Inside the Administrative State: A Critical Look at the Practice of Presidential Control

From the inception of the administrative state, scholars have proposed various models of agency decision-making to render such decision-making accountable and effective, only to see those models falter when confronted by actual practice. Until now, the presidential control model has been largely impervious to this pattern. That model, which brings agency decision-making under the direction of the President, has strengthened over time, winning broad scholarly endorsement and bipartisan political support. But it, like prior models, relies on abstractions - for example, that the President represents public preferences and resists parochial pressures - that do not hold up as a factual matter. Although recent empirical analyses purport to validate the model, they fall short because they examine how the White House exercises control without considering how agencies experience control. This Article is the first to study the practice of presidential control from inside the administrative state. We interviewed the top political officials at the Environmental Protection Agency from the George H. W. Bush and Clinton Administrations during 1989-2001. Our data, which do not vary substantially between respondents of different presidential administrations, suggest that White House involvement is more complex and less positive than previous accounts acknowledge. But we do not conclude that the presidential control model lacks merit. Indeed, our respondents recognize that the President has a role to play in controlling agency decision-making. We therefore conclude that the presidential control model requires reworking to remain valid in practice as well as in theory. We identify next steps in that direction

Legitimacy, Selectivity, and the Disunitary Executive: A Reply to Sally Katzen

This reply addresses the thoughtful comments that former OIRA Administrator Sally Katzen has provided on our Article, Inside the Administrative State: A Critical Look at the Practice of Presidential Control. Our Article is the first to investigate the agency perspective on White House involvement in agency rule-making. We interviewed 30 of the 35 top political officials in the Environmental Protection Agency ( EPA ) during the George H.W. Bush ( Bush I ) and the William J. Clinton Administrations during 1989-2001. Prior to our study, empirical studies of White House involvement in agency rule-making had focused almost exclusively on the White House side, mainly analyzing White House documents and interviewing White House officials. While these studies could describe how the White House exercises control of agency rule-making, they could not speak to how agencies experience such control. We began to remedy the imbalance and paint a more complete picture of presidential control

Buckling Imperfection Sensitivity of Axially Compressed Orthotropic Cylinders

Structural stability is a major consideration in the design of lightweight shell structures. However, the theoretical predictions of geometrically perfect structures often considerably over predict the buckling loads of inherently imperfect real structures. It is reasonably well understood how the shell geometry affects the imperfection sensitivity of axially compressed cylindrical shells; however, the effects of shell anisotropy on the imperfection sensitivity is less well understood. In the present paper, the development of an analytical model for assessing the imperfection sensitivity of axially compressed orthotropic cylinders is discussed. Results from the analytical model for four shell designs are compared with those from a general-purpose finite-element code, and good qualitative agreement is found. Reasons for discrepancies are discussed, and potential design implications of this line of research are discussed

Dissipative Taylor-Couette flows under the influence of helical magnetic fields

The linear stability of MHD Taylor-Couette flows in axially unbounded cylinders is considered, for magnetic Prandtl number unity. Magnetic fields varying from purely axial to purely azimuthal are imposed, with a general helical field parameterized by \beta=B_\phi/B_z. We map out the transition from the standard MRI for \beta=0 to the nonaxisymmetric Azimuthal MagnetoRotational Instability (AMRI) for \beta\to \infty. For finite \beta, positive and negative wave numbers m, corresponding to right and left spirals, are no longer identical. The transition from \beta=0 to \beta\to\infty includes all the possible forms of MRI with axisymmetric and nonaxisymmetric modes. For the nonaxisymmetric modes, the most unstable mode spirals in the opposite direction to the background field. The standard (\beta=0) MRI is axisymmetric for weak fields (including the instability with the lowest Reynolds number) but is nonaxisymmetric for stronger fields. If the azimuthal field is due in part to an axial current flowing through the fluid itself (and not just along the central axis), then it is also unstable to the nonaxisymmetric Tayler instability, which is most effective without rotation. For large \beta this instability has wavenumber m=1, whereas for \beta\simeq 1 m=2 is most unstable. The most unstable mode spirals in the same direction as the background field.Comment: 9 pages, 11 figure

