About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline

LOG IN
LOG IN


52 Ecology L. Currents 1 (2025)

handle is hein.journals/ecolwcur52 and id is 1 raw text is: Judicial Stays of Agency Actions: Amplifying the Public Interest Factor in Ohio v. EPA Diego Antonio Morales* In tro d u ctio n ................................................................................................... . 1 I. Background on Interstate Air Pollution..................................................... 2 II. O hio v. EPA 's Stay A nalysis................................................................... . 4 A. The Likelihood of Success on the Merits ...................................... 6 B. Balancing the Parties' Harms and Ignoring the Public Interest...... 6 III. The Scope of the Public Interest Factor.................................................... 7 A. Applying Nken in the Lower Courts.............................................. 7 B. Distinguishing the Government and Public Interests...................... 9 1. Comparing Hilton, Nken, and Ohio ...................................... 9 2. Adversarial State and Federal Governments............................10 3. Relying on Briefing Materials and the Agency Record........... 11 IV. Ohio v. EPA's Missing Public Interest Analysis .................................... 11 A . H um an H ealth .............................................................................. . 12 B . Environm ental Justice.................................................................. . 13 C. Environmental Health and Co-benefits.............................................13 C o n clu sio n ................................................................................................. . . 14 INTRODUCTION Federal courts have the tremendous power to grant stays, which temporarily stop administrative agencies from implementing and enforcing new regulations. By delaying the benefits or harms of agency actions, these stays can have wide- ranging impacts, even before courts decide the legality of those actions. But the Supreme Court infrequently adheres to its own standard for granting or denying stays, which has been the primary focus of the existing literature.1 DOI: https://doi.org/10.15779/Z38N87323C Copyright © 2025 Regents of the University of California. * J.D. Candidate, University of California, Berkeley, School of Law, 2026. This Article was adapted from a Note written for the Environmental Law Writing Seminar under the guidance of Professor Sharon Jacobs. 1. See, e.g., Ronald A. Cass, Staying Agency Rules: Constitutional Structure and Rule of Law in the Administrative State, 69 ADMIN. L. REV. 225 (2017); Kristen E. Parnigoni, Note, Shades ofScrutiny: Standards for Emergency Relief in the Shadow Docket Era, 63 B.C. L. REV. 2743 (2022); Portia Pedro, 1