A forum on regulatory capture is set for March 3 in Washington, D.C.

The forum was organized by the Administrative Conference of the United States and will be held March 3, 2016 in the Dirksen Senate Office Building Room 106 between 9:30 am and 12 noon.

The forum aims to bring together leading experts from government, the federal bench, the academy, and the business world to explore the concept in a more rigorous way.

Opening remarks will be made by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-Rhode Island).

Keynote remarks will be made by Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) and Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah).

Panels will discuss how to measure capture in the rulemaking context; whether federal agencies’ allegedly weak enforcement of regulatory crimes is evidence of capture; and whether increased transparency, robust enforcement, enhanced judicial oversight, or deregulation are plausible solutions to special interest influence.

The first panel will look at “agency enforcement and evidence of capture” and will ask — are failures to prosecute corporations and executives evidence of capture or merely instances of selective prosecutorial discretion? And — are deferred prosecution agreements good policy or naïve capitulation?

Featured on the the first panel — Judge Jed S. Rakoff, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, Gretchen Morgenson of The New York Times, and Brandon Garrett of the University of Virginia School of Law and author of Too Big to Jail. The moderator will be Ronald A. Cass, President of Cass & Associates and Administrative Conference of the United States council member.

The second panel will look at “regulatory capture in rulemaking.”

The second panel will explore the latest scholarly work on regulatory capture in the rulemaking context and ask — Are certain types of rules less vulnerable to capture? Is deregulation a solution to the problem of capture or itself evidence of a new type of capture?  Do Congressional delegations to executive branch agencies give individual legislators excessive influence over agencies through informal contacts and formal controls?

Featured on panel two  — Neomi Rao of George Mason School of Law, Sidney Shapiro of Wake Forest University School of Law, Daniel Carpenter of Harvard University, and Mark Calabria of the Cato Institute.   The moderator will be Steve Croley, General Counsel of the Department of Energy and Administrative Conference of the United States vice-chair.