In the United States, the term administrative law is often used to describe the body of statutes (actual laws passed by Congress or a state legislature), as well as the administrative rules, regulations, judicial precedents, and executive orders that, collectively, define the powers and responsibilities held by administrative agencies of the United States government, including executive departments and independent agencies, and agencies operating at state and local level. The field of administrative law also includes the procedures which agencies must observe in rulemaking and adjudication. Because Congress, the president, and the federal courts have limited resources and cannot directly address all issues, specialized powers are often delegated to a board, commission, office, or other agency. These administrative agencies oversee and monitor activities in complex areas, such as commercial aviation, medical device manufacturing, and securities markets. Administrative law is the collective body of statutes, rules, and regulations that sets the procedural foundation for those agency activities.

Former Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer has defined the legal rules and principles of administrative law in four parts: (1) define the authority and structure of administrative agencies; (2) specify the procedural formalities employed by agencies; (3) determine the validity of agency decisions; and (4) define the role of reviewing courts and other governmental entities in relation to administrative agencies.Breyer, Stephen, et al., Administrative Law & Regulatory Policy, Fifth Edition, at p. 3 (Aspen Pub. 2001) Another common taxonomy divides administrative law into three main topics: rulemaking, adjudication, and judicial review.

Statutes (laws passed by Congress or a state legislature) specify the scope of an agency's rulemaking authority, procedures that must be followed to promulgate rules and regulations, and the agency's enforcement authority. As such, many U.S. federal agencies have assumed quasi-legislative authority to create rules and regulations that they enforce as if they were laws.

Many U.S. federal agencies have the power to adjudicate, typically to rule on applications for some benefit or license, or to enforce laws within their specific areas of delegated power. This is discussed further in the section on Adjudication, below.

For many agencies, a statute provides for one or more layers of intra-agency appeal.

Decisions of agencies (either rulemaking or adjudication) may be appealed, sometimes to a specialized "court" or tribunal outside the agency but still within the executive branch (such as the Tax Court, Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims, Merit Systems Protection Board, or Presidential review of an agency decision), sometimes to an Article III Court of specialized subject matter jurisdiction (such as the Court of Federal Claims or United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit), or a court of general subject matter jurisdiction that geographically embraces a high fraction of agency decisions (the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, or United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit).

Background

In 1938, the American Bar Association (ABA) Special Committee on Administrative Law, chaired by Louis G. Caldwell, launched a polemical assault on the rising regulatory apparatus. Caldwell warned that the judicial branch was in danger of meeting the "fate of the Merovingian Kings" if administrative absolutism—combining the judicial, legislative, and executive powers—remained unchecked. Roscoe Pound, who later chaired the committee, identified several hallmarks of administrative abuse including: Decisions without hearings Decisions based on secret evidence Decisions based on policy opinions (lacking impartiality) Blurring the lines between law and fact-finding Execise of broad powers without limiting principles or standards Broad non-specific justifications like "public interest" accepted without legal scrutiny

However, even critics of "administrative absolutism," acknowledged that the volume of cases handled by administrative agencies far exceeded the capacity of the courts. Louis Jaffe later described Pound's 1938 report as "the most unfortunate event in the life of the Special Committee." Kenneth Culp Davis likewise criticized Pound's analysis. Davis concluded that although examples of unfortunate administrative practices could be found, Pound's method of drawing broad conclusions from such examples was open to question.

In 1963 Judge Henry Friendly argued that better standards were needed to guide broad and vague delegations of power.

Jurisdiction The authority of federal administrative agencies stems from their organic statutes, and must be consistent with constitutional constraints and the scope of authority granted by statute.FDA v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., 529 U.S. 120 (2000).

Rulemaking

Federal administrative agencies, when granted the power to do so in a statutory grant of authority from Congress, may promulgate rules that have force of law. Agencies "legislate" through rulemaking—the power to promulgate (or issue) regulations. Such regulations are codified in the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) and published in the Federal Register. Rules of lesser effect are published in a host of forms, including manuals for agency staff and for the public, circulars, bulletins, letter rulings, press releases, and the like.

Administrative law statutes governing rulemaking

Section 551 of the Administrative Procedure Act gives the following definitions: Rulemaking is "an agency process for formulating, amending, or repealing a rule." A rule in turn is "the whole or a part of an agency statement of general or particular applicability and future effect designed to implement, interpret, or prescribe law or policy."

