Correct! Standards of review used to evaluate agency actions include the arbitrary-or-capricious test, substantial evidence, and de novo.

Standards of review

Under the Administrative Procedure Act, final agency decisions (such as those made during rulemaking or adjudication) are subject to judicial review, usually with a six-year statute of limitations. The APA provides for judicial review for people and parties "adversely affected or aggrieved by agency action within the meaning of a relevant statute" or suffering "legal wrong because of agency action."

The APA establishes two standards of judicial review:

• Substantial evidence
  • Substantial evidence is required in cases involving decisions made during formal rulemaking or formal adjudication.
  • Courts must uphold agency decisions that are "reasonable, or the record contains such evidence as a reasonable mind might accept as adequate to support a conclusion."
• Arbitrary-or-capricious test
  • Courts reviewing agency regulations are instructed to overturn actions they find to be "arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law."
  • This test is most often used when reviewing the factual basis of a rulemaking, especially for informal rulemakings.

According to the Regulatory Group and the Center for Effective Government, in practice, these two tests are applied in very similar ways.

De novo

De novo (Latin for "from the new"), in the context of administrative law, is a standard of judicial review in which a federal court examines an executive agency action, such as a regulation or an adjudicatory decision, without deference to a previous interpretation of the underlying statute in question.

Federal courts may apply de novo review when interpreting regulations issued by executive agencies. To interpret a statute or rule de novo means to interpret a statute or rule without consideration for the judgment or position of the administrative agency.

Courts adhere to the de novo standard of review when a court considers an agency's interpretation of a statute that the agency does not administer. For example, a court may apply de novo review when considering an agency's interpretation of a provision of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), certain provisions of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), the United States Constitution, or other statutes not administered by a specific agency. Under de novo review, agencies are not afforded deference by the reviewing court.

See also

• Deference
• Rulemaking
• Executive agency