How Agencies Reverse Policy: Stays, Remands, and Reconsideration

When
October 5, 2017 12:30 pm — 2:00 pm
Where
Washington, DC (and webinar)

This program was sponsored by the D.C. Bar Environment, Energy and Natural Resources Community. Cosponsored by the Administrative Law and Agency Practice Community, the American Bar Association Section of Environment, Energy, and Resources, and the Environmental Law Institute.


Since the presidential transition, EPA and other agencies have used a variety of tools to change policies and regulations. Three common tools they have used are stays, remands, and reconsideration. Agencies administratively stay the effective date of rules preventing them from going into effect, seek voluntary remand of rules in litigation to revisit rules administratively while avoiding a judicial decision, and administratively reconsider rules. Some of these actions have been the subject of the heated litigation, and the courts have acted to constrain agency discretion, including in an important D.C. Circuit decision rejecting EPA's stay of the oil and gas methane rule (Clean Air Council v. Pruitt, no. 17-1145). Our expert panelists discussed the use of these legal tools in changing agency policy, and offered cutting-edge perspectives from the government, the private sector, and the environmental advocacy community.

Speakers:
Megan Berge
, Baker Botts LLP
Ethan Shenkman, Arnold & Porter
Susannah Weaver, Donahue & Goldberg
Prof. William Buzbee, Georgetown University Law Center (Moderator)