Battling Overregulation in State Courts

Abstract

Litigants have increasingly begun to challenge federal regulations, alleging that the underlying economic analysis is flawed in some respect. A similar opportunity exists in many states. Forty-one states have enshrined some form of economic-analysis requirement in their statutory law. In at least 32 of these states, the state-level Administrative Procedure Act (APA) includes a judicial review provision that is substantially identical to that contained in the federal APA, and another five states include essentially identical judicial-review provision outside of the APA.

Keywords: Administrative Procedure Act, benefit-cost analysis, economic analysis, judicial review, regulation, state agencies, state courts

JEL Classification: K, K2