RTP's Fourth Branch Podcast

This is a podcast version of a live webinar held on December 13, 2023. The webinar was co-sponsored by the Regulatory Transparency Project & the Religious Liberties Practice Group. *** In Bella Health and Wellness v. Weiser, a Colorado faith-based healthcare provider is challenging a recent Colorado law banning a treatment commonly known as abortion pill reversal on the grounds it forced t...

Moderated by Brent Skorup, experts Timothy B. Lee, Professor Pamela Samuelson, and Kristian Stout discuss the emerging legal issues involving artificial intelligence, and its use of works protected under copyright law. Topics include how artificial intelligence uses intellectual property, whether allegations of violations of intellectual property are analogous to prior historical challenges or are...

This Term, the Supreme Court will hear Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo—a case concerning judicial deference to agency interpretations of ambiguous statutes. Pursuant to Chevron v. NRDC and follow-on cases, courts defer to agency interpretations of ambiguous statutes. Loper Bright offers the Court an opportunity to abandon Chevron deference entirely. But the phrasing of the Question...

It may surprise some to know that the government has definitive racial classifications for Americans, and it can be still further intriguing to find that the agency tasked with collecting, recording, and managing this data is the Office of Management and Budget. In this podcast, Prof. David Bernstein, author of Classified: The Untold Story of Racial Classification in America, joins us for an expla...

In September, a panel of judges on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral argument in Illumina v. Federal Trade Commission . Earlier this year, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ordered biotechnology company Illumina to unwind its $8 billion acquisition of Grail, a cancer-screening startup. This case began with a 2021 administrative complaint challenging the transaction. In September 2022,...

Six months ago, we experienced bank runs and three of the four largest bank failures in U.S. history. Regulators declared there was "systemic risk" and provided bailouts for large, uninsured depositors. What is the current situation? While things seem calmer now, what are the continuing risks in the banking sector? Banks face huge mark-to-market losses on their fixed-rate assets, and serious loomi...

For the past thirty years, the Magnuson-Stevens Act (MSA) has given the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), an arm of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA), the authority to place third-party observers on commercial fishing boats. Those observers have largely been federally funded except in certain limited instances where the MSA provides NMFS with the power to collect fees...

In May, the EPA proposed a new rule to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from new and existing power plants. This is a third attempt by the EPA to regulate these emissions. The Supreme Court struck down the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan in West Virginia v. EPA, which was the first time the Court formally acknowledged and explicitly relied on the “major questions” doctrine. The DC Circuit...

On President Biden’s first day in office, he signed Executive Order 13985 : Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government. He then signed Executive Order 14035 : Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility in the Federal Workforce later that year on June 25, 2021. Taken together, these orders outline what President Biden has described as an “amb...

In October 2022, President Biden issued an executive order regarding the European Union - U.S. Data Privacy Framework. The Framework allows for data flows between the EU and the U.S., and it was established after the European Court of Justice struck down a prior agreement known as the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield. The executive order addresses U.S. collection of signals intelligence, which has been a so...

As children's lives become increasingly digital, how can we protect their safety online while weighing potential trade-offs like privacy interests and free speech? Join us for a panel discussion examining the complex legal and ethical implications of enacting age verification requirements for access to social media and adult websites. The panel will dive into regulatory and legislative proposals a...

Eleventh Annual Executive Branch Review Conference — EBRXI Theme: Transparency, Accountability, and the Administrative State The White House recently released much-anticipated changes to federal regulatory practices, including a new Executive Order 14094 on “Modernize Regulatory Review,” draft revisions to Circular A-4 governing regulatory impact analysis, and draft guidance on meetings with entit...

During President Obama’s second term, the U.S. Education Department began sharing studies indicating that black students were disciplined at higher rates than their white peers. These data were viewed as evidence of racial bias, and, in 2014, the Education and Justice Departments jointly published a resource package to help American schools “…promote fair and effective disciplinary practices that...

Join us for an in-depth exploration into the SEC's recent lawsuit against Coinbase – a case that will no doubt influence the legal landscape of crypto asset trading and securities laws well into the future. The SEC alleges that Coinbase has operated its trading platform as an unregistered exchange, broker, and clearing agency, and further contends that Coinbase's staking-as-a-service program has b...

What does it take to attract the world's most brilliant minds? In this Tech Roundup episode, Caleb Watney and Adam Thierer explore the United States’ approach towards highly skilled immigration, its impact on innovation and economic growth, and how it might be improved going forward. They begin by looking backwards, highlighting contributions from scientific refugees that led to remarkable advance...

The debate over the electrification agenda and its implications for consumer choice and the environment remains contentious. As federal agencies like the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission and The Department of Energy look to regulate natural gas home appliances, many consumers have questions: where does the federal government draw authority to regulate climate? What potential health risks an...

Regulatory modernization has been a topic of nationwide interest in recent months. With its recently revised Circular A-4, the federal Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs has embraced an approach that could potentially lead to a massive expansion in the regulatory state. At the same time, the Commonwealth of Virginia has been pursuing a very different approach. Governor Glenn Youngkin iss...

Affirmative action plans, though perhaps most associated with college admissions and higher education, actually crop up in a wide array of spaces, including in the context of employment. In this podcast, Eric Dreiband breaks down how Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 applies in the context of voluntary affirmative action plans. He explains not only what the criteria for such plans are, but...

Are we ready to live under the watchful eye of drones? In this Tech Roundup podcast, Trace Mitchell (Institute for Justice), Brent Skorup (Mercatus Center), and Jay Stanley (ACLU) discuss the rapid adoption of drone technology by law enforcement entities and the legal and policy implications of this trend. They provide insights into recent court cases involving warrantless drone surveillance, spot...

The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), an arm of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), recently saw one of its major agency efforts that placed severe limits on the Maine lobster fishing industry in the name of protecting right whales from being entangled in fishing gear rejected by the DC Circuit Court of Appeals. The far-reaching impact of NMFS’s rule on the Maine $1...

Our Nation’s environmental laws and regulations are designed to foster the responsible use of natural resources while ensuring air, water, and land that is clean and safe for the citizenry as well as fish and wildlife. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), and states are tasked with working cooperatively to ensure that these laws are faithfully enfor...

Our Nation’s environmental laws and regulations are designed to foster the responsible use of natural resources while ensuring air, water, and land that is clean and safe for the citizenry as well as fish and wildlife. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), and states are tasked with working cooperatively to ensure that these laws are faithf...

This year's sudden collapse of First Republic, Silicon Valley, and Signature banks were the second, third, and fourth largest bank failures in US history, bringing perceived systemic risk and bailouts of wealthy depositors. In addition, the global Credit Suisse bank collapsed and commercial real estate losses threatened. Politicians, regulators, and bankers are debating why the massive regulatory...

On June 3, President Biden signed into law H.R. 3746, the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023 (Public Law 118-5). The Act made significant changes to federal permitting for major infrastructure projects, including the first significant amendments to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) in its history. In this webinar, experts aim to shed light on the implications of these changes for our nat...

The plaintiffs in Utah v. Walsh filed a motion to halt implementation of the Department of Labor’s new rule, which provides increased flexibility for retirement plan fiduciaries to consider environmental, social, or governance (ESG) factors when making investment decisions and exercising shareholder rights. This coalition of 26 states, energy companies, a trade association, and private individuals...