Measurements of skin-friction of systematically generated surface roughness

The flow conditions at which a given surface will begin to show the effects of roughness in the form of increased wall shear stress above that of the hydraulically-smooth wall and the behavior of frictional drag in the transitionally-rough regime are still poorly understood. From a practical standpoint, the engineering correlations to predict this behavior should be based on information that can be obtained solely from the surface topography, thus excluding any information that requires hydrodynamic testing. The goal of this work is to take a systematic approach when generating surface roughness where the roughness parameters can be controlled. Three surfaces with fixed amplitude and varying power-law spectral slope (E(κ) ∼ κP; P = -0.5, -1.0, -1.5) were generated and replicated using high-resolution 3D printing. Results show that the surface with the shallower spectral slope, P = -0.5, produces the highest drag, whereas the surface with the steeper spectral slope, P = -1.0, produces the least drag. This highlights that some roughness scales do not contribute significantly to the drag. In fact, the effective slopes, ES of the investigated surfaces were less than 0.35, which indicates that the surfaces are in the so-called “wavy” regime (Schultz and Flack, 2009). A high-pass filter of 1 mm (corresponding to  ∼ 10 times of the roughness height) was applied. By removing the long-wavelength roughness scales, the correlation between the filtered roughness amplitude and the frictional drag showed the correct trend

Regulation in the Behavioral Era

Administrative agencies have long proceeded on the assumption that individuals respond to regulations in ways that are consistent with traditional rational actor theory, but that is beginning to change. Agencies are now relying on behavioral economics to develop regulations that account for responses that depart from common sense and common wisdom, reflecting predictable cognitive anomalies. Furthermore, political officials have now called for behavioral economics to play an explicit role in White House review of agency regulations. This is a significant development for the regulatory process, yet our understanding of how behavioral insights should alter regulatory analysis is incomplete. To account for behavioral anomalies, regulators will need to draw on behavioral and social science insights beyond behavioral economics, and they will need an analytic framework to ensure that regulatory decisions reflect a comprehensive examination of the numerous, seemingly haphazard behavioral insights. Although behavioral research has demonstrated the limits of rational action, it does not provide a framework for considering extra-rational action. Nor have legal scholars developed such a framework, despite excellent theoretical work in the area. In this Article, we take an initial step. We provide a framework to facilitate agency consideration of extra-rational action and extend that framework to include a lesson from behavioral research that academics have noted but not adequately explored: that individuals are concerned with social outcomes (e.g., social status or inclusion) as well as monetary outcomes (e.g., wealth) and that they seek to maximize utility in both rational and extra-rational ways. After sketching our framework, we offer concrete applications in the energy use context. Our framework does not resolve all issues that may arise in the behavioral era, but it provides a means to move forward

High magnetization aqueous ferrofluid: A simple one-pot synthesis

A one-step polyol method was utilized to prepare a stable aqueous iron/iron oxide ferrofluid. The dried powders were characterized by x-ray diffraction, electron microscopy, x-ray absorption spectroscopy, and vibrating sample magnetometry for the determination of phase, morphology, and magnetic properties. To show its potential for imaging applications, the ferrofluid was also investigated as a magnetic resonance imaging contrast agent

Measurements in Film Cooling Flows With Periodic Wakes”.

ABSTRACT Film cooling flows subject to periodic wakes were studied experimentally. The wakes were generated with a spoked wheel upstream of a flat plate. Cases with a single row of cylindrical film cooling holes inclined at 35 degrees to the surface were considered at blowing ratios of 0.25, 0.50, and 1.0 with a steady freestream and with wake Strouhal numbers of 0.15, 0.30, and 0.60. Temperature measurements were made using an infrared camera, thermocouples, and constant current (cold wire) anemometry. Hot wire anemometry was used for velocity measurements. The local film cooling effectiveness and heat transfer coefficient were determined from the measured temperatures. Phase locked flow temperature fields were determined from cold wire surveys. Wakes decreased the film cooling effectiveness for blowing ratios of 0.25 and 0.50 when compared to steady freestream cases. In contrast, effectiveness increased with Strouhal number for the 1.0 blowing ratio cases, as the wakes helped mitigate the effects of jet liftoff. Heat transfer coefficients increased with wake passing frequency, with nearly the same percentage increase in cases with and without film cooling. The time resolved flow measurements show the interaction of the wakes with the film cooling jets. Near-wall flow measurements are used to infer the instantaneous film cooling effectiveness as it changes during the wake passing cycle