This second event of our co-sponsored series on the Administrative State will focus on the role of the administrative state in policymaking. Through its various roles and capacities, the Administrative state can have great leeway to create policy that has similar effects to rules and laws created through the legislative process but comes to be via different means. Agencies can make rules, issue guidance documents that often carry significant weight, interpret statutes, and enforce their rules. All these can contribute to agencies making policies that have the force of law.

Some argue that this policy-making by non-elected individuals serving in the administrative state is improper and usurps elected officials' authority. Others contend this is a valuable and necessary part of the Administrative State’s ability to operate as authorized, and that the policy-making capacity of the Administrative State is a net benefit.

Panelists David Fotouhi, a current partner at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP who spent four years serving with the EPA, and Richard Pierce, a professor of Law at George Washington University who focuses on the Administrative State, will discuss the policy-making power of the Administrative State, and the practical ways in which that power can often be applied. Judge Lisa Branch will moderate. 

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