Author Archive | Jonathan H. Adler

Should agencies receive Chevron deference for statutory interpretations that implicate the scope of their own jurisdiction? This question divided Justices Scalia and Brennan in Mississippi Power & Light Co. v. Mississippi (1988), and has not been conclusively resolved since. In The Rest Is Silence: Chevron Deference, Agency Jurisdiction, and Statutory Silences, Nathan Sales and I […]

A state appellate court voted unanimously to remove a sweeping and controversial government reform initiative from the ballot, the Detroit News reports. The ballot proposal, backed by Michigan Democrats and called Reform Michigan Government Now!, includes so many provisions that it is a “general revision” of the state constitution, which only a constitutional convention can […]

Today the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit voided yet another Bush Administration Clean Air Act regulation in Sierra Club v. EPA. The majority opinion by Judge Griffith (joined by Chief Judge Sentelle) begins: The 1990 Amendments to the Clean Air Act compel certain stationary sources of air pollution to obtain permits from […]

Was there ever a real threat the Japanese would invade the Pacific coast during World War II? Historians think not, but with the benefit of hindsight. In 1943, however, military attorneys argued otherwise, maintaining the threat was serious and justified a racial curfew on those of Japanese descent (including Japanese Americans). These arguments helped persuade […]

A number of college and university presidents and chancellors want to rethink the drinking age. According to a statement released by The Amethyst Initiative, they believe the 21 year-old drinking age is not working and, like prohibition, may be counterproductive. A culture of dangerous, clandestine “binge-drinking”—often conducted off-campus—has developed. Alcohol education that mandates abstinence as […]

The WSJ reports: Barring a burst of legislative activity after Labor Day, this group of 535 men and women will have accomplished a rare feat. In two decades of record keeping, no sitting Congress has passed fewer public laws at this point in the session — 294 so far — than this one. That’s not […]

In response to calls for a boycott of the Manchester Grand Hyatt in San Diego because its owner gave substantial contributions to California’s anti-gay-marriage ballot initiative, the Executive Committee of the AALS has released the following statement. The AALS 2009 Annual Meeting will take place January 6-10, 2009, in San Diego, California. Several years ago […]

Last week, Senator John McCain told Colorado’s Pueblo Chieftan that he thought the 1922 Colorado River Compact should be renegotiated due to the increasing demand for water in downstream states to account for population changes and increased water demand in places like Nevada, Arizona, and southern California. This has made folks in Colorado none too […]

Isaac Hayes died last week. Likely best known for the title song to “Shaft” (and perhaps, to younger generations, for his portrayal of Chef on South Park), Hayes career as a singer, songwriter, and producer was actually quite wide ranging. Reason‘s Jesse Walker penned a brief tribute to Hayes, and on his recommendation here’s a […]

Two massive solar power plants are planned for central California. The plants will cover 12.5 square miles of central California with solar panels, and in the middle of a sunny day will generate about 800 megawatts of power, roughly equal to the size of a large coal-burning power plant or a small nuclear plant. The […]

Roger Pielke Jr. cites some interesting polling data purporting to show the percentage of Americans considering themselves to be “environmentalists” has declined dramatically over the past 20 years. Today just over 40 percent of respondents answer “yes” to the question “Do you consider yourself an environmentalist or not?” Does this mean that Americans are less […]

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has decided, sua sponte, to rehear the case of Maher Arar en banc. This is an interesting and unusual development. Details here and here.

Last February, a three judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit granted death row inmate Michael Bies’s habeas petition, holding that the Double Jeopardy clause bars the state from re-litigiating the issue of Bies’ mental retardation. The Ohio Supreme Court has affirmed Bies’ death sentence in 1996, despite his mental […]

William McGurn reports on a surprising landowner victory in an eminent domain case from the Garden State. In the latest of man-bites-dog rulings from the state courts, a three-judge panel of the New Jersey Appellate Division actually sided with ordinary homeowners over a greedy local government and developer. In their ruling, the judges unanimously reversed […]

The Washington Post opposes oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) and other ecologically sensitive areas. But the Post also opposes misinformation about offshore oil drilling spread by environmentalist groups and others. In particular, the Post takes aim at three myths about offshore driling: Drilling is pointless because the United States has only […]