Week in Review

IN THE NEWS

• The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit issued a decision in Marin Audubon Society v. Federal Aviation Administration vacating a plan that governed tourist flights over national parks and compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the National Parks Air Tour Management Act of 2000. The court held that NEPA regulations, which are issued by the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), are ultra vires, or outside CEQ’s authority, and thus unenforceable. This holding creates uncertainty concerning the scope of agencies’ NEPA obligations and may provide a “basis for challenging NEPA reviews in the future.”
• In a case brought against Amazon, the National Labor Relations Board issued a decision interpreting federal labor law to prohibit employers from requiring their employees to attend “captive-audience” meetings at which they express their position on unionization. The Board overruled its 1948 decision in NLRB v. Babcock & Wilcox Company, but the change will be applied prospectively to “accommodate the reasonable reliance employers may have previously placed” on this former case. One of the Board’s four members dissented.
• A federal judge in Louisiana temporarily blocked a state law requiring the Ten Commandments to be displayed in every public school classroom. U.S. District Judge John W. deGravelles ruled that the law violates the First Amendment because it does not allow students to opt out of viewing the Ten Commandments. The law requires classrooms to display posters of the Ten Commandments with a statement about their historical role in American education. The judge concluded that there were less intrusive ways to teach about the Ten Commandments if educational value was the intended goal. Louisiana’s Attorney General plans to appeal the decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
• The Federal Trade Commission issued a final rule revising the premerger notification program, which provides antitrust regulators with information about large mergers and acquisitions before they occur. The rule will require parties involved in reportable transactions to provide information that is “necessary and appropriate” for regulators to detect illegal transactions and to determine which transactions require an in-depth antitrust investigation, including investor disclosures. The rule will address information gaps caused by “changes in corporate structure and deal-making.”
• The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced a final rule to reduce methane emissions from the oil and gas sector, aligning with the Inflation Reduction Act’s goal to curb waste emissions and promote cleaner energy use. The rule implements a charge on facilities emitting over 25,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per year, starting at $900 per ton in 2024 and increasing to $1,500 by 2026. The rule is projected to reduce emissions by 1.2 million metric tons by 2035, which is equivalent to removing nearly 8 million cars from the road. The EPA stated that methane reduction also addresses health risks related to elevated ozone levels.
• The California Air Resources Board voted to update its Low Carbon Fuel Standard to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by promoting cleaner fuels—a shift that could raise gas prices in the state. The new targets aim for a 30 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and a 90 percent reduction by 2045. These stricter standards are part of California’s broader efforts to meet its net-zero emissions goals and to push for a substantial shift toward cleaner transportation fuels. Some estimates suggest fuel prices could rise by up to 85 cents per gallon by 2030. Critics worry that higher fuel costs could burden working-class Californians, while supporters argue that the policy is essential for tackling climate change and improving air quality.
• The Federal Drug Administration (FDA) removed a hold on the pharmaceutical company Novavax’s phase three trial of COVID-19-Influenza Combination and stand-alone influenza vaccines. FDA issued the hold in October 2024 after a phase two participant experienced serious side effects. After investigating this event, FDA concluded that the patient’s condition was unrelated to her receipt of the vaccine.
• The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) issued a final rule requiring wireless providers to implement georouting for calls to the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, allowing a local crisis center to take the call based on the device’s location. To ensure caller privacy, georouting provides location data “aggregated to a level that will not identify the location of the cell site,” preventing the precise location of the individual from being shared. Calls are currently directed to crisis centers based on the caller’s area code. These area codes, however, often differ from peoples’ location at the time of their call. The FCC expects the georouting solution to decrease the number of unnecessary emergency services dispatches and increase the accessibility of 988 calls for at-risk communities.
• The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) proposed a rule that would eliminate co-pays for all VA telehealth services. The rule would also establish a grant program to fund telehealth services that focuses on expanding telehealth access for veterans in rural and medically underserved areas. The grant program would provide non-profit and private organizations with funding to offer veterans “comfortable, private spaces equipped with high-speed internet access and the technology to meet with VA providers remotely.”
• The Federal Communications Commission issued a final rule requiring all future wireless handset models offered for sale or use in the United States—including smartphones—be compatible with hearing aids. This requirement is intended to allow the 48 million Americans with hearing loss to choose between smartphone models “on an equal basis” as other consumers. The rule will also encourage manufacturers to move away from proprietary Bluetooth coupling in favor of universal connectivity that would allow smartphones to connect with all hearing aids, including over-the-counter aids.

WHAT WE’RE READING THIS WEEK

• In a recent working paper released by the National Bureau of Economic Research, Ashvin Gandhi, an assistant professor of economics at the University of California Los Angeles, and his coauthors studied the impact of COVID-19 vaccine mandates in nursing homes. The Ghandi team compared 581 nursing homes that issued a vaccine mandate between December 2020 and August 2021 to 9,242 nursing homes that did not issue a mandate during the same period. They found that the mandates led to a noticeable increase in employee turnover among part-time workers. This turnover, however, did not outweigh the positive impact of the mandate—these nursing home patients were two-thirds less likely to die of COVID-19 than those in non-mandated facilities.
• In an article published in the Virginia Law Review, Ingrid Eagly, professor of law at the University of California Los Angeles, and Steven Shafer, a research associate at the University of California Los Angeles, analyzed the structure of detained immigration courts and found that more regulatory oversight is needed. Eagly and Shafer highlighted that detained courts, often located in remote and unconventional spaces, prioritize rapid case resolution and have limited access to counsel, frequent use of video adjudication, and constrained public access. Eagly and Shafer argued that this design creates systemic disadvantages for detained individuals. They suggested that detained and non-detained immigration court systems should be integrated to mitigate current disparities and foster more consistent judicial standards across all immigration cases.
• In a Brookings Institution report, Aaron Klein, Miriam K. Carliner Chair and senior fellow in Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution, urged regulators to shorten the maximum time periods that depository institutions may hold consumer funds to allow for faster payment processing. Klein argued that delayed payments disproportionately harm lower-income Americans, who are unable to access their earnings due to payment system delays, resulting in fees and reliance on credit. Klein contended that, by implementing real-time payments, regulators can reduce income inequality and align payment speed in the United States with other countries.

EDITOR’S CHOICE

• In an essay in The Regulatory Review, Richard J. Pierce, Jr., the Lyle T. Alverson Professor of Law at The George Washington University Law School, discussed two Supreme Court cases concerning a stay of a vaccine mandate. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration issued the first mandate and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) issued the second. Pierce explained that the Court stayed the first mandate because it exceeded the agency’s statutory authority under the major questions doctrine, while the second mandate survived this doctrine because it “was similar to prior actions that CMS had taken.” Based on these decisions, Pierce concluded that even though the Biden Administration would likely fail at imposing a federal vaccine mandate, more specific mandates—on airplanes for example—likely would pass judicial scrutiny.