Abstract
This article, winner of the Florida Bar Environmental and Land Use Law Section's 2000 Dean. Frank E. Maloney Memorial Writing Contest, reviews the District of Columbia Circuit Court's decision in American Trucking Associations, Inc. v. United States Environmental Protection Agency. The D.C. Circuit "sent shock waves through the environmental community" by reviving the nondelegation doctrine, after sixty years of dormancy, in American Trucking Associations, Inc. v. United States Environmental Protection Agency. The court used the nondelegation doctrine to restrict the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) discretionary decision making capacity, which could have a sweeping effect on Congress' authority to defer to agency decision making in general. However, the decision in American Trucking may have a limited effect if it is only applied to narrowly construed circumstances. Subsequent to the publication of this article, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Whitman v. American Trucking Associations, Inc., 531 U.S. 457, limited the D.C. Circuit's interpretation by partially affirming, partially reversing and remanding the case.
Recommended Citation
Schmidt, Michael N.
(2018)
"Delegation and Discretion: Structuring Environmental Law to Protect the Environment,"
Florida State University Journal of Land Use and Environmental Law: Vol. 16:
No.
1, Article 3.
Available at:
https://ir.law.fsu.edu/jluel/vol16/iss1/3