OIRA Watch

Recently the attention of the legal community given to centralized regulatory review is growing at an amazing rate.  Out of all the articles written on the subject, in the views of those who have considerable sweat equity invested in the enterprise, the following statements are the most accurate in describing the Nixon Quality of Life Review.

 Relief or Reform | Eads and Fix | Urban Institute 1984

“Many of the procedures and institutional arrangements that would later be employed by Presidents Ford, Carter and Reagan trace their origins to decisions made in 1971 by the Nixon Administration”.

See, http://thecre.com/pdf/20121011_jimsbook001.pdf

 OMB’s approval of  Information Collection Requests (ICR’s) under the Paperwork Reduction Act are immune from judicial review.

 Should this immunity be removed in light of OMB’s failure to enforce the PRA?  Please review the most recent OMB violation. of the Paperwork Reduction Act.

The Center for Regulatory Effectiveness (CRE) has provided OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) with massive and uncontradicted evidence demonstrating that the CMS competitive bidding program violated the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA), see our comments to OMB here, our comments to CMS here, a peer reviewed analysis of the CMS program by CalTech researchers here, and a letter from over 240 economists to White House condemning the program here.

 Look at any regulatory agency and in most, if not many of the instances, the decision process is dominated by individuals with a law degree. Without a doubt law is an important ingredient of the regulatory process but it should determine the outer boundaries of the debate not the end result.

Cass Sunstein, a former OIRA Administrator in a recent article, concludes:

• By Charles S. Clark

• Kalim/Shutterstock.com

Do you want to have a major impact on US energy policy?  Simply have an NGO,  acting in the “public interest”,  sue the USG government  and obtain a settlement which is not subject to the procedural safeguards of the Administrative Procedure Act  nor OMB review under Executive Order 12886.

CRE finds it  incomprehensible that oil shale offers the United States the potential to extract over 1.5 trillion barrels of oil, an amount about equal to the entire world’s proven oil reserves, yet BLM has drastically shifted its policy position to one  which will prohibit the development of this vital resource.. This is especially troubling in that the 2008 PEIS BLM specifically outlined two additional steps of environmental analysis that would need to be completed before any oil could be commercially extracted.  CRE recommends the following:

 Editor’s Note:  In the following article the author describes the “Good Government” laws which “regulate the regultors”.  These laws will govern the issuance of regulations dealing with the protection of the nation’s critical infrastructure from cyber attacks.

CircleID

By Bruce Levinson

DOE’s enabling statutes give it ample authority to intervene in the regulatory programs of other agencies.  These interventionist authorities are to be used when other federal agencies propose regulations which curtail the attainment of the nation’s energy goals.

Unfortunately these  DOE regulatory authorities have remained dormant for years.  DOE is in the process of implementing a program to examine its  existing regulations and at the same time to initiate process changes which will  make its programs more responsive to the needs of the public.

In response to a request for public comment CRE has provided DOE with these recommendations.

 In the article that follows Dr. Luckstead claims that the Data Quality Act (DQA) is responsible for limiting access to technical information. This statement is not based upon knowledge of the DQA.

 The DQA simply states that a federal agency can not use information from third parties, such as Dr. Luckstead, unless the said information meets the standards of the DQA.

 Who makes the decision as to whether the information supplied by a third party meets DQA standards– a federal employee.

 If a member of the public appeals a decision of the said federal employee, who makes the decision as to whether the appeal is accepted- a different federal employee.

Editors Note:  Central to Professor Shapiro’s views, as he mentions again in the following article,  was a recommendation to reduce the number of public  comment periods in the PRA from two to one.  Members of ACUS did not adopt this recommendation because it was based upon an incomplete understanding of the process imbedded in the PRA.  More specifically the recommenation failed to recognize that the first notice and comment period was aimed at having  the agencies work with the public to develop the least onerous reporting requirements.