Administrative Procedure Act
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. 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.
| Long title | An Act to improve the administration of justice by prescribing fair administrative procedure. |
|---|---|
| Acronyms (colloquial) | APA |
| Enacted by | the 79th United States Congress |
| Effective | June 11, 1946 |
| Citations | |
| Public law | 79-404 |
| Statutes at Large | 60 Stat. 237 |
| Codification | |
| Titles amended | 5 U.S.C.: Government Organization and Employees |
| U.S.C. sections created | 5 U.S.C. ch. 5, subch. I § 500 et seq. |
| 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 Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Corp. v. NRDC Sierra Club v. Morton Norton v. Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance Department of Homeland Security v. Regents of the University of California | |
| Administrative law of the United States |
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| General |
| Statutory framework |
| Regulatory coordination |
| Judicial review of agency action |
| Separation of powers |
| Related areas of law (and agencies) |
| Related topics |
The APA applies to both the federal executive departments and the independent agencies. 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. 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. Each US state has passed its own version of the Administrative Procedure Act.