application would produce absurd resultsl, "no rational congress" could have meant this

Noscitur a sociis - ambigious terms are interpreted in light of the surrounding words and can both narrow and broaden a meaning

Clear statement rule: congress must speak clearly before statute read to alter federal-state balance & rule of lenity: criminal statutes genuinely ambigious after stat interp, need to read in favor of D

Constitutional avoidance: adopt plausible interpretation to avoid constitutional doubts when actually ambigious, raising due process concerns (read in 6 mos instead of indefinite bc would be DP concern)

Textualism focuses on ordinary public meaning of enacted text, not specific expectations of Congress at enactment; unexpected applications do not defeat irdinary textual meaning; unexpected does not equal absurd

Congress needs to give executive "intelligible principle," and "equalization of domestic and foreign costs of production" is sufficient; intelligible principle is baseline for valid delegation

Congress cannot delegate virtually unfettered policymakng power without meaningful standards or limits

If statute meant OSHA could regulate whenever any conceivable health risk, that would raise serious nondelegation doctrine problem because Congress would have handed OSHA enormous policymaking discretion with little guidance. To avoid constitutional issue, Court interpreted statute more narrowly to require OSHA to first find a significant risk to worker health before regulating.

Statute let AG decide how SORNA applied to offenders convicted before the statute was enacted; modern nondelegation doctrine remains highly deferential, broad guidance is usually enough

Private delegation is permissible if 1) subordinate and 2) agency retains final decision-making power

some combo of: 1) goal/policy to be pursued (what) and 2) guiding principles (how: instructions or constraints)

Congress gave AG authority to suspend deportations in certain cases; House used one-house legislative veto to overturn Chadha’s suspension of deportation. Congress cannot maintain a one-house legislative veto, any action by Congress to alter legal rights needs to be through bicameralism & presentment

1) Power of the purse - cut funding
2) Pass actual legislation changing it
3) Oversight hearings: bully them into it
4) Senate confirmations: refuse approval

President must retain unrestricted removal authority over purely executive officers under Article II

For-cause removal protections okay for independent, mlulti-member body of experts with quasi-judicial and quasi-legislative functions

For cause protections okay where it doesn't infringe on President's ability to execute Articel II duties; functional interference approach but largely limited now

Double nested for-cause protections not constitutional, excessively insulate officers from presidential supervision

Current; cannot insulate single head of agency with for-cause protections because that unconstitutionally concentrates executive power in one person; reasons: 1) political accountability and 2) energetic and flexible execution of law and policy

Test for officers: 1) office established by law and continuing role 2) exercise significant authority

Primary Officers (pres + senate); inferior officers (congress can vest power in pres, court or agency head); employee (no constitutional requirment)

1) Humphrey's Executor: multi-member expert body with leg & jud functions
2) Morrison: certain inferior officers with limited duties/authority that doesn't impede on the president's

Inferior officer if sufficiently directed and supervised by primary: 1) at-will removal & 2) can review and overrule recommendations

Can interpret APA to require formal adjudicative safeguards where combining prosecutorial and adjudicative functions raise due process issues, even without the "magic words"

To be an inferior officer need 1) meaningfully supervised and 2) at-will removal

Agencies can adjudicate "public rights" but "private rights" historically adjudicated in court need to stay in Article III courts

Securities fraud analogous to CL fraud adjudications, 7th amendment rights protected, need to be able to do this in Article III courts

1) Identify CL analogy 2) Show remedy is punitive/damages 3) Historical tradition of being adjudicated in article 3 courts

Government entitlements can equal property rights that trigger due process requirements pre-termination

Severity of deprivation, urgency, nature of interest, public/privat balance; more sever and immediate means more procedures required

Unilateral employment expectations do not equate to deprivation of property rights, need actual entitlement not abstract need

Informal practices or policies can create legitimate reliance interests constituting protected property iterests - reasonable expectation test

Due process requirements determined through balancing
1) Private interest at stake
2) risk of erroneous deprivation/value of added procedures
3) government burden/interests
Looking to balance private interest x change in mistake < cost to gov

Essentially gutted formal rulemaking as a category, upheld informal rulemaking, formal procedures needed only if triggered by the magic words requiring the rule "to be made on the record after opportunity for agency hearing"

Notice and comment requires meaningful disclosure, agency must 1) share the data/studies it is relying on so the public can actually engage + 2) the final rule must respond to significant comments

Courts cannot impose additional procedures beyond what APA requires for informal rulemaking; APA is ceiling for informal rulemaking procedures

Courts reviewing agency action must judge action based only on 1) agency's valid, contemporaneous rationale 2) cannot defend decisions using post-hoc rationalizations, or arb & cap

Agencies can develop policy through adjudication rather than just through rulemaking; have discretion to announce legal standards retroactively

PG&E helps establish that nonbinding policy statementsuidance are exempt from APA notice-and-comment requirement

1) Binding force/legal effect (PG&E)
2) Social consequences, actually changing legal obligation or creating new duties (American Mining)
3) How much discretion is retained & actually excercised?

Look at social consequences of the decision - is the agency making a policy or enforcing a policy it was given the authority to enforce, changing legal obligations

"Hard look" doctrine = courts look closely at whether agency considered all relevant factors, ignore irrelevant ones, or relied on factors congress didn't intend - correct factors esp in statute, or arb & cap

Reversing policy, must 1) provide reasoned explanation and 2) engage with the evidence, politics okay in changed but still explain

1) fail to consider important factors
2) ignore evidence
3) Officer explanations contrary to the record
4) change policy without reasoned explanation

Can go from not enforcing policy to enforcing policy + doesn't need to explain why new policy is better, but needs to acknowledge change, give reasoned explanation, and address any reliance interests, politics okay in changing but need to explain

Non-enforcement decisions are presumptively unreviewable, up to agency discretion; inaction is analogous to prosecutorial discretion, not arb and cap

Cannot give pretextual reason for decisions, politics okay but need to give real reason, agency must "own its actual motives" or arb and cap

Rescision of DACA was arb and cap bc failed to consier reliance interests of dreamer & whether they could retain the work authorization part seperately

For mixed questions of law, interpretations are not binding on courts but give them "respectful consideration" based on agency expertise & persuasiveness

2 step deference:
1) Did congress speak clearly on the issue?
2) Only if not, then did agency adopt a reasonable interpretation? If so, defer

Overturned Chevron, and agency views are persuasive only and more persuasive when:
- Long standing and consistent with the statute
- Expertise-based and well reasoned
- Product of agency and deliberative process, not just something on the fly
- More the question looks like a question of law, the more the court will feel like its court's place to make the decision

- Argument that Chevron violates APA 706 which gives courts the power to decide all relevant questions of law (vs dissent thinking this doesn't mena court has to pick the single best interpretation of ambiguous terms, but the relevant question is who Congress gave the interpretive authority to)
- Fears of unconstrained tyrannical governments (vs dissent desire for expertise and capacity)
- Belief in judges acting as neutral bodies who can resolve ambiguities (vs dissent belief that this will inevitably lead judges to make value-ladden judgements)

- Uncertain statutory basis
- Broad, sweeping, impact
- Departure from historical practice
- Congress repeatedly addressing the issue itself

EPA clean power plan required nationwide shift away from coal plants, struck down under MQD, that Congress needs to speak clearly before agency claims authority over issue of vast economic & political significance

IEEPA granted broad emergency trade powers - whether this sweeping tariff authority fell within IEEPA; MQD applied to executive emergency power & broad statutory grants do not automatically authorize economy-wide executive action without clear statements
- Limited scope of delegated authority