Congress, through the Administrative Procedures Act, has established a standard of judicial review for federal agencies known as the __________ standard?

• A. Clear and convincing evidence
• B. Preponderance of evidence
• C. Probable cause
• D. Substantial evidence

Answer: (D)

Substantial evidence is the standard Congress used under the Administrative Procedures Act for reviewing agency findings. When a court looks at an agency’s factual determinations, it asks whether the record contains enough relevant evidence that a reasonable person would accept as adequate to support those conclusions. It’s a deferential standard—the court doesn’t reweigh the evidence or substitute its own view for the agency’s, it just checksthat the decision rests on a reasonable evidentiary basis and follows proper procedure. The other options come from different contexts: clear and convincing is a higher civil standard used in some cases, preponderance of the evidence is the usual civil standard, and probable cause is a criminal/administrative threshold, not the APA’s review standard.