RTP's Fourth Branch Podcast

On May 8, 2019, the Ninth Circuit issued a 2-1 decision in Cedar Point Nursery v. Shiroma. In Cedar Point, California agricultural growers asked the court to invalidate an Agricultural Labor Relations Board regulation that allowed union organizers to come on to the growers’ property to solicit workers to join the union for 3 hours per day and 120 days per year. The growers contend that the regulation amounts to a physical taking under the Fifth Amendment. The Ninth Circuit majority rejected that argument, and held that the physical takings doctrine did not apply because the union organizers were not allowed around-the-clock access to the growers’ property.In this podcast, hear reactions from Wen Fa and Bethany Berger.Featuring:- Wen Fa, Attorney, Pacific Legal Foundation- Prof. Bethany Berger, Wallace Stevens Professor of Law, University of Connecticut School of LawVisit our website – RegProject.org – to learn more, view all of our content, and connect with us on social media.

LIBOR is a hugely important interest rate benchmark, used globally and embedded in over $200 trillion of financial contracts. It has its notable shortcomings, including having been subject to scandalous attempts at manipulation. Financial regulators, notably the New York Fed, want it to disappear and be replaced by another index. But can the regulators succeed in their effort? Will LIBOR disappear and be replaced? By SOFR or something else? Or will it survive, perhaps as one of multiple competing benchmarks?Dr. Oonagh McDonald thoroughly explores LIBOR's evolution, scandals, and the issues of its future in her new book, "Holding Bankers to Account." Oonagh will present the lessons of history and the state of current debates. Gary Kalbaugh of ING Financial and Columbia Law School and Alex Pollock of the R Street Institute will be discussants.Featuring:- Prof. Gary Kalbaugh, Special Professor of Law at the Maurice A. Deane School of Law- Alex J. Pollock, Distinguished Senior Fellow, R Street Institute- Dr. Oonagh McDonald, CBE, Philosophy Lecturer at the University of Bristol, Member of the British Parliament 1976-1987, Member of the Front Bench Treasury Team, Author of Several Books, Including her Newest One "Holding Bankers to Account"Visit our website – RegProject.org – to learn more, view all of our content, and connect with us on social media.

One of the final acts of former Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection (CFPB) Director Richard Cordray before he left to run for Governor of Ohio in 2017 was the issuance of a comprehensive rule governing payday loans, auto title loans, and other small dollar loans. The centerpiece of the rule would have imposed a new "Ability to Repay" (ATR) underwriting standard on providers of these small dollar products for extensions of credit to repeat borrowers. The Rule was scheduled to go into effect in August 2019. In January of this year, however, new CFPB Director Kathy Kraninger announced a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that would rescind the ATR requirement. This live podcast discusses the logic of the 2017 Rule and the reasons for the CFPB's reconsideration this year.Featuring:- Prof. Todd Zywicki, George Mason University Foundation Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason UniversityVisit our website – RegProject.org – to learn more, view all of our content, and connect with us on social media.

Recently, members of the United States Senate and United States House of Representatives have introduced the "Loan Shark Prevention Act," which imposes a nationwide 15% interest rate ceiling on all consumer credit products, from credit cards to payday loans. They also propose to empower the United States Post Office to engage in the practice of consumer retail banking. This Teleforum examines the economics of interest-rate ceilings on consumer credit and the historical experience with such proposals as well as discussing the proposal to create a Post Office bank.Featuring:- Wayne Abernathy, Executive VP for Financial Institutions Policy and Regulatory Affairs, American Bankers Association- Todd Zywicki, George Mason University Foundation Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law SchoolVisit our website – RegProject.org – to learn more, view all of our content, and connect with us on social media.

This episode brings you the audio from the opening panel of the Federalist Society's 7th annual Executive Branch Review Conference. The panel featured Counsels from the Department of Transportation, Department of Energy, Department of the Treasury, Department of Agriculture and the EPA. The speakers take stock of the current administration's regulatory reform agenda two years on.Featuring:- Hon. Steven G. Bradbury, General Counsel, U.S. Department of Transportation- Mr. George H. Fibbe, Deputy General Counsel, U.S. Department of Energy- Hon. Hon. Matthew Z. Leopold, General Counsel, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency- Hon. Brent J. McIntosh, General Counsel, U.S. Department of the Treasury- Hon. Stephen A. Vaden, General Counsel, U.S. Department of Agriculture- [Moderator] Prof. Adam White, Assistant Professor and Executive Director, The C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University- [Introduction] Dean A. Reuter, General Counsel | Vice President & Director, Practice Groups, The Federalist SocietyVisit our website – RegProject.org – to learn more, view all of our content, and connect with us on social media.

