Author: Jace Lington

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) must follow informal rulemaking procedures when it changes Medicare policy. In Azar v. Allina Health Services, decided June 3, 2019, the court held that HHS had to give the public notice and an opportunity to make comments before changing the way…

The Trump administration has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to grant expedited review of four cases involving the 2017 decision to end an Obama-era program (DACA) that postponed deportation for children who entered the United States unlawfully. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against the Trump administration’s decision to end the DACA program on…

A unanimous U.S. Supreme Court declined to apply Chevron deference to uphold an agency legal interpretation in a case decided on May 28, 2019. Smith v. Berryhill involved whether the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) dismissal of an appeal in a disability case counted as a final agency action, which would allow the person filing for…

Offices of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are formulating rules to clarify how they weigh the costs and benefits of potential regulations. These rules follow a May 13, 2019, memo from EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler saying that cost-benefit analyses have varied across the agency in the past and that new rules will promote more transparent…

A fight between UPS and Amazon over how a federal agency determines shipping costs will not proceed to the U.S. Supreme Court. On May 20, 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a case that challenged giving Chevron deference to the way the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC) sets package delivery prices. UPS argued that…

A proposed bill would require agencies to request written feedback from interested people regarding new major rules earlier in the regulatory process. Senators James Lankford (R-Okla.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) introduced Senate Bill 1419, the Early Participation in Regulations Act, on May 13, 2019. The act requires agencies to issue advance notices that they will…

A new bill aims to help administrative agencies meet regulatory goals by requiring them to assess the effectiveness of new major rules. Senate Bill 1420, The SMART Act of 2019, would require agencies to publish ideas about how to measure the anticipated benefits of new major rules, including how to collect the necessary data to…

A new bill restructuring the way small business regulations are considered was introduced in the Senate on May 7, 2019. The Prove It Act (PIA), introduced by U.S. Senators Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), would allow the Small Business Administration (SBA) to require agencies to reconsider findings claiming new regulations would not affect…

A new rule requires pharmaceutical companies to include the list price of some prescription drugs in television advertisements. The requirement applies to medicines covered by Medicare or Medicaid dollars, according to a final rule published by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) on May 10, 2019.   The agency intends for the rule…

President Donald Trump issued a presidential memorandum directing the attorney general and the secretary of homeland security to propose regulations to, according to the President, “strengthen asylum procedures to safeguard our system against rampant abuse of our asylum process.”   The memo, issued on April 29, 2019, gives the Department of Justice and the Department…