Jack Lienke

YouTube video by Lincoln Center Theater SNEAK PEEK of FLOYD COLLINS, coming to Broadway this spring!

Everything is depressing except this Floyd Collins clip I made my Property students watch after we discussed Edwards v. Sims. The case is a fight over ownership of a cave. The clip is a gorgeous ode to first possession. youtu.be/0_2WVfmNN4g?...

At the end of the day, there's just no substitute for a government that tackles problems in good faith!

And, sure, you could pass a statute that was even more prescriptive about methodology than the circular, but that would create other problems. Because each rule presents different analytic challenges, and agencies DO need some flexibility.

This is fair. I was being glib. Fairer to say this: I don't think codification of, say, the 2023 Circular A-4 would eliminate CBA-related interpretive shenanigans at either agencies or courts . . .

Well, if it's in the statute in a vaguely worded way, then it's subject to the federal judiciary's interpretive whims. Pick your poison.

one defense of CBA has always been that it forces admins to be explicit about their values....

"Over the past four decades, Republican and Democratic administrations have used different estimates of the monetary value of a human life... But until now, no administration has counted it as zero."

Anyway, I think this paragraph I wrote for a different op-ed criticizing a different Trump 1.0 cost-benefit analysis remains depressingly relevant (www.latimes.com/opinion/op-e...):

and it was hard to write because those tricks were complicated to explain in <750 non-technical words. So, I guess I sort of appreciate that this time the trick is just "avoided deaths are worth zero dollars now."

Opinion | The E.P.A.’s Smoke and Mirrors on Climate (Published 2017)

Approximately one hundred political years ago, Ricky Revesz and I wrote this op-ed criticizing the accounting tricks the first Trump admin used to make its Clean Power Plan repeal look net beneficial (www.nytimes.com/2017/10/09/o...) . . .

E.P.A. to Stop Considering Lives Saved When Setting Rules on Air Pollution

I love that the justification for assigning zero quantitative value to health benefits is that they're uncertain. Because there's obviously no uncertainty on the compliance-cost side of the ledger. No need to worry about "false precision" there. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/12/c...

Congrats!

Out now in the Yale Law Journal Forum: "Every Court Everywhere All at Once," in which I try to make the phrase "multiversal forum shopping" happen. www.yalelawjournal.org/forum/every-...

"In Ohio v. EPA, the Court faulted the agency for not adequately grappling, at the time of rulemaking, with at least some subset of the millions of alternate futures that judicial intervention could create." @jacklienke.bsky.social "explores its troubling implications for future rulemaking."

Thank you for sharing the piece!

And sure, the administrative state is on fire, but, with any luck, we'll eventually put that fire out and return our attention to non-emergent problems. And when we do, this paper will be right here waiting for you.

And look, I know that sounds . . . really boring. But if you care about programs like Medicaid and SNAP (and thus about the legal durability of regulatory efforts to increase/decrease their generosity), this paper is for you!

The piece explores why agencies struggle to assess the costs and benefits of transfer rules (basically, regs that govern the administration of spending programs), why that struggle matters, and what the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs can do about the problem.

Working with the students at MJLR was a delight from start to finish. Grateful to them for taking a chance on a wonky piece from a junior scholar and for their consistent professionalism, kindness, and editorial incisiveness.

Very happy to see my article Justifying Redistributive Regulations achieve its final form in the Michigan Journal of Law Reform! papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Would like to take this Earth Day to issue final warning to all birds with feather-covered beaks. Looks weird; cut it out. You’ve been warned. (Pictured: great eared nightjar; Great Potoo)

Associate Counsel, Strategic Legal Advocacy Earthjustice is looking for an early-career attorney to join the Strategic Legal Advocacy team as an Associate Counsel.

In re: absolutely nothing going on in the world: The SLA team at Earthjustice is looking for an early-career attorney to join us as an Associate Counsel. DC preferred. 1-5 years of experience including any clerkships. Salary is based on experience; range is $106,400-$125,300 in DC.

Quite the arc

Early Career Scholars Medal Winners Announced

MANY CONGRATULATIONS to @madisoncondon.bsky.social for winning (one of) the ALI Early Career Scholars Medal!!!

www.ali.org/news/article...

Thanks, Rachel! It's still a draft, so feedback is very welcome.

And here's the tweet that became the essay:

Here's the abstract. It's a strange moment in which to describe any administrative-law content as fun, but . . . I think this one is kind of fun? In a disturbing way?

I'm thrilled to share that Every Court Everywhere All at Once--my essay on last summer's weirdest admin decision, Ohio v. EPA--is now forthcoming in the Yale Law Journal Forum. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

The Endgame of Administrative Law: Governmental Disobedience and the Scholars of administrative law focus overwhelmingly on lawsuits to review federal government action while assuming that, if plaintiffs win such lawsuits, the government will do what the courts say.

Thinking about this one and getting a stomach ache
harvardlawreview.org/print/vol-13...

Remember when the political news was mostly boring for a few years? That was nice.

Supreme Court Allows E.P.A. to Limit Power Plant Emissions It was a provisional victory for the Biden administration, whose climate initiatives have been stymied. A challenge to the rule at issue is still moving through a lower court.

I’m old enough to remember law profs and journalists struggling in 2016 to identify any precedent for SCOTUS’s emergency stay of the Clean Power Plan. Eight years later, it’s major news when the Court *doesn’t* cut the D.C. Circuit in line to block an EPA rule. www.nytimes.com/2024/10/16/u...