Administrative Procedure Act

For other uses, see Administrative Procedure Act (Japan) and Administrative Procedure Act (Switzerland).
Administrative Procedure Act of 1946
Great Seal of the United States
Long titleAn Act to improve the administration of justice by prescribing fair administrative procedure.
Acronyms (colloquial)APA
Enacted bythe 79th United States Congress
EffectiveJune 11, 1946
Citations
Public law79-404
Statutes at Large60 Stat. 237
Codification
Titles amended5 U.S.C.: Government Organization and Employees
U.S.C. sections created5 U.S.C. ch. 5, subch. I § 500 et seq.[1]
Legislative history
Major amendments
Freedom of Information Act
Recodified by Pub. L. 89–554, Sept. 6, 1966, 80 Stat. 383
United States Supreme Court cases
Citizens to Preserve Overton Park v. Volpe (1971)
Sierra Club v. Morton (1972)
Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Corp. v. NRDC (1978)
Heckler v. Chaney (1985)
Norton v. Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (2004)
Department of Homeland Security v. Regents of the University of California (2020)
Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo (2024)
Administrative law of the United States
General
Statutory framework
Regulatory coordination
Judicial review of agency action
Separation of powers
Regulated fields (and agencies)
Related topics

The Administrative Procedure Act (APA), Pub. L. 79–404, 60 Stat. 237, enacted June 11, 1946, is the United States federal statute that governs the way in which administrative agencies of the federal government of the United States may propose and establish regulations, and it grants U.S. federal courts oversight over all agency actions.[2] According to Hickman & Pierce, it is one of the most important pieces of United States administrative law, and serves as a sort of "constitution" for U.S. administrative law.[3]

The APA applies to both the federal executive departments and the independent agencies.[4] U.S. Senator Pat McCarran called the APA "a bill of rights for the hundreds of thousands of Americans whose affairs are controlled or regulated" by federal government agencies. The text of the APA can be found under Title 5 of the United States Code, beginning at Section 500.

There is a similar Model State Administrative Procedure Act (Model State APA), which was drafted by the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws for oversight of state agencies.[5] Not all states have adopted the model law wholesale, as of 2017. The federal APA does not require systematic oversight of regulations prior to adoption, unlike the Model APA.[6] Each US state has passed its own version of the Administrative Procedure Act.[7]

  1. ^ Hall, D: Administrative Law Bureaucracy in a Democracy 4th Ed., page 2. Pearson, 2009.
  2. ^ 5 USC §706
  3. ^ Hickman, Kristin E. (2014). Federal administrative law : cases and materials. Richard J., Jr. Pierce (2nd ed.). St. Paul, MN. ISBN 978-1-60930-337-2. OCLC 904506231.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  4. ^ Garvey, Todd (2017-03-27). A Brief Overview of Rulemaking and Judicial Review (PDF) (Report). Washington, D.C.: U.S. Congressional Research Service. R41546.
  5. ^ Vértesy, László (2013). "The Model State Administrative Procedure Act in the USA" (PDF). De Iurisprudentia et Iure Publico.
  6. ^ (2007). OVERSIGHT AND INSIGHT: LEGISLATIVE REVIEW OF AGENCIES AND LESSONS FROM THE STATES Archived February 22, 2010, at the Wayback Machine. Harvard Law Review.
  7. ^ Yackee, Susan Webb (2019). "The Politics of Rulemaking in the United States". Annual Review of Political Science. 22: 37–55. doi:10.1146/annurev-polisci-050817-092302.