The primary administrative law statutes and other laws that govern agency rule making include:David E. Boundy, The PTAB is Not an Article III Court, Part 1: A Primer on Federal Agency Rulemaking, American Bar Ass’n, Landslide, vol. 10 no. 2 pp. 9–13 (Nov-Dec 2017) here or here The Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. §§ 552 and 553 The Housekeeping Act, 5 U.S.C. § 301, which gives heads of agencies authority to issue rules for agency employees The Regulatory Flexibility Act, 5 U.S.C. §§ 601 et seq., which requires agencies to consider the needs of small entities in rule making The Paperwork Reduction Act, 44 U.S.C. §§ 3501 et seq., which limits the power of an agency to collect information from the public The Congressional Review Act, 5 U.S.C. §§ 801–808, which gives Congress the authority to review and veto any agency regulation The Independent Offices Appropriations Act of 1952, 31 U.S.C. §§ 9701, which limits the power of agencies to set user fees Executive Order 12866, which requires agencies to use cost-benefit balancing in all regulatory actions

Scope and extent of rulemaking power

Limits on the power of agencies to promulgate regulations include: The regulation must lie within a grant of power from Congress, and that delegation must in turn be constitutional (courts almost never invalidate a regulation on this ground). The power must be granted in the agency's organic statute, and extends so far as legislative intent as fairly inferrable from the statutory language.National Petroleum Refiners Assn. v. FTC, 482 F.2d 672 (D.C. Cir. 1983), cert. denied, 415 U.S. 951 (1974). Statutory grants of authority to agencies are generally construed more strictly than the "necessary and proper" power of Congress granted in Article I, section 8, clause 18 of the Constitution. The regulation must lie within that grant of rulemaking authority (in the extreme case, Congress sometimes includes an explicit limit on the agency's authority). Some agencies have power to promulgate both substantive rules as well as procedural rules; some (like the IRS, EEOC, and Patent and Trademark Office) may promulgate only procedural rules. When Congress grants that authority retroactively, courts carefully scrutinize the case, and sometimes bless the regulation, and sometimes invalidate it. The regulation must be promulgated with observance of the procedures required by the statutes set forth in the previous section. Among these procedures, one of the most important is the requirement that an agency set forth factual findings sufficient to support a rational basis or by procedures otherwise inadequate to meet the statutes listed above.

Agencies may not promulgate retroactive rules unless expressly granted such power by the agency's organic statute. Bowen v. Georgetown University Hospital,

Agencies are permitted to rely on rules in reaching their decisions rather than adjudicate, where the promulgation of the rules is within the agency's statutory authority, and the rules themselves are not arbitrary or capricious. Heckler v. Campbell, .

Agencies must abide by their own rules and regulations. Accardi v. Shaughnessy, .

Courts must defer to administrative agency interpretations of the authority granted to them by Congress (1) where the intent of Congress was ambiguous and (2) where the interpretation was reasonable or permissible. Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., . Chevron is probably the most frequently cited case in American administrative law. However, in June 2024, the Supreme Court overruled Chevron in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo; past administrative decisions made before Loper Bright under the Chevron deference remained in place, but future agency administration actions in interpreting Congressional language are more likely to be subject to judicial review.

Type of rulemaking There are six levels of rulemaking procedure: Formal rulemaking, which is rulemaking for which the organic statute requires that rules be "made on the record after opportunity for an agency hearing"5 U.S.C. § 553(c) (that is, a trial-type hearing that is taken down by a transcriptionist into the record and for which the APA prescribes particular procedures). The phrase "on the record" is required to trigger requirements for formal rulemaking; simply requiring that rules be made "after a hearing" does not trigger the requirements of formal rulemaking. Informal rulemaking, also known as "notice-and-comment rulemaking", which is rulemaking for which no procedural requirements are prescribed in the organic statute, and for which the APA requires only notice and comment. Hybrid rulemaking, which is rulemaking for which particular procedural requirements beyond notice and comment are prescribed, but does not rise to the level of formal rulemaking. Negotiated rulemaking under 5 U.S.C. §§ 561–570 of the Administrative Procedure Act. Publication rulemaking, or "nonlegislative rulemaking", typically for procedural rules, interpretative rules, or matters relating to agency management or personnel, that an agency may promulgate by publication in the Federal Register. Guidance

Guidance and nonlegislative rules: interpretative rules, "statements of policy" and publications not in the Federal Register "Nonlegislative rules" include three main classes: interpretative rules under 5 U.S.C. § 553(b)(A), which interpret ambiguities in binding rules, but themselves have only the limited binding effect of Skidmore deference. "statements of general policy", purely hortatory rules directed to the public, also promulgated under 5 U.S.C. § 553(b)(A).U.S. v. Merritt, 988 F.2d 1298 (2nd Cir., 1993) ("Policy Statements are merely hortatory or explanatory, rather than imperative."). Typically, a "statement of policy" uses words like "should" instead of "must" or "shall", to advise the public of an agency's preference that the agency does not intend to enforce.