The OIRA Module: Published Research

From: The Wall Street Journal

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The Reagan White House met this challenge by setting up a special task force to run regulatory policy for the first months of 1981. It was led by then-Vice President George H.W. Bush, with a big assist from his general counsel Boyden Gray. Key staff included such policy legends as Jim Miller, who later ran the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and White House budget office; Frank Blake, who would go on to run Home Depot,  Jim Tozzi, who would become the ranking career official in the White House regulatory shop; Tim Muris, who ran the FTC under George W. Bush; and Jeffrey Eisenach, now with the American Enterprise Institute.

It’s not too much to say this task force ran much of the government for six months as the new appointees found their sea legs. In one famous February 1981 incident, the general counsels of agencies were called to the White House to review executive order 12291 on regulation. The counsels began to cross out huge chunks until they got to the end and discovered that Ronald Reagan had already signed it. The task force was so successful that Democrats John Dingell and Al Gore hauled some of them up to Capitol Hill for a public scolding.

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