Progressives bang drums for ‘course correction’ at White House reg office
May 20th
From: Greenwire
John McArdle, E&E reporter
In the obscure world of federal rulemaking and administrative law, yesterday’s gathering of progressives at American University was about as close as you could get to an old-fashioned revival meeting.
Grievances about the failures of the current regulatory system were aired, commitments to bring about change were reaffirmed and inspiring words were spoken.
“It is depressing, but the right attitude is to get your torch out and light it and march in the street,” said Rena Steinzor, president of the left-leaning Center for Progressive Reform (CPR), which hosted the event.
Policy Integrity’s Livermore discusses OMB study on costs, benefits of EPA regulations
May 15th
From: EENewsnet.net
OnPoint/
Has there been a shift in tone on regulation during President Obama’s second term? During today’s OnPoint, Michael Livermore, executive director at the Institute for Policy Integrity, discusses the politics of regulation as Congress works through the confirmation process for several key regulatory positions. Livermore also gives his take on how Howard Shelanski, the president’s nominee to head up the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, could affect the future of regulations coming out of this administration.
OIRA Directed to Work on Developing White House Open Data Policy
May 10th
Editor’s Note: The Administrator of OIRA was directed by President Obama’s “open data” Executive Order to participate in the development of the Executive Branch’s Open Data Policy. An excerpt from the EO is below. The complete Order may be found here.
Sec. 2. Open Data Policy. (a) The Director of the
Office of Management and Budget (OMB), in consultation with the Chief
Information Officer (CIO), Chief Technology Officer (CTO), and
Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs
(OIRA), shall issue an Open Data Policy to advance the
Clearing the Air: EPA Benefits Outweigh Costs: Op-Ed
May 7th
From: LiveScience
Gernot Wagner, Environmental Defense Fund
The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is nerd heaven: a bunch of people getting their professional kicks from analyzing federal regulation. That bean counting may sound painfully lacking in glamour, but it’s incredibly important.
The OMB’s annual report to Congress on the benefits and costs of all major rules adopted by most federal agencies over the past 10 years shows how efficiently, or inefficiently, those agencies are functioning. And the conclusion is clear: the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) comes out on top.
Who Is Running OIRA?
May 1st
From: RegBlog
Lisa Heinzerling
In his revealing new book about his nearly four years as President Barack Obama’s “regulatory czar,” Harvard Law School professor Cass Sunstein describes a striking moment: “After I had been in the job for a few years, a Cabinet member showed up at my office and told my chief of staff, ‘I work for Cass Sunstein.’ Of course that wasn’t true – but still.”
Obama’s Nominee for OIRA Director
Apr 26th
From: HuffPost
Richard L. Revesz and Michael A. Livermore (Dean at NYU School of Law; and Executive Director of Policy Integrity)
President Obama announced yesterday his selection of Howard Shelanski as the next Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the White House. OIRA, although not widely known, reviews the regulations that are adopted by nearly all federal agencies: everything from EPA rules to limit mercury pollution from power plants to TSA rules governing airport screening procedures. This will give Shelanski enormous power to shape the remainder of the Obama administration’s regulatory agenda.
Go Simple
Apr 23rd
From: New York Times
By CASS R. SUNSTEIN
HOW many millions of hours do you think Americans spend on government paperwork every year?
The answer is staggering. It is measured not in the millions of hours, but in the billions — 9.14 of them, to be exact. Suppose that we value one hour at $20 (a conservative estimate). If so, the government imposes an annual reporting cost of more than $180 billion on the American people.
That figure is more than 20 times last year’s budget of the Environmental Protection Agency, more than seven times that of the Department of Agriculture, and more than six times that of the Department of State.
Substance or Politics: What Dictates Obama’s Regulatory Agenda?
Apr 16th
From: RegBlog
Stuart Shapiro
In a recent critique of the Obama Administration’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), Lisa Heinzerling argues that a lack of transparency at OIRA, the federal office that reviews regulations, has allowed the office to pursue an anti-regulatory agenda, stifling regulations designed to protect public health.
Heinzerling, former Associate Administrator at the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Policy during President Obama’s first term, offers a portrait of environmental policy in the current administration that is strikingly at odds with perceptions in both the business community and the Republican Party.
Cass Sunstein on what law professors don’t get about government
Apr 9th
From: FierceGovernment
By Zach Rausnitz
Outsiders underestimate how valuable the notice-and-comment piece of the rulemaking process is for government agencies, Cass Sunstein, the former head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Obama administration, said April 5.
Among law professors, “it’s long been thought that the process of notice and comment is basically kabuki theater,” said Sunstein, himself a law professor for decades before heading up OIRA and who has since returned to academia. “That administrative-law sophisticated wisdom, it couldn’t be further from the truth,” he said at a Brookings Institution event.
Regulatory Moneyball
Apr 1st
From: Foreign Affairs
What Washington Can Learn From Sports Geeks
By Cass R. Sunstein
Chances are that you will never hear a crowd at a protest rally chant, “What do we need? Regulation! When do we need it? Now!”
People want safe food, clean air, and clean water. But in the abstract, regulation is never a popular idea. In a tough economic environment, it might seem like a recipe for disaster. In the United States, businesses large and small have long argued that they are subject to excessive red tape and government oversight, and in the context of a serious recession, that concern has become acute. In light of the country’s general enthusiasm for freedom of choice, regulation is particularly vulnerable to political attack.