Affirming the Status Quo?: The FCC, ALJs, and Agency Adjudications Benjamin Kapnik
Benjamin Kapnik · July 2012 80 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 1527 (2012) This Essay presents the first study on the benefits of Administrative Law Judges (“ALJ”) for the Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”), an agency with a reputation for being politicized. Examining affirmance rates of FCC decisions at the United States Court of Appeals for the... Read More
“Natural” Modifications: The FDA’s Need to Promulgate an Official Definition of “Natural” that Includes Genetically Modified Organisms
Erik Benny · July 2012 80 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 1504 (2012) Consumer demand for “natural” food and beverage products has never been higher. In response to this demand, U.S. companies have made “natural” the most frequently used descriptive claim on new U.S. food products. Yet, despite the immense importance placed on this term, “natural”... Read More
Rulemaking Ossification Is Real: A Response to Testing the Ossification Thesis
Richard J. Pierce, Jr. · July 2012 80 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 1493 (2012) This Article responds to Testing the Ossification Thesis, in which Professors Jason Yackee and Susan Yackee engage in an empirical study and claim to find relatively weak evidence that ossification is either a serious or widespread problem. This Response asserts that... Read More
Testing the Ossification Thesis: An Empirical Examination of Federal Regulatory Volume and Speed, 1950–1990
Jason Webb Yackee & Susan Webb Yackee · July 2012 80 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 1414 (2012) Federal agencies promulgate hundreds of regulations per year, and rules made by agencies greatly affect the structure and quality of our lives, perhaps even more so than the laws made by Congress. Given this reality, administrative law scholarship... Read More
PCAOB and the Persistence of the Removal Puzzle
Patricia L. Bellia · July 2012 80 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 1371 (2012) In Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (“PCAOB”), the Supreme Court invalidated a statutory provision protecting the tenure of members of the PCAOB, a board created to oversee the auditing of public companies subject to the securities laws. The... Read More
Embracing Administrative Common Law
Gillian E. Metzger · July 2012 80 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 1293 (2012) This Foreword begins with the descriptive claim that much of administrative law is really administrative common law: doctrines and requirements that are largely judicially created, as opposed to those specified by Congress, the President, or individual agencies. Although governing statutes exert some... Read More
“If You Have a Zero-Tolerance Policy, Why Aren’t You Doing Anything?”: Using the Uniform Code of Military Justice to Combat Human Trafficking Abroad
Brittany Warren · June 2012 80 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 1255 (2012) Human trafficking is a long-recognized problem with global implications. Officially, the U.S. Government has a “zero-tolerance” policy for human trafficking. To that end, the United States has enacted a variety of legislation since 2000 to combat human trafficking both at home and abroad.... Read More
Privacy Is the Problem: United States v. Maynard and a Case for a New Regulatory Model for Police Surveillance
Matthew Radler · June 2012 80 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 1209 (2012) Inescapably, the debate in the United States about law enforcement’s use of electronic surveillance is defined in terms of privacy. Whether discussed by courts, commentators, or legislators, the principal and often the only justification put forth for regulating the use of a given... Read More
From Wall Street to Wheat Fields: Using the Business Method Patent’s “First Inventor Defense” as a Model for Genetically Engineered Seed Protection
Christopher W. Dawson · June 2012 80 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 1174 (2012) In Diamond v. Chakrabarty, 447 U.S. 303 (1980), the Supreme Court announced that utility patent protection under 35 U.S.C. § 101 extends to living, human-made organisms, and the Court subsequently confirmed that such protection extends to newly developed plant breeds in J.... Read More
The Regulation of Race in Science
Kimani Paul-Emile · June 2012 80 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 1115 (2012) The overwhelming majority of biological scientists agree that there is no such thing as race among modern humans. Yet, scientists regularly deploy race in their studies, and federal laws and regulations currently mandate the use of racial categories in biomedical research. Legal commentators... Read More