"EPA" but "the SEC" Forum

[malleus discentium]

Why do admin people almost always call it just "EPA" but usually use the definite articles for other agencies? Are there other agencies that are consistently used this way?

[rinkrat19]

It's "the EPA." I don't know where you've seen it used otherwise, unless EPA is being used as an adjective ("EPA guidelines require..."), but that also applies to the SEC and every other agency acronym I can think of.

[arklaw13]

It's like that in every SCOTUS oral argument too

[malleus discentium]

It's "the EPA." I don't know where you've seen it used otherwise, unless EPA is being used as an adjective ("EPA guidelines require..."), but that also applies to the SEC and every other agency acronym I can think of.

My Breyer/Vermeule admin casebook exclusively uses just EPA. Massachusetts v EPA also uses it that way, for example.

[5ky]

I believe FDA doesn't use "the" either.

http://www.fda.gov/AboutFDA/

[Internetdan]

Do you know why we don't say "the" before CIA?... You say don't "the" before God do you?

- Matt Damon

(the EPA is Jesus)