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Economic, Workplace and Environmental Regulation

The work of the Economic, Workplace, and Environmental Regulation Group encompasses a broad range of issues in the areas of labor law, environmental protection, economic opportunity, and administrative law. Among the topics it examines are workplace democracy, climate change and the enforcement of environmental laws, the regulatory process, corporate governance, and wealth inequality.

The Issue Group's Co-Chairs are:

To get involved in the work of the Economic, Workplace and Environmental Regulation Issue Group, please fill out the Issue Group Sign-Up Form.

Also, please note that ACS ResearchLink features a number of topics related to the Economic, Workplace and Environmental Regulation Issue Group’s work on which law students are encouraged to focus their academic scholarship.
Recent Stories

ACS Convention Panel: No Worker Left Behind - Labor Law & the Right to Organize

 On June 19, at the 2010 ACS National Convention, a panel of experts discussed labor law and organizing rights. The panel featured:

  • Harold Meyerson, Editor at Large, The American Prospect, Moderator;
  • Ana Avendaño, Associate General Counsel and Director of the Immigrant Worker Program, AFL-CIO;
  • Willis J. Goldsmith, Partner-in-Charge, Jones Day;
  • Margaret McCann, Associate General Counsel, AFSCME;
  • Benjamin Sachs, Assistant Professor of Law, Harvard Law School.

ACS Convention Panel: Environmental Protection in a Climate of Change

At the ACS National Convention, a panel examined "Environmental Protection in a Climate of Change." The panel featured:

  • Jonathan Adler, Professor of Law, Case Western Reserve University School of Law
  • Vicki Arroyo, Executive Director, Georgetown Climate Center 
  • Lisa Heinzerling, Associate Administrator, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Policy, Economics, and Innovation 
  • Rachel Jacobson, Principal Deputy Solicitor, U.S. Department of the Interior 
  • Andrew Light, Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress 

ACS Convention Panel: Technology, Change and the Future of the 4th Amendment

  On June 18, at the 2010 ACS National Convention, a panel of experts discussed "Technology, Change & the Future of the 4th Amendment." The panel featured:

  • Jeffrey Rosen, Professor of Law, George Washington University Law School, Moderator;
  • Susan A. Bandes, Professor of Law, DePaul University College of Law;
  • Elizabeth E. Joh, Professor of Law, UC Davis School of Law;
  • Orin S. Kerr, Professor of Law, George Washington University Law School;
  • Marc Zwillinger, Partner, Zwillinger Genetski LLP. 

ACS Convention Plenary: Regulation in the Age of Obama

 

On June 18, the 2010 ACS National Convention featured a plenary discussion, "Regulation in the Age of Obama." The panel featured:

  • John Podesta, President and Chief Executive Officer, Center for American Progress, Moderator;
  • Richard Cordray, Attorney General, State of Ohio;
  • Mariano-Florentino (Tino) Cuéllar, Special Assistant to the President for Justice and Regulatory Policy, White House Domestic Counsel;
  • Judge Richard A. Posner, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit;
  • Lois J. Schiffer, General Counsel for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; 
  • Damon A. Silvers, Director of Policy and Special Counsel, AFL-CIO. 

Citizens United: The Aftermath


Monica Youn

Thu, 06/03/2010

ACS is pleased to distribute “Citizens United: The Aftermath.”, an Issue Brief by Monica Youn, Counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School. In this Issue Brief, Ms. Youn examines the political impact of the Supreme Court's January 21, 2010 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission and outlines potential responses that, the author contends, "would buttress existing campaign finance safeguards from further attacks and mitigate some of the harmful effects of [the decision]." In Citizens United, the Court held that limitations on corporate funding of independent political broadcasts in candidate elections violate the First Amendment, striking down a significant portion of the Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act. Ms. Youn contends that the 5-4 decision represents an undermining of precedent with potentially grave consequences:

 

"By holding, for the first time, that corporations have the same First Amendment rights to engage in political spending as people, the Supreme Court re-ordered the priorities in our democracy -- placing special interest dollars at the center of our democracy, and displacing the rightful role of voters. By holding, for the first time, that corporations have the same First Amendment rights to engage in political spending as people, the Supreme Court re-ordered the priorities in our democracy-placing special interest dollars at the center of our democracy, and displacing the rightful role of voters."

