Independent Agencies in the United States Law, Structure, and Politics

It is essential for anyone involved in law, politics, and government to comprehend the workings of the federal independent regulatory agencies of the United States. Occasionally referred to as the "headless fourth branch of government," these agencies do not fit neatly within any of the three constitutional branches. Their members are appointed for terms that typically exceed those of the President, and cannot be removed from office in the absence of some sort of malfeasance or misconduct. They wield enormous power over the private sector.

Independent Agencies in the United States provides a full-length study of the structure and workings of federal independent regulatory agencies in the US, focusing on traditional multi-member agencies, such as the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Communications Commission, the National Labor Relations Board, and the Federal Trade Commission. It recognizes that the changing kaleidoscope of modern life has led Congress to create innovative and idiosyncratic administrative structures including government corporations, government sponsored enterprises governance, public-private partnerships, systems for "contracting out," self-regulation and incorporation by reference of private standards.

In the process, Breger and Edles analyze the general conflict between political accountability and agency independence. They provide a unique comparative review of the internal operations of US agencies and offer contrasts between US, EU, and certain UK independent agencies. Included is a first-of-its-kind appendix describing the powers and procedures of the more than 35 independent US federal agencies, with each supplemented by a selective bibliography.

Marshall J. Breger is a Professor of Law at the Columbus School of Law, The Catholic University of America. He was a Senior Fellow at the Heritage Foundation specializing in labor, regulatory and trade policy (including NAFTA). During the George H.W. Bush Administration, he served as Solicitor of Labor, the chief lawyer of the Labor Department, and Chair of the Tripartite Advisory Panel on International Labor Standards (TAPILS). During 1992, by Presidential designation, he served concurrently as Acting Assistant Secretary for Labor Management Standards. He was Chairman of the Administrative Conference of the United States, an independent federal agency charged with developing improvements in the administrative process. Professor Breger is a contributing columnist to Moment magazine. He has authored or edited five books, as well as written over 25 law review articles in publications including the Stanford Law Review, Boston University Law Review, Duke Law Journal and North Carolina Law Review. Among his recent books on administrative law are: ADR in the Federal Government: A Practitioner's Deskbook, with Gerald Schatz & Deborah Laufer (2000); Developments in Administrative Law 2000-2001 (ed. Lubbers, 2001).

Gary J. Edles is a Fellow in Administrative Law and Adjunct Professor of Law at American University, Washington College of Law, where he teaches a course on the Federal Regulatory Process. He is also Visiting Professor at the University of Hull Law School, where he teaches American Public Law, and lectures on comparative British-American public law. He is licensed as a lawyer in the United States, and is a member of Gray's Inn (UK). He was General Counsel of the Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS), the US government's expert advisory body on matters of administrative law and process, with the responsibility for making non-partisan recommendations to the President, the cabinet departments and regulatory agencies, Congress and the courts on methods of improving the fairness and efficiency of the administrative process. Professor Edles is co-author of two books: Edles & Nelson, Federal Regulatory Process: Agency Practices and Procedures (Second Edition, 1989), a book that has been cited by the US Supreme Court and the lower federal courts, and Berg, Klitzman & Edles, An Interpretive Guide to the Government in the Sunshine Act (Second Edition, 2005). He is also the author or co-author of more than a dozen articles. He is a past Chair of both the Administrative Law Section and General Counsels' Section of the Federal Bar Association, a member of the Section on Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice of the American Bar Association, and a member of the Faculty Review Board of the Administrative Law Review.