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68 Duke L.J. 1805 (2018-2019)
Rulemaking Inaction and the Failure of Administrative Law

handle is hein.journals/duklr68 and id is 1837 raw text is: RULEMAKING INACTION AND THE FAILURE OF ADMINISTRATIVE LAW SIDNEY A. SHAPIRO t ABSTRACT The Trump administration may be the first presidency to go four years without promulgating new significant regulations to protect people and the environment. Although administrative law protects regulatory beneficiaries when agencies revoke or modify previous rules, those protections evaporate when an agency rejects a rulemaking petition, fails to answer a petition for years, or fails to work on pending regulatory protections. In effect, the courts have outsourced agency accountability for rulemaking inaction to political oversight, but as a defense of the interests of regulatory beneficiaries, political accountability is the Maginot Line of oversight. Despite the difficulty of judging an agency's claim that it has higher priorities or that it needs more time to make a decision, judges should require more detailed explanations. Although less trusting judicial review is not without its problems, the current approach of abject deference to agency inaction ignores Congress' commitment to protect people and the environment as specified in an agency's mandate. TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction .......................................................................................... 1806 I. The D eregulation G am e ................................................................. 1809 II. The Administrative Law of Deregulation ................................... 1812 A . R evocation .......................................................................... 1813 B . M odification ........................................................................ 1814 C . Inaction ................................................................................ 1816 1. Rulemaking Petitions ..................................................... 1816 2. D enial ............................................................................... 1818 3. N o Response .................................................................... 1820 Copyright © 2019 Sidney A. Shapiro. t Frank U. Fletcher Chair of Administrative Law, Wake Forest University School of Law. I am appreciative of the comments and suggestions regarding the Article from the other contributors to this Symposium, Professor Chris Schroeder who commented on the article, and from the other Duke faculty members and students attending the Symposium. As well, I benefited from suggestions made by Professor Richard Murphy.