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Amy Sinden

I. Herman Stern Professor of Law

Amy Sinden is a Professor of Law at the Temple University Beasley School of Law in Philadelphia. She has been a visiting professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School and at the Temple-Tsinghua Masters of Law program in Beijing, China. 

Amy Sinden | January 30, 2019

Cap-and-Trade Could Fill Gaps in Governor Wolf’s Climate Change Executive Order

This post was originally published by JURIST. The news on the climate crisis has been bad lately and getting worse. In the face of President Trump's continued denial and his administration's diligent efforts to roll back every shred of progress made by the Obama administration and to prop up an ailing coal industry, the warnings […]

Amy Sinden | July 25, 2018

Imagining a Justice Kavanaugh: For One Endangered Frog, Might Justice Scalia Have Been a Kinder, Gentler Jurist?

This post is part of a series on Judge Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court. If Judge Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court confirmation process goes as quickly and affirmingly as his supporters hope, one of the cases he'll hear on his first day on the bench will invite him to consider an imponderable question: […]

Amy Sinden | June 15, 2017

Chamber’s Brief Lays Bare Crackpot Theory at Heart of Two-for-One Order

I don’t know what executive order the Chamber of Commerce is defending in the amicus brief it filed Monday in Public Citizen v. Trump. But it doesn’t appear to be the one at issue in that lawsuit. The lawsuit charges that Trump’s “one-in, two-out” executive order is unconstitutional. That’s the order he issued in January […]

Amy Sinden | January 31, 2017

Trump’s Latest Executive Order: Scrap Two Regs for the Price of One

Remember how Donald Trump bragged he was going to run the country like a business? Imagine if before Trump could open a new casino, he was bound by a rule to close two existing casinos, and the costs of the new casino couldn’t exceed the cost savings from no longer operating the old ones. Would this […]

Amy Sinden | September 26, 2016

Supreme Court Remains Skeptical of the ‘Cost-Benefit State’

Originally published on RegBlog by CPR Member Scholar Amy Sinden. In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court‘s opinion in Michigan v. EPA last term, a number of commentators have revived talk of something called the “Cost Benefit State.” It is supposed to be a good thing, although it makes some of us shudder. The […]

Amy Sinden | July 13, 2015

Supreme Court’s Mercury Decision Did Not Usher in Sunstein’s ‘Cost-Benefit State’

In Michigan v. EPA, handed down two weeks ago, the Supreme Court waded into the decades-long debate over the use of cost-benefit analysis (CBA) in agency rulemaking.   The decision struck down EPA’s limits on mercury emissions from power plants for the agency’s failure to consider costs, and so appears, superficially at least, like a win […]

Amy Sinden | May 20, 2014

EPA’s Long-Delayed Cooling Water Rule Finally Out: Industry Wins Again; Fish (and the Rest of Us) Lose

The EPA issued its long-awaited cooling water rule yesterday and the score appears to be:  Industry – home run; Fish – zero.   Which is to say, it’s bad news not just for the fish but also for all of us who depend on the health of our aquatic ecosystems – which is to say, everyone. […]

Amy Sinden | November 5, 2013

CPR Scholars: ACUS’ recommendations to OIRA fall short

Since the Reagan Administration, federal agencies have been required by Executive Order to send their major rules to the White House’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) for review before releasing them to the public. OIRA review consists of, among other things, ensuring that agencies subject their rules to cost-benefit analysis to make sure the […]

Amy Sinden | October 2, 2013

Executive Order 12866’s Cost-Benefit Test is still with us and I Can Hear Ben Franklin Rolling Over in his Grave

It was 20 years ago this week that President Bill Clinton signed Executive Order 12866.   That was a watershed of sorts, because it marked the adoption by a Democratic administration of a key aspect of President Reagan’s anti-regulatory agenda — the requirement that all major federal regulations undergo cost-benefit analysis.  This was not a move that […]