Rudman Summer Fellow of the Week: Carolyn Kostka

(The following excerpts from a recorded interview have been edited for clarity and brevity.)

On the work of the U.S. Department of Energy: 

The Department of Energy is a federal agency. So pretty much whenever there is an administration change, the Department of Energy also changes, because it's a big part of the administration. The administration can get a lot of work done through the Department of Energy and rules that surround energy use. 

I'm with the appliance enforcement group. That includes any appliance, like an air conditioner or a water heater, that has to meet energy standards. And if it doesn't meet those standards, or they don't do the testing requirements for those standards, then that becomes a dispute that comes to the group that I'm with, where it will then either be settled in the administrative law court or it will go to district court.

I'm not allowed to say a lot about it, but I would say that nuclear energy is definitely a big thing right now. and a lot of coal use as well. So right now, the administration is really just trying to emphasize having a reliable energy grid, so that when you turn your lights on, the lights actually turn on.  There's been a lot of talk about the East Coast during the last winter storm when a lot of people lost power. 

On her daily work:  

Five attorneys supervise me on the enforcement team. It's really been great. I have a really great team. And they're super patient with me, trying to teach me everything that they do. 

I've been working a lot on administrative research, which I have no experience with.   I've been looking into FOIA and the Federal Advisory Committee Act.

There are rules for everything you do.  So, there’s a lot of research involved. I’ve been working on the Administrative Procedure Act, making sure that everyone who signs orders coming from court actually has the authority to do so. 

In constitutional law we learned about the delegation of authority for federal agencies, so I thought that there was going to be one document, or a handful of documents, that said you have the authority to do xyz, but it's really not that way. It’s more about limits, and you have to kind of walk around the gray area to figure out what it is you're allowed to do and what you're not allowed to do.  So, the research has been challenging. There are things going on that there is no case law for, so trying to figure out how a judge would interpret those situations has been really interesting.

On her main project this summer: 

I’m working on a memo about the Administrative Procedure Act, on the grey area of who has authority to sign a document without violating the separation of functions.  I'm hoping that it will be approved by my supervisors before I wrap up this stint of my internship. They offered to extend my internship to the end of December, so I'll be participating remotely.

I’ve been working on negotiation settlements, but everything is a lot slower in the federal government, taking years to process, so during a six-week internship you don’t get to see anything from start to finish. 

The Rudman Center fellowships support students who work during the summer for government agencies or 501(c)3 non-profit organizations that perform public interest legal work.   For more on the Rudman Summer Fellowship program, visit here.