Regulