Public Participation

A number of our readers have inquired as to why the OIRA review of the recently proposed NPRM on transparency in science was subject to a short period for review.

CRE does not know of the reason but it is not unusual for the head of an agency to request expedited review of an NPRM because it complements other actions to be taken in tandem with said document.

Others who have views on this question are encouraged to submit their views using the “comment” link in the right hand corner of this post.

Our readers are free to submit their questions to: contact@thecre.com

An examination of the literature on the evolution of centralized regulatory review in the White House Office of Management and Budget will reveal that the legal community dominates the debate. Surprisingly considerably less attention is given to the aforementioned subject matter by members of the political science community notwithstanding the fact that generally, but not always, influencing rulemaking is a far more permanent mechanism for affecting the political system than is the publication of learned journal articles.

Fortunately, the sparsity of articles written by political scientists is changing. A case in point is the articles prepared by Professor Andrew Rudalevige of Bowdoin College and so presented at an event sponsored by the Hoover Institution.

May, 2018

For a number of years CRE (Center for Regulatory Effectiveness) has been asked its views on the regulation of firearms. This is a reasonable request because CRE’s expertise, developed over a half-century, is in analyzing proposals for additional regulation and examining the attendant range of alternatives.

We have avoided taking a public position on this topic because our primary interest is the process for conducting centralized regulatory review of regulations in the White House Office of Management and Budget independent of the substance of a particular regulation.

CRE appreciates the many comments we have received on our position on the EPA Science Rule.

Our friends on  the “left”, who in large part agree with the CRE position, were dumbfounded and a number of our friends on the “right” were either perplexed  or if not disappointed.

We use this recognition of our work to encourage our readers to visit our Regulatory Pacesetters website at http://www.thecre.com/forum8/

We are not a commercial website; we have no daily or weekly quotas.  CRE only makes a post when we observe, from the eyes of a practitioner and during the course of our day job as a regulatory watchdog, an issue of emerging importance which we believe should be explored in detail by members of the academy.

The  following statement was just made in the Scientific American:

Nor does the preamble to the rule describe precisely how the proposal builds on previous efforts to promote transparency such as the Information Quality Act and EPA’s Information Quality Guidelines.

Compare the above with this earlier statement by CRE:

CRE is not supportive of the EPA science initiative at this time because it creates a new regulatory regime without first exploiting to the fullest the existing regulatory regime which consists of the Data Access Act and the Data Quality Act.

Recently in several discussions with students of administrative law the question was asked as to who were some of the dominant figures in controlling the administrative state.

The speaker, whose organizational contributions were discussed, replied that the giant in the field was Walter Gellhorn.

Sadly not one person  knew of Walter_Gellhorn (1)

                                    Is Evidence-Based Policymaking Here to Stay?

Evidence-based policymaking envisions “a future in which rigorous evidence is created efficiently, as a part of routine government operations, and used to construct effective public policy.” Evidence-Based Rulemaking is a subset of the same but with an emphasis on federal rulemaking. In fact an ongoing debate, as noted below, is limited exclusively to rulemaking.

Centralized regulatory review has been around for nearly a half century; OIRA has been in existence nearly four decades. During that period of time OIRA’s product line has remained virtually the same, without change. It is unusual for any organization to continue to either exist, or not witness a decline in its relevance, without an expansion of its product line.

Fortunately OIRA is taking steps to expand its product line to include:

— a regulatory budget

— the review of IRS rules, and possibly

— the review of the regulations of independent agencies

— streamlining shipping regulations

As centralized regulatory review is about to begin its second half century of operation, the Center for Regulatory Effectiveness conducted a review of the existing literature to determine those statements which best describe its contribution to the governance of the administrative state.

Born out of a Reagan-era desire to minimize regulatory costs, and not fundamentally reconsidered since its inception, the centralized review of agency rulemakings has arguably become the most important institutional feature of the regulatory state.

CRE is not supportive of the EPA science initiative at this time because it creates a new regulatory regime without first exploiting to the fullest the existing regulatory regime which consists of the Data Access Act and the Data Quality Act.

With respect to the existing regulatory regime please note:

(1) OMB neutered the Data Access Act when it opined that the DAA only applied to reports which carry the effect and force of law; the EPA initiative is in violation of  OMB Circular A-110 which implements the DAA.