It is currently a federal crime, under the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act, for many Native Americans to possess eagle feathers for religious use. Congress authorized the Department of the Interior (the Department) to permit an exception for eagle feather use for “the religious purposes of Indian tribes” in 1962, yet more than 50 years later the Department’s regulations exclude millions of sincere Native American religious believers. And even Native Americans who are protected (because they are enrolled members of federally recognized tribes) are forced to rely on the “Morton Policy”—an informal memorandum that could be rescinded at any time. Although Native Americans have relied on the Morton Policy for more than 40 years, the Department has never promulgated it as a rule.In 2014, the Fifth Circuit held that the Department had failed to justify its ban on religious feather possession as required by the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). The Department is now considering a Petition for Rulemaking, which proposes to 1) broaden the Morton Policy to include all sincere religious believers who use protected feathers in their religious exercise—as both the Constitution and RFRA require; 2) officially promulgate this policy as a formal rule rather than rely on informal guidance, ending decades of legal limbo for those who worship with feathers; and, 3) empower Native American tribes to help combat the illegal commercialization of federally protected feathers. Join Joe Davis as he addresses the proposed rulemaking and its relationship to evolving First Amendment jurisprudence.Featuring:- Joe Davis, Counsel, Becket Fund for Religious LibertyVisit our website – RegProject.org – to learn more, view all of our content, and connect with us on social media.

Regulation is a pervasive and increasingly a contentious issue in 21st Century America. The propriety of any given regulatory imposition may be debatable; however, in this discussion we address bigger questions about how regulation works as a whole—whether, in the aggregate, regulation at the federal, state and local level is working well, or impacting innovation and economic opportunity. What are the relative benefits of local and state regulation as well the societal costs?Our co-presenters, Brooks Rainwater (National League of Cities) and Luke Wake (NFIB Small Business Legal Center), will explore whether we should maintain the status quo, seek to scale-back existing regulation, and/or winnow existing regulatory regimes.Featuring:- Brooks Rainwater, Senior Executive & Director, Center for City Solutions, National League of Cities- Luke Wake, Senior Staff Attorney, NFIB Small Business Legal CenterVisit our website – RegProject.org – to learn more, view all of our content, and connect with us on social media.

The Texas Tech Medical School recently approved an agreement with the United States Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights, to end the use of racial preferences in their admissions process. The agreement was reached after over a decade of negotiation, initiated by a complaint filed by the Center for Equal Opportunity against Texas Tech in 2004. The agreement is a promising sign for opponents of racial preferencing in school admissions process, and could have significant implications for the future.Roger Clegg joins us to discuss the recent agreement, and its implications.Featuring:- Roger Clegg, President and General Counsel, Center for Equal OpportunityVisit our website – RegProject.org – to learn more, view all of our content, and connect with us on social media.

This Deep Dive episode brings you the audio from the final panel at the Pepperdine Law Review's 2019 Symposium "Regulating Tech: Present Challenges and Possible Solutions". In this panel, leading thinkers from across the emerging tech space discuss the regulatory environment for everything from drones to ridesharing.Featuring:- William Goodwin, Head of Policy, Regulatory, and Legal, Skyryse- Ryan Hagemann, Senior Policy Fellow at International Center for Law and Economics- Brooks Rainwater, Senior Executive & Director, Center for City Solutions, National League of Cities- Caleb Watney, Fellow, Technology & Innovation, R Street Institute- [Moderator] Gregory S. McNeal, Professor of Law and Public Policy, Pepperdine University and Co-Founder, AirMapVisit our website – RegProject.org – to learn more, view all of our content, and connect with us on social media.

On February 14, 2019, the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers published a proposed rule defining “waters of the United States” under the Clean Water Act (CWA). This is a critical definition because it clarifies the waters that are regulated under the CWA.For decades, the EPA and Corps have struggled to come up with a proper definition that is both consistent with the plain language of the statute, respects the state role in addressing water pollution, and is consistent with the rule of law. Does the new proposed rule address these concerns? What are some of the concerns with the proposed rule? How should the EPA and the Corps define key terms such as “tributaries” and “adjacent wetlands?” Should a final rule include intermittent waters?Featuring:- Deidre Duncan, Partner, Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP- Tony Francois, Senior Attorney, Pacific Legal Foundation- [Moderator] Daren Bakst, Senior Research Fellow in Agricultural Policy, Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies, The Heritage FoundationVisit our website – RegProject.org – to learn more, view all of our content, and connect with us on social media.