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12 

CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS, FRS 

KAVANAUGH, J., concurring 

workers may prevail in those suits only through vacatur of
the  agency  rules.  So  if  “set  aside”  did  not  mean  vacate, 
workplace  safety  rules  could  be  challenged  from  only  one 
direction—by  employers  who  want  less  regulation,  not  by
workers who want more regulation. 

The examples of standard agency litigation that depend 
on  the  availability  of  vacatur  are  seemingly  endless. 
Vacatur was essential when American workers challenged
a  Department  of  Labor  rule  that  unlawfully  allowed 
employers  to  access  inexpensive  foreign  labor,  with  the 
effect of lowering American workers’ wages.  See Mendoza 
v.  Perez,  754  F. 3d  1002  (CADC  2014).    Vacatur  was 
essential when a county challenged the Department of the 
Interior’s allowance for Indian gaming on nearby land.  See 
Butte Cty. v. Hogen, 613 F. 3d 190 (CADC 2010).  Vacatur 
is often essential when a State challenges an agency action 
that  does  not  regulate  the  State  directly  but  has  adverse 
downstream effects on the State.  See, e.g., Department of 
Commerce v. New York, 588 U. S. 752 (2019).6 

I  will  stop there.    But  to  be  clear,  I  could  go  on  all  day 
(and then some) listing cases where vacatur was necessary
for  an  unregulated  but  adversely  affected  plaintiff  in  an 

—————— 

6 In  some  circumstances,  usually  when  a  court  rules  that  an  agency
must provide additional explanation for the challenged agency action or
must regulate some entity or activity more extensively, some courts have 
remanded  to  the  agency  without  vacatur.   Remand  without  vacatur  is 
essentially a shorthand way of vacating a rule and staying the vacatur
pending the agency’s completion of an additional required action, such 
as  providing  additional  explanation  or  issuing  a  new,  more  stringent 
rule.  I do not address that practice here, which has been the subject of 
some debate.  See Checkosky v. SEC, 23 F. 3d 452, 462–465 (CADC 1994)
(Silberman,  J.)  (explaining  the  practice);  see  also  id.,  at  493,  n.  37 
(Randolph,  J.)  (noting  that  courts  and  parties  alternatively  may  avoid 
any  “difficulties”  associated  with  vacatur  by  “a  stay  of  the  mandate”). 
Importantly for present purposes, the view that vacatur is “authorized 
by the APA is a basic proposition shared by both sides of the debate over 
remand without vacatur.”  M. Sohoni, The Power To Vacate a Rule, 88 
Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 1121, 1178 (2020).