Fairness and due process were not all that were learned in the course, however. Agency discretion is another significant issue today, and it is important here to name, describe, and give an example of two different types of agency discretion as seen in Hall's (2004) textbook. The first one of these is prosecutorial discretion, and this took place in the case of General Motors v. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Prosecutorial discretion is generally involved with criminal cases and actions, such as was the case of General Motors. A complaint was filed, but the agency that was in charge of dealing with those types of complaints exercised its discretion and decided not to proceed any further when it came to a prosecution of the company. It was found that the agency acted correctly in deciding that it was not going to take any action on the complain or proceed with any type of criminal action toward the General Motors company (Hall, 2004).

A second type of agency discretion is protective action, as took place in the case of Chevron, U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. This type of agency discretion involves specific agencies...

These agencies often have a great deal of power in that they can control some of what businesses and other do and they can stop businesses and individuals from performing certain actions. This was largely the case with the Chevron court case, where the clean air act was concerned. It was believed that Chevron was causing harmful pollution in excess of what regulations would allow and therefore something had to be done regarding it (Hall, 2004). These kinds of agencies and the discretion that they have are highly important for the health and welfare of countless individuals in this country today and this trend will continue into the future, which is much of the reason that regulations and the fairness of them has been so strongly discussed recently.
Bibliography

Barr, S. (2002, January 1). A Graham of prevention. CFO Magazine. Retrieved at http://www.cfo.com/article.cfm/3002750?f=search.

Hall, D.E. (2004). Administrative law. Bureaucracy in a democracy. 3rd ed. Pearson Prentice Hall. Upper Saddle River, NJ.