Week in Review

IN THE NEWS

• U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) announced that the Senate will vote on a war powers resolution aimed at limiting President Donald J. Trump’s authority over military operations in Iran. The resolution comes as the Trump Administration pursues a longer-term ceasefire with Iran. U.S. Senators Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), and Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) each backed separate war powers resolutions last month, all of which failed, as did a bipartisan resolution in the U.S. House of Representatives. Senator Schumer expressed confidence that the renewed push would gain more support.
• The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced a joint initiative to address contamination by microplastics—tiny plastic particles that have been found in human blood, tissue, and drinking water. EPA added microplastics to its draft Contaminant Candidate List, a list of substances that may pose risks to drinking water and warrant further research. Inclusion on the list signals that the substances may be considered for future regulation. HHS also launched a program called Systematic Targeting of Microplastics aimed at developing better tools to detect and remove microplastics from the human body. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin stated that the agency would “follow the science” to protect Americans from plastics in their drinking water.
• The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced a final rule that alters its environmental review process under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). NEPA requires federal agencies to assess the environmental effects of their proposed actions before proceeding with them. The new rule rescinds multiple agency-specific NEPA regulations within USDA in favor of a unified framework across the department. Under that framework, USDA may provide only the “briefest possible discussion” when explaining why certain issues are not considered “substantive” and therefore do not warrant detailed analysis. This rule follows an executive order directing the Council on Environmental Quality to rescind its regulations implementing NEPA that had previously applied to every agency.
• The U.S. Supreme Court denied an emergency request to reinstate congressional candidate Sam Ronan to Ohio’s Republican primary ballot. Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose removed Ronan from the ballot on March 19, weeks after the state election board certified him as a candidate. LaRose and Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost argued that Ronan lied on his candidacy form about his membership in the Republican Party. Ronan countered that he genuinely changed political parties and made a good-faith effort to win over Republican voters.
• The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) will continue delivering Amazon packages after USPS and Amazon reached a new delivery agreement following months of negotiation. The agreement averts a potential disruption after Amazon—USPS’s largest customer—threatened to reduce substantially its use of USPS delivery services, which generate roughly $6 billion each year for the agency. Postmaster General David Steiner has warned that USPS faces a significant cost crisis, which he attributed in part to the agency’s universal service obligation, its legal duty to deliver to all U.S. addresses even when the delivery cost exceeds the cost of postage. Steiner has reportedly suggested that increasing the price of stamps could largely cover USPS’s shortfalls.
• The U.S. Department of Homeland Security continues to pursue the deportation of Kilmar Ábrego García, who is currently in the United States, to Liberia. This action comes after the United States reached a new agreement with Costa Rica for Costa Rica to accept deportees who cannot legally return to their home countries. García has argued that, if he is to be deported, it should be to Costa Rica. García, a Salvadoran national, was mistakenly deported to El Salvador in 2024 despite an immigration judge’s 2019 ruling that he faced danger from gang threats. The U.S. Supreme Court agreed García was deported without due process and required the Trump Administration to “follow the law.” U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Acting Director Todd Lyons argued that sending García to Costa Rica would be “prejudicial to the United States” because the government has already invested resources negotiating with Liberia to accept third-country nationals.
• An Iowa law that prohibits instruction on “gender identity” or “sexual orientation” in public schools will remain in effect after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit overturned a lower court’s injunction against enforcement of the law. The earlier injunction had narrowed the law’s reach by permitting the exclusion of “gender identity” and “sexual orientation” only in compulsory school programs, while noncompulsory programs such as optional student clubs could continue to incorporate those topics. Now, the law will continue to apply to all school programs as the case proceeds. The plaintiffs emphasized that the case has not concluded and vowed to continue opposing the law.
• The Federal Aviation Administration has called for a fine of approximately $300,000 against Southwest Airlines for allegedly violating drug and alcohol testing regulations. The agency claimed that over several years, Southwest allowed 11 employees who failed drug or alcohol tests, including pilots and aircraft mechanics, to return to performing “safety-sensitive functions” without properly completing mandatory follow-up tests. The U.S. Department of Transportation requires that employers administer at least six random, unannounced drug or alcohol tests in the first 12 months after an employee returns to performing safety-sensitive duties.

WHAT WE’RE READING THIS WEEK

• A recent report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) examined whether married participants in defined contribution retirement plans, such as 401(k)s, are required to obtain spousal consent before removing funds, and what the consequences of doing so without consent may be. GAO found that most defined contribution plans do not require spousal consent to remove funds. When participants remove funds without their spouse’s knowledge, the financial and personal consequences for the spouse can be severe. GAO explained that women are disproportionately harmed given their greater likelihood of relying on a spouse’s retirement savings. GAO noted that although expanding spousal consent requirements could provide greater financial safeguards, doing so may also increase administrative costs and processing delays for plans and participants. GAO did not make recommendations, but highlighted proposals—such as notification requirements or consent thresholds based on the amount of funds removed—that could balance protection with administrative feasibility.
• In a recent article in the Yale Journal on Regulation, Ofer Eldar, a professor at UC Berkeley School of Law, and Mark Ørberg, a professor at Copenhagen Business School, examined why nonprofits choose to control businesses that sell products and services. Eldar and Ørberg identified two main models of nonprofit control: the income-generating for-profit model, where a nonprofit uses business profits to fund charitable work, and the socially oriented for-profit model, where the nonprofit ensures that the business itself pursues a socially beneficial mission. Both models face the risk of “mission drift,” where income-generating nonprofits may fail to distribute funds for charitable purposes and socially oriented businesses may prioritize profit over their social goals. Eldar and Ørberg proposed that legal reforms should focus on ensuring nonprofit independence from outside investors rather than from founders or donors and called for stronger mechanisms to keep nonprofit-controlled businesses aligned with their stated purposes.
• In a recent article, Alexander Afnán, a teaching fellow at the Georgetown University Law Center, argued that the Prison Litigation Reform Act’s mandatory filing fee requirement poses a significant obstacle to legitimate legal claims by prisoners. The act imposes a $350 fee to file a lawsuit in a federal district court, which Afnán contextualizes against the low wages many prisoners receive for their labor. For a prisoner earning 13 cents per hour, the fee is equivalent to a $19,520 fee for someone earning $7.25 per hour. Such prisoners must decide whether to sacrifice thousands of labor hours for an uncertain legal claim, sometimes at the expense of food, hygiene products, or phone calls to family members. Afnán argued that, far beyond deterring frivolous lawsuits, the filing fee prevents many prisoners from voicing legitimate grievances.

EDITOR’S CHOICE

• In an essay in The Regulatory Review, Yonathan Arbel, a professor of law at the University of Alabama School of Law, and Samuel Becher, a professor of law at Victoria University of Wellington, argued that artificial intelligence (AI) tools known as “smart readers” can address the longstanding problem of consumers failing to read—let alone understand—the contracts and privacy policies they agree to. Arbel and Becher explained that consumer contracts are typically inaccessible, lengthy, and complex, which raises fundamental questions about the meaningfulness of consent by signatories who do not have a practical understanding of what they are agreeing to. Arbel and Becher contended that AI language models can translate dense contractual language into simple, accessible summaries, enabling consumers to make informed decisions without the need for government intervention. They concluded that smart readers represent a promising technological complement to regulatory approaches for consumer contract reform.