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Brian Mannix is a research professor in the Regulatory Studies Center at George Washington University. From 2005 to 2009 he served as the Environmental Protection Agency's Associate Administrator for Policy, Economics, and Innovation; earlier he served as Deputy Secretary of Natural Resources for the Commonwealth of Virginia. From 1987 to 1989, Mr. Mannix was managing editor of Regulation magazine at the American Enterprise Institute.

February 21, 2017|Executive Order 13771, Regulatory Reform, Standing

Public Citizen v. Trump: Roadmap for the Resistance

by Brian Mannix|4 Comments

Eight days after President Trump signed his “One-In, Two-Out” Executive Order No. 13771, Public Citizen, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Communications Workers of America, and Earthjustice filed suit against the President and a dozen or so agency heads, seeking declaratory and injunctive relief. That order, entitled Reducing Regulation and Controlling Regulatory Costs, instructs agencies to identify two old regulations for removal for each new rule they propose, and to limit net incremental regulatory costs to $0 in the remainder of fiscal year 2017. Plaintiffs allege that it would prevent agencies from maximizing the net benefits of regulation, thus depriving the…

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December 9, 2016|behavioral economics, Benefit Cost Analysis, Cass Sunstein, Paternalism

Can Behavioral Economics Justify the Unbound Regulator?

by Brian Mannix|11 Comments

“You must be the best judge of your own happiness.”

Jane Austen said that, in Emma, but the statement is also a keystone principle of modern microeconomic theory, and it provides the epistemic foundation that makes benefit-cost analysis possible.  The only way to know people’s preferences is observe the choices that they themselves freely make; all inferences about the “public” interest must begin there.

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November 17, 2016|Administrative State, Congressional Review Act, REINS Act

Midnight Mulligan – The Congressional Review Act Rides Again!

by Brian Mannix|11 Comments

Might the administrative state have expired quietly, six months ago?  Arguably it did, if what we mean by the administrative state is the array of regulatory agencies, not only executing the law, but also creating binding new law without legislative consent.  Bear with me.

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November 10, 2016|Benefit Cost Analysis, fiscal policy, Office of Management and Budget

The Public Interest and the Regulatory State

by Brian Mannix|4 Comments

Harvard University (Jorge Salcedo/Shutterstock.com).

How can we ensure that government officials use their powers in the public interest?

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November 4, 2016|Benefit Cost Analysis, Clarke tax, Condorcet Paradox, Kaldor-Hicks Test

Does Benefit-Cost Analysis Attempt the Impossible?

by Brian Mannix|6 Comments

Before tackling some of the practical problems involved in the use of Benefit-Cost Analysis (BCA), I want to take a look at two foundational questions.  How do we incorporate the interests of affected individuals into a BCA model?  And how do we assemble those individual interests into a social welfare function that allows us to make a collective decision?

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November 1, 2016|Administrative State, Benefit Cost Analysis, Entergy Corp v. Riverkeeper, Michigan v. EPA, Whitman v. American Trucking Association

Using Benefit-Cost Analysis to Harness the Administrative State

by Brian Mannix|4 Comments

Benefit-Cost Analysis (BCA) is now widely known and used, but it is also widely misunderstood – by many of its advocates as well as its detractors.  Over the next few weeks I want to examine some of the strengths and weaknesses of BCA as a normative science; and, yes, that phrase is an oxymoron, which is a source of much of the controversy.  BCA is an imperfect answer, but often perhaps the best available answer, to the question of how a society should go about making collective but not unanimous choices.  Nowhere is its use more contested than in its application to decisions by regulatory agencies.

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October 21, 2016|

Coherence in the Executive

by Brian Mannix|Leave a Comment

In response to: Ten Ways for the Next President to Promote the Rule of Law

I can only applaud the excellent “to do list” in Adam White’s Liberty Forum essay, even as I scan the absentee ballot that I received in September wondering whether any of the leading candidates would have the good sense to give the list the attention it deserves. But we are giving advice here, not forecasting the future, and so we persevere in the face of obvious obstacles to progress. The first item on the White List—rescinding President Obama’s worst regulatory excesses—should be front and center in the earliest days of the new administration. I would suggest making a distinction between those…

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More Responses

Wishing for a Goat, Not a Hero

by Philip A. Wallach

Adam White’s Liberty Forum essay offers 10 ways for our 45th President to promote the rule of law, many of which I find appealing. But I fear he could offer a thousand such ideas without much effect, and in the end he concedes that he, too, doubts that Presidents will restrain themselves or their governments…

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Understanding Why and How the Obama Administration Has Flouted the Rule of Law

by Richard Epstein

It is very difficult to take issue with the pessimistic tone of Adam White’s sensible advice to the next President on 10 ways to promote the rule of law. All of the topics that he mentions are understood as serious, systemic weaknesses. When it comes to administrative law, President Obama has a penchant for excessive…

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A (Long) Path to Reforming Our Administrative State

by Adam White

When Law and Liberty invited me to write on 10 things that a new president could do to promote the rule of law, I was struck by how counterintuitive the question was. After years upon years of debate over presidents pushing the boundaries of the constitutional powers (and not just during the most recent administration,…

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July 7, 2014|

The New Cronyism of the Old Rent-Seeking State

by Brian Mannix|Leave a Comment

In response to: The Rise of Adversarial Corporatism

Michael Greve’s essay vividly describes some deeply troubling trends in the relationship between the government and the economy. It provides a much needed perspective at a time when politics and policy-making are nothing if not adversarial, and more casual observers succumb to the temptation simply to choose sides without asking how we came to this ugly state of public affairs and where it might be headed. At the same time, however, I fear that Greve’s coinage of “adversarial corporatism,” however apt, will be too often misunderstood. Like “crony capitalism,” it will lead those who inhabit the shallow news-bite space (and…

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Book Reviews

A Compelling and Compassionate Book about Epilepsy

by Theodore Dalrymple

Our knowledge of the human brain is limited, but neuroscientist Suzanne O’Sullivan’s observation of her patients yields astute insights.

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Andrew Roberts Takes the Measure of the “Populist” Aristocrat, Churchill

by Joao Carlos Espada

Yes, there is something new to be learned about Winston Churchill, and it's in the new 1,105-page biography by Andrew Roberts.

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Liberty Classics

Bringing Natural Law to the Nations

by Samuel Gregg

If sovereign states ordered their domestic affairs in accordance with principles of natural law, the international sphere would benefit greatly.

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Belloc’s Humane Defense of Personhood and Property

by James Matthew Wilson

Perhaps the memory of that metaphysical right to property informs our fears, and could lead to a restoration of human flourishing.

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Podcasts

Born-Again Paganism: A Conversation with Steven Smith

A discussion with Steven D. Smith

Steven Smith talks with Richard Reinsch about his provocative thesis that a modern form of paganism is becoming public orthodoxy.

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"Slouching Towards Mar-a-Lago:" A Conversation with Andrew Bacevich

A discussion with Andrew J. Bacevich

Andrew Bacevich discusses his new book Twilight of the American Century

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Bureaucracy, Regulation, and the Unmanly Contempt for the Constitution

A discussion with John Marini

John Marini unmasks the century-long effort to undermine the Constitution's distribution of power.

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Beautiful Losers in American Politics: A Conversation with Nicole Mellow

A discussion with Nicole Mellow

Nicole Mellow on the beautiful losers in American politics who have redefined the country.

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Recent Posts

  • A Corrupt Republic? Hamilton, Madison, and the Rise of Oligarchy

    Jay Cost asks his readers to reconsider the ways that corruption all too easily flows from the federal government, in every era.
    by Tony Williams

  • The Campus Mob Comes for the Presumption of Innocence

    It is not necessarily surprising that students fail to appreciate the hard-won freedoms on which the modern university and our civilization rest.
    by John O. McGinnis

  • Obama and Trump: At What Point Has a President Forfeited the Public Trust?

    Why impeachment has always been a tough call for the American people to make.
    by Jeremy A. Rabkin

  • Government by Emergency: Are Two Generations of Crisis Enough?

    The oldest emergency proclamation dates to the Carter Administration, 40 years ago. Two generations of crisis are enough.
    by Greg Weiner

  • The President’s Emergency Declaration Is the Congressional Check on Presidential Power

    President Trump’s declaration of a national emergency is the check on executive prerogative, not the exercise of it.
    by James R. Rogers

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Law & Liberty’s focus is on the classical liberal tradition of law and political thought and how it shapes a society of free and responsible persons. This site brings together serious debate, commentary, essays, book reviews, interviews, and educational material in a commitment to the first principles of law in a free society. Law & Liberty considers a range of foundational and contemporary legal issues, legal philosophy, and pedagogy.

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