This chapter explores the adverse consequences of conflating the overlap/distinct and coordination/independence dimensions of regulatory authority by focusing on Congress's restructuring of federal banking regulation after the crash of 2008 in the Dodd-Frank Act in 2010. Legislators and...

This chapter explains how legislative changes to, and the broader commentary on, US derivatives regulation illustrate the value of parsing the overlap/distinct and centralization/decentralization dimensions in assessing the tradeoffs of regulatory allocations. The Securities and Exchange...

One of the greatest strengths of the National Environmental Policy Act has been its requirement that federal agencies opening up to the public decisionmaking processes concerning proposed actions that may adversely affect the environment. By mandating not only information collection and analysis...

Over the last two decades, natural resource scientists, managers, and policymakers have increasingly endorsed “adaptive management” of land and natural resources. Indeed, this approach, based on adaptive implementation of resource management and pollution control laws, is now mandated in a...

The creation of new administrative agencies and the realignment of existing governmental authority are commonplace and high-stakes events, as illustrated by the recent creation of the Department of Homeland Security after 9/11 and of new financial regulatory agencies after the global recession...

The Trump Administration’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic is a stark reminder that poorly designed government can be a matter of life and death. This article explains how the Administration’s careless and delayed response to the crisis was made immeasurably worse by its confused and...

An analysis of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) comparing it to analogous provisions in the Endangered Species Act (ESA) illustrates the value of a careful exploration of interagency coordination-not only the choices that exist for policymakers in deciding the extent to which...

Using the federal food safety regulatory laws as examples, this chapter explores the significance of governmental function in understanding and prescribing centralized and decentralized authority. It begins by examining how recurrent criticisms of federal food safety regulation for excessive...

In recent years, regulation scholars and policymakers have increasingly turned their attention to the role of inter-governmental organizational design in effective governance. The existing literature on regulatory design has provided important insights into the advantages and disadvantages of...