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.

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, for the record, remain on Team "We Needed Neither the Birth of the MQD Nor the Death of Chevron and You Could Have Just Done Chevron Step 2 with Bite for Rules That Seemed Too Wild."

And if you prefer the Barrett "this is just a common sense interpretive canon" view of the MQD, I think it's harder to see what the MQD gets you that simply not deferring doesn't.

But, in practice, I'm not aware of an MQD case where a judge conceded that trad'l tools alone couldn't get them to the result they wanted.

If you're a judge who subscribes to the Gorsuchy constitutional-avoidance view of the MQD, maybe the "clear congressional authorization" language lets you choose an interpretation that seems forced/awkward under trad'l tools in order to steer clear of a nondelegation problem.

I think it depends on whether you believe there's any daylight between the "clear congressional authorization" standard that applies when the MQD is triggered and a "no deference, trad'l tools of statutory interp" review.