Federal agencies create more binding rules of conduct than Congress, and the size and scope of agency activity has increased during every period in our nation’s history.1 The administrative courts tasked with adjudicating agency rules determine the rights of far more litigants than the federal courts, and regularly handle significant casesinvolving agriculture, banking, commerce, energy, finance, labor, transportation, Medicare and Social Securitythat define our economic and social structure.2
Yet the extraordinary power of federal agencies to enforce their own rules is often overlooked. Each federal agency is empowered not only to create and enforce rules and regulations in its field of expertise, but also to fashion the procedural rulesbespoke to the agency itselfthat apply in each agency’s courts.