The Administrative Procedure Act (APA) is the foundational statute for the modern administrative state. Every agency that issues regulations, enforces statutes, and otherwise governs the United States is subject to its terms. The APA does many things, but most importantly it sets the standards by which an agency’s actions can be considered lawful or not. PEER uses the APA’s enforcement provisions, 5 U.S.C. § 706, to challenge agency actions and regulations that violate the law, or render arbitrary and capricious judgments about regulation or enforcement. Wherever a federal agency oversteps its powers, deregulates industry to allow it to harm people or the environment, or otherwise makes decisions that jeopardize public or environmental health, PEER brings litigation that challenges those actions as unlawful before the courts.
The APA also guarantees the people the right to make public comments on new proposed regulations to ensure that the thoughts of the people are incorporated in the regulatory process. PEER regularly makes such comments on regulations that will harm the environment or the public’s ability to oversee the work of its government.
NEWS FROM PEER
Undoing Trump’s threat to endangered North American right whales
"Trump's National Marine Fisheries Service was regulating right whales toward extinction as the whales literally starved to death while entangled in fishing gear.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration...
Report | 2021 Bureau of Land Management Employee Survey
PEER conducted a survey with current and former Bureau of Land Management (BLM) employees on the state of the agency, these are the findings.
...Webinar | A New Era for the Bureau of Land Management?
Steps the Biden administration can take to strengthen the Bureau of Land Management and address its conservation and climate change goals.
...Inside Biden’s uphill battle to restore the EPA after Trump
"Laws are only as good as their enforcement. During his four years in office, former President Donald Trump’s appointees to the Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA, decimated the agency’s ability...
PEERMail | Fraud in EPA’s Chemical Assessments
Fraud in EPA’s chemical assessments
In the United States, chemical...
Former Wyoming BLM director: ‘Restore better’ national office in D.C.
"A former Bureau of Land Management state director for Wyoming on Thursday called on the Biden administration to “restore a better national (BLM) office to the Washington, D.C., area” following...