Panel Paper:
Legislative Demand and the Timing of U.S. Agency Regulations
Friday, November 8, 2019
I.M Pei Tower: Terrace Level, Beverly (Sheraton Denver Downtown)
*Names in bold indicate Presenter
One of the most powerful tools that legislatures possess is the power to issue statutes that delegate policymaking power to government agencies. Yet, an underappreciated tension exists during the exercise of this power. Put simply, while public agencies need statutory authority in order to issue legally binding government regulations, agencies also retain a great deal of discretion regarding if and when to use that authority. In this article, we will investigate the link between congressional demand for agency regulation and agency supply of that regulation. Using an original and comprehensive dataset that links federal statutes to rules generated by multiple federal government agencies over a forty-year period, we provide a novel empirical analysis of the timing of agency regulatory responsiveness to congressional statutes.
We analyze almost 400 statutes delegating regulatory authority to the U.S. Department of Interior (DOI) between January 1, 1947 and December 31, 1987. We then match these statues to all rules issued by DOI agencies. We use flexible parametric models for survival analysis to understand factors that speed or slow down agency responsiveness to congressional delegations of authority. In the end, this article will throw new light on the connection between legislative demand for U.S. regulation with the agency supply of that regulation.
