The Politics of Administrative Law Judge Decision Making at the Environmental Protection Agency in Civil Penalty Cases

Abstract

Regulation of the environment is often characterized as a polarizing issue that pits public health against economic growth. Although researchers have examined the decisions of federal district court judges in environmental civil penalty cases and examined the decision making of administrative law judges (ALJ), there has been no research which has examined factors that influence ALJ decision making in environmental civil penalty cases at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). I theorize that ALJ decisions, like federal district court judge decisions, are a function of personal policy preferences, hierarchical controls by higher courts, separation of powers influences, and case and defendant characteristics. Results demonstrate that the size of civil penalties issued by ALJs at the EPA is influenced by personal policy preferences, political constraints via Congress, hierarchical control by the Environmental Appeals Board (EAB) and the Supreme Court, litigant characteristics, and case characteristics. Overall, EPA ALJs seem to put more emphasis on their role as judge than their role as bureaucrat. The influence of attitudes raises normative concerns regarding the level of independence that is provided to ALJs as the weighing of public health versus economic growth seems to be based in personal policy preferences rather than technical expertise.

How the Trump Administration’s Quota Policy Transformed Immigration Judging

“…We measure the political partisanship of the immigration judges in our dataset (Judge Party) based on their party registration and/or primary ballot information found in statewide voter registration databases. This judge partisanship measurement technique, which has been used in prior smaller-scale studies of bureaucratic judges (Seabrook, Wilk, and Lamb 2013;Taratoot 2014;Taratoot and Howard 2011), is specific to the judge rather than being dependent on the appointing president or attorney general. Following the lead of scholars using commercial data sources on voters and public officials (e.g., Chyn and Haggag 2019;Einstein, Ornstein, and Palmer 2022;Enamorado, Fifield, and Imai 2019;Fraga 2015;Hersh and Ghitza 2018;Velez and Newman 2019;Yoder 2020), we use voter registration information developed and made available commercially through L2, Inc.…”

Environmental Decision-Making Through Adjudicatory Appeals in the United States

“…Like the influences on federal court decisions, there is research that also has shown similar influences on ALJ decisions. For instance, in recent research on environmental adjudicatory decisions, Taratoot (2014) finds that the size of the penalties issued by EPA can be influenced by personal policy preferences, political constraints from Congress, and litigant characteristics. Before a case gets to the EAB, the internal EPA ALJ issues a penalty against the violator.…”

“…Before a case gets to the EAB, the internal EPA ALJ issues a penalty against the violator. Taratoot (2014) statistically found that the partisan affiliation of each of the members of the EAB impacted decisions by the EPA ALJ prior to the appeal. Surprisingly, the EPA's ALJs decisions were found to be responsive to the policy preferences of the EAB.…”

Administrative Law Judges and Politics

“…In many cases, given the language regarding statutes that ALJs frequently must interpret, Taratoot (2014) speculates that ALJs actually have substantial independence regarding their interpretation of administrative procedure and congressional statutes that relate to specific agencies they are designated to work on. However, because ALJs are at least part bureaucrat, Congress also has substantial ability to constrain ALJs if they choose to do so.…”