The OIRA Module: Published Research

Editor’s Note: President Carter deserves much of the credit for institutionalizing White House review of federal regulations. The administrative state would be a vastly less contained enterprise were it not for his leadership in creating OMB’s institutional capacity to review regulations. The Godfather of Regulatory Budgeting explains “‘President Carter had set up this office [OIRA] of almost 90 people and we had been reviewing regulations. When Reagan issued the executive order, we had an infrastructure, which is very important . . . .'”

From: The Hill

By Stuart Eizenstat

Editor’s Note: See the Complete 2018 ABA Administrative Law Conference Agenda.

From: Regulatory Pacesetters

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Whether or not to institute a ceiling on these de facto taxes is a public policy issue that needs to be addressed when, and preferably before, the existing constraint on regulatory expenditures expires.  In a nutshell presently there is a constraint on the incremental costs that regulators can impose on the public; should this constraint, or a variant thereto, continue for the foreseeable future?  The particular mechanism to do so is also open for debate.

From: Brookings

Summary

Editor’s Note: See also Comments on the Draft Report to The Administrative Conference of the United States on the Paperwork Reduction Act.

From: The Regulatory Review

Gisselle Bourns, Jennifer Nou, and Stuart Shapiro

The Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) has long been accused of adding excessive delay to the process of federal agencies producing surveys and other valuable information gathering efforts. Other experts have praised the PRA for serving as a necessary constraint on the ability of agencies to burden the public. In its recent plenary session, the Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS) approved a set of recommendations to improve the operation of the PRA. These proposals build on related suggestions from 2012, which considered statutory changes.

From: Notice & Comment | A Blog from the Yale Journal on Regulation and the ABA Section of Administrative Law & Regulatory Practice

by Chris Walker

Over at the Center for Regulatory Reform, Jim Tozzi (who was in charge of OIRA in the early 1980s) has the following thoughts on the fiftieth anniversary of centralized regulatory review:

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From: Notice & Comment

by Jeffrey Pojanowski

I am administrative law scholar in the fustiest sense of the term. I write about judicial review of agency action, with a particular focus on questions of law. Yes. I am one of those bores who writes about Chevron. I do this while being well aware that so much (most?) of the important thinking in administrative law touches on questions that mostly don’t touch the courts: how Congress interacts with administrative agencies, how agencies interact and coordinate among themselves and with the White House, and how the internal dynamics of particular agencies operate. If you’re just shining your light on judicial review, you’re missing the dark matter that makes up most of the regulatory cosmos.

Editor’s Note: For additional information about the rulemaking process, please see the OIRA Teaching Modules.

From: Forbes

Clyde Wayne Crews Jr.

Numerous laws and executive orders have governed the federal rulemaking process since the 1940s. Along with specifying oversight and disclosure for the regulatory enterprise, they have spawned complex rule classifications and nomenclature

A chart nearby lists the many designations in play, along with newer characterizations that the  115th Congress’s leading regulatory reform vehicle would bring to the menu, in the event it were to pass. Let’s walk through the Red Tape Roll Call.

Read Complete Article

Editor’s Note: Read: The Evolution of Benefit Cost Analysis into Federal Rulemaking and The Iconic Executive Order 12291 which augment the material presented in the post below.

From: Financial Times

A valuable study of a quiet victory for technocrats

Review by Tim Harford

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The book makes three valuable contributions: it relates the history of cost-benefit analysis in US policymaking ; it tackles the economist Friedrich Hayek’s argument that technocrats simply don’t know enough to weigh costs and benefits; and it makes a case that cost-benefit analysis could reduce political tribalism.

Editor’s Note: Cross-posted from the Regulatory Cybersecurity/FISMA Focus forum.

From: The Regulatory Review

Shari Shapiro

Blockchain could provide essential data on the effectiveness of regulations.

Blockchain technology could be used to change the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) from static documentation of regulations into a dynamic source of reliable information on regulatory impact. With a simple search, anyone could determine how long permit approvals take, which firms or industries are most affected, which regulations require the most paperwork, and any data available on the benefits of regulation.

Editor’s Note: OIRA’s review of regulations rests on a formidable foundation, read The Iconic Executive Order 12291: The Precedent for the Preservation of Critical Executive Orders.

From: LSE USCentre

One of the concrete achievements of the Trump administration in the last 18 months has been the rapid removal of a great deal of existing regulation. But what kinds of regulations tend to be recommended for modification or removal? Simon F. Haeder and Susan Webb Yackee have studied the role of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs or OIRA in government rulemaking and find that OIRA frequently recommends changes to rules proposed by agencies which tend to lean to the left politically, such as the Environmental Protection Agency. As Trump moves to expand OIRA’s powers, they warn that this may have significant implications for policy outcomes felt across the United States for the years to come.