The State of the Art of Regulatory Reform in the US: The OMB 2014 Report
From: L’Osservatorio AIR [Italy]
Fabrizio Di Mascio
The Regulatory Right-to-Know Act calls for the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to submit to the US Congress each year “an accounting statement and associated report” including: (A) an estimate of the total annual benefits and costs (including quantifiable and nonquantifiable effects) of Federal rules and paperwork; (B) an analysis of impacts of Federal regulation on State, local, and tribal government, small business, wages, and economic growth; and (C) recommendations for reform.
The 2014 Report has been recently published by the OMB-Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA). In the previous reports OMB recommended a wide range of regulatory and analytic reforms and practices, including retrospective analysis of existing rules; examination of how to conduct and present regulatory impact analyses when necessary inputs are non-quantifiable; use of cost-effectiveness analysis, especially for regulations designed to reduce mortality risks; clear presentation of quantified and non-quantifiable costs, benefits, and distributional effects of proposed regulations and their alternatives; promotion of public participation and transparency through technological means; regulatory cooperation with international trading partners; promotion of economic growth and innovation; empirical testing of disclosure strategies; and careful consideration of approaches to regulation that are informed by an understanding of human behavior and choice.
In the 2014 Report OMB continues to support these recommendations focusing in particular on:
