The past year has been very busy for the United States government. Here is a list of significant events that transpired:
The President of the United States recently removed two individuals from office. The first was the head of the Federal Maritime Commission. According to the President, the reasoning behind the removal was his disagreement with the agency head’s decision to pass certain regulations that were not consistent with the President’s political agenda. The second individual was the head of the National Labor Relations Board. According to the President, the agency head was removed because of allegations of tax fraud. Both removed individuals have challenged the President’s decision, claiming that there is no specific language in the Constitution that allows for the removal of any Officer, and as a result, they should both be immediately reinstated.
The Senate passed a bill titled the “Data Encryption Privacy Act” which requires all businesses to encrypt all “business data” stored on all “portable electronics media.” The bill is presented to the President, who decides to strike the term “business data” and inserts a new term, “consumer data,” which effectively limits the scope of the encryption requirement to consumer data. The President allows Congress to reject his modifications prior to the Act’s passage, but Congress elects to leave the changes as is, and the bill becomes law.
John is a concerned citizen. Specifically, he is concerned about all the activity that has occurred in the previous years and wants to better understand the government’s reasoning behind its decisions. To do this, John asks for several documents from various agencies. Two requests stand out. The first document is a request for the Internal Revenue Service to produce a report showing how the home mortgage interest deduction provides a more significant benefit to those individuals earning over $100,000 and living in the Midwest. The IRS is about halfway done with this study, and refuses to provide the first half of the report. The second document John requests is a listing of all records produced by the Environmental Protection Agency for the past five years. The EPA also refused John’s request.
Please prepare a memo that identifies and discusses all potential issues pertaining to administrative law.