 

Ms. Youn proposes a variety of responses to the decision. In the short term, the author recommends a legislative response that includes enactment of stop-gap measures (such as shareholder consent and increased corporate disclosure requirements) and larger structural reforms (such as public financing and voter registration modernization). However, in the longer term, Ms. Youn recommends closer attention to the Judiciary and judicial nominations:

 

"[I]n the long term, reclaiming the First Amendment for the voters will be the best weapon against those who seek to use the First Amendment for the good of the few, rather than for the many. Judges whose conception of the First Amendment takes account of the interests of voters can speed this process. As the nation seeks a successor to Justice Stevens, we hope that his successor advances a vision of a democratic, deliberative, and voter-centric First Amendment."

 

Click Here to Download the Issue Brief

ACS Event: The National Labor Relations Act at 75 - Looking Back, Looking Forward

On July 5, 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) into law. As the 75th anniversary of the NLRA approaches, ACS convened a panel of experts to consider the legacy of the Act and discuss its future. The NLRA gave employees the right to form and join unions, and obligated employers to bargain collectively with unions selected by a majority of the employees in an appropriate bargaining unit. The Act also established an independent agency, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), to administer the Act and enforce employee rights. How has the NLRA protected workers' rights and what has it accomplished? In what ways does its promise remain unfulfilled? What statutory, structural, or administrative reforms might be recommended to improve the NLRA or the functioning of the NLRB? Scholars and former NLRB Members will address these questions and more in a lively and candid panel discussion.

 

The May 17, 2010 event featured a noon keynote address by Deputy Secretary of the Department of Labor, Seth Harris. 

A panel discussion was held and featured:

  • Moderator, Anne M. Lofaso, Professor of Law at West Virginia University College of Law; former Vice President of the National Labor Relations Board Professional Association (2000-2003)
  • James J. Brudney, Newton D. Baker-Baker & Hostetler Chair in Law, The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law
  • Dennis Walsh, Deput General Counsel, Federal Relations Authority
  • Marshall B. Babson, Partner, Hughes Hubbard & Reed LLP; former Board Member, National Labor Relations Board (1985-1988)

Time for Change? The “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” Policy and Military Readiness

On Tuesday, September 29, 2009, ACS hosted a panel discussion on the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, which prohibits gays and lesbians from serving openly in the U.S. military. With the House of Representatives considering the Military Readiness Enhancement Act, and a commitment from Senate Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) to hold a hearing on the topic this fall, the policy and its effects are being debated anew. Policymakers are examining questions such as: Is the policy discriminatory? Does the policy harm our nation's military readiness? Is the policy really necessary for troop morale and unit cohesion? What are the proper procedural steps for changing the policy, i.e., if official repeal legislation must come from Congress, are there actions that can be taken by the executive branch that can stop dismissals in the interim? A group of military experts, advocates, and scholars discussed these and other questions in a lively, frank discussion.

 

The panel discussion included:

Judicial Hostility to Litigation and How It Impairs Legal Accountability for Corporations and Other Defendants


Scott A. Moss

Mon, 05/03/2010

ACS is pleased to distribute Judicial Hostility to Litigation and How It Impairs Legal Accountability for Corporations and Other Defendants, an Issue Brief by Scott A. Moss, Associate Professor of Law at the University of Colorado Law School. In this Issue Brief, Professor Moss explains how the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence since the 1990s has moved away from treating litigation “as an important tool for redressing grievances, deterring wrongdoing, and spurring social reform” toward a negative view of litigation, a view that emphasizes litigation’s burdens on defendants. The author carefully describes what, in his view, is this new and troubling jurisprudence—changing longstanding dismissal standards, raising burdens of proof and creating inconsistent standards for discrimination claims, creating a broad role for federal courts to reverse state court damages awards and limit punitive damages, and allowing corporations and employers to force consumers and employers to waive their rights to their day in court—and asserts that this shift comes at a real price “for workers, consumers, and other individuals trying to use litigation to protect their rights....” Professor Moss considers the possibility that this anti-litigation stance may be explained, at least in part, by the homogeneity of background of the current Supreme Court Justices:

 

"[T]he modern Court that regularly expresses hostility to litigation as a tool of dispute resolution and social reform consists of Justices largely homogeneous in their professional background of civil litigation defense, of policy work rather than litigation, of serving institutional rather than individual clients, and of not working on affirmative public interest civil litigation. The current Justices’ backgrounds, while impressive in many ways, are also surprisingly similar."

 

In the past, the Supreme Court has contained a lifelong practitioner (Justice Powell), a union-side labor lawyer (Justice Goldberg), a civil rights lawyer (Justice Marshall), and a medical nonprofit lawyer (Justice Blackmun). As the nation considers the vacancy that will result from the announced retirement of Justice Stevens, this Issue Brief could serve to remind policymakers of the value of considering diversity of background in the judiciary, particularly the Supreme Court. Professor Moss opines:

 

"[T]here is troubling uniformity of perspective on the Court when Justices all arrive from the federal appellate bench and, before the bench, mainly represented corporations or served in policymaking, rather than litigation, posts. That uniformity of perspective risks privileging the portion of the legal profession from which the Justices came (i.e., lawyers for corporate clients and for the government), to the disadvantage of those who use the law to serve different interests—such as lawyers challenging malfeasance by the sort of corporations and governmental entities almost all of the current Justices represented as lawyers."

 

Click Here to Download the Issue Brief

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ACS Issue Brief - Moss Judicial Hostility.pdf389.02 KB

Citizens United v. FEC: The Decision, Its Implications, and the Road Ahead

Citizens United v. FEC: The Decision, Its Implications, and the Road Ahead

In a 5-4 decision issued on January 21, 2010, the Supreme Court held in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission that limitations on corporate funding of independent political broadcasts in candidate elections violate the First Amendment. The Court struck down a section of the Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act that banned corporations and unions from broadcasting "electioneering communications" within 30 days of a primary or 60 days of a general election. In so doing, the Court overruled its 1990 decision in Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce and generated substantial controversy-President Obama mentioned the decision in his State of the Union address and both the House and Senate have held hearings on the topic. Many questions linger in the wake of the decision. Does the decision represent a victory for the First Amendment or an opening for corruption of elections? What are the merits of mechanisms being considered by Congress as ways of dealing with the decision? In practical terms, what does the decision mean for corporations and unions? What does the overruling of Austin suggest about the Roberts Court and its relationship to precedent? These questions and others were discussed by a panel of experts in campaign finance law.

The panel discussion featured:

  • Moderator, William P. Marshall, Visiting Professor of Law, George Washington University Law School; William Rand Kenan, Jr. Distinguished Professor of Law, UNC Chapel Hill School of Law
  • Jan W. Baran, Partner, Wiley Rein LLP
  • Laurence E. Gold, Of Counsel, Lichtman, Trister & Ross, PLLC; Associate General Counsel, AFL-CIO
  • James S. Portnoy, Chief Counsel, Corporate & Government Affairs at Kraft Foods
  • Joseph E. Sandler, Member, Sandler, Reiff & Young P.C.
  • Monica Youn, Counsel, Brennan Center for Justice, NYU School of Law.

Wednesday, February 24, 2010
12:00 - 2:00 pm
The National Press Club, Conference Rooms
529 14th Street, NW, 13th Floor
Washington, DC 20045

 

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