The OIRA Module: Published Research

Publisher’s Note: Centralized regulatory review began on the “budget side” of OMB in the form of the Quality of Life Review. From the onset probably the single biggest opposition to OMB assuming its new role were career budget examiners who stated regulatory review was very political and it would eventually set the stage for an intrusive oversight of the budget process.

Well It took forty five years but they were correct as witnessed by the recommendations in the following article.   Consequently the author of the following article is to be complimented  not only for educating the public of the very important and far reaching impacts of the “budget side” of OMB but also for setting  the stage for disclosing an observation that few scholars of centralized regulatory review appreciate.

From: arXiv.org

Mia Costa, Bruce A. Desmarais, and John A. Hird

From: Harvard Law Review

Presidential Intelligence

Article by Samuel J. Rascoff

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From: RegBlog | Penn Program on Regulation

Emily S. Bremer

In United States Army Corps of Engineers v. Hawkes Co., the Supreme Court held that a “jurisdictional determination” issued by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was final agency action subject to judicial review under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). The fact that the Supreme Court’s decision was both unanimous and yet also yielded four separate opinions hints at the interesting and important administrative law issues that lurk in the details.

Editor’s Note: See, A Website Dedicated to the Implementation of a Regulatory Budget.

From: Competitive Enterprise Institute

Clyde Wayne Crews

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The concept of budgeting is not new, nor partisan. Democratic Texas Sen. Lloyd Bentsen, who served as Treasury Secretary in the Clinton Administration, proposed in the 1979 Disco era an “an annual cap on the compliance costs each agency could impose on the private sector” plus “coordinat[ing] the regulatory and fiscal budgets.” That’s important when considering dynamic scoring, and recognizing regulations affect macroeconomic variables.

Regulatory budgeting was also considered in President Jimmy Carter’s 1980 Economic Report of the President.

From: American Action Forum

Douglas Holtz-Eakin

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Conclusion

OIRA has played a critical role in managing the nation’s regulatory apparatus for more than a generation. Although critiques of the agency are justified, mainly on transparency grounds, its status as a gatekeeper for federal regulation is vital. Unfortunately, its output during this administration will have profound implications for the American economy. These implications may not show up in national unemployment numbers, but in the wages of hundreds of industries, and in the prices paid by millions of Americans.

From: Notice & Comment

by Daniel Hemel

My co-blogger Andy Grewal asked in a post on Tuesday: “Why doesn’t the IRS comply with the Congressional Review Act?” My first thought on reading Andy’s post was: “Yeah, why doesn’t it?” My second thought was: “Maybe it does.”

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