Court Denies Motion to Dismiss Public Citizen v. Trump
Feb. 8, 2019
Court Denies Motion to Dismiss Public Citizen v. Trump
The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia today denied the government’s motion to dismiss Public Citizen v. Trump, a case challenging the Trump administration’s executive order directing federal agencies to repeal two federal regulations for every new rule they issue.
The court said that Public Citizen had satisfied the standard for showing standing at this stage. But the court also found that Public Citizen hadn’t sufficiently shown enough to meet the standard at the next stage (summary judgment).
That is, the judge thinks there is still some question about why the government withdrew or delayed various rules, thereby causing injury to Public Citizen’s members. To show whether the 1-in 2-out executive order caused the delays, he indicated that more factual development is needed. The next step will be discovery (interrogatories, document requests or depositions) or some other fact finding procedures to establish why the agencies delayed or withdrew the rules.