OIRA@2050

Editor’s Note: See also An Alternative To The Regulatory Accountability Act?

From: National Affairs

C. Jarrett Dieterle

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Ultimately, instead of viewing legislative review as a silver bullet for deregulation, it is best to regard it as a measured effort to inject more democratic accountability into the rulemaking process. To be sure, this is unlikely to assuage the concerns of some critics; again, many commentators explicitly extol the virtues of keeping the rulemaking process less democratic and more technocratic. But in an era when much of the rulemaking process is coordinated by unelected, bureaucrats, proponents of legislative review would be well-served by arguing that providing legislators with a systematic method to review, influence, and even vote on proposed rules offers a welcome boost of accountability.

From: Government Executive

By Charles S. Clark
Civil service experts generally give OMB’s Margaret Weichert good marks for her outreach to advance the Trump administration’s government reform efforts. Cameron Whitman Photography LLC

On Sept. 12, the Office of Management and Budget joined with the Mitre Corp. in hosting some 150 agency alumni, corporate specialists and academics at the White House for an off-the-record symposium on fixing what ails the federal workforce.

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Verkuil has hopes for bipartisan reform that addresses “regulatory capture” of agencies by industry and by contractors. “They give political contributions and stack the agencies,” he said. “The civil servants are getting beat up every day and have had their numbers reduced while the contractor regime marches on.”