Administrative Procedure Act

Administrative Procedure Act of 1946

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.[1] 5 U.S.C. ch. 7 § 701 et seq. [2]
Legislative history
Introduced in the Senate as S. 7 by Patrick McCarran (D–NV) on October 19, 1945 Committee consideration by Senate Judiciary Committee, House Judiciary Committee Signed into law by President Harry S. Truman on June 11, 1946
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) Perez v. Mortgage Bankers Ass'n (2015) Army Corps of Engineers v. Hawkes Co. (2016) Department of Homeland Security v. Regents of the University of California (2020) Corner Post, Inc. v. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (2024) Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo (2024)

Administrative law of the United States
General Rulemaking Notice of proposed rulemaking Adjudication Administrative law judge Code of Federal Regulations Federal Register
Statutory framework Administrative Procedure Act Freedom of Information Act National Environmental Policy Act Government in the Sunshine Act National Emergencies Act Inspector General Act Regulatory Flexibility Act Paperwork Reduction Act Unfunded Mandates Reform Act Congressional Review Act Federal Vacancies Reform Act
Regulatory coordination Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs Administrative Conference Executive orders Cost–benefit analysis (Executive Order 12866)
Judicial review of agency action Arbitrary and capricious State Farm Chevron deference Auer deference Loper Bright Committed to agency discretion Due process Londoner Bi-Metallic Goldberg Mathews Exhaustion Major questions Nationwide injunction Ripeness Abbott Labs Standing Lujan
Separation of powers Appointments Clause Freytag Noel Canning Congressional oversight Authorization Organic statute Appropriation Hearings Senate confirmation Independent agencies Humphrey's Executor Seila Law Unitary executive theory Legislative veto Chadha Nondelegation
Regulated fields (and agencies) Antitrust and competition FTC CPSC CFPB Banking Treasury OCC FDIC FRB Communication FCC Energy DOE FERC Environment EPA FWS Food FDA CDC Health care HHS Immigration DHS EOIR Labor DOL NLRB Patent/trademark PTO Securities SEC CFTC Taxation IRS TC Trade DOC ITC Transportation DOT STB NTSB Social Security SSA
Related topics Constitutional law Statutory interpretation
v t e

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.^[3] 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.^[4]

The APA applies to both the federal executive departments and the independent agencies.^[5] 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. Section 702 of the APA waives sovereign immunity, allowing people to sue a federal agency in court for non-monetary relief, such as an injunction or a declaratory judgment.^[6]

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.^[7] 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.^[8] Each US state has passed its own version of the Administrative Procedure Act.^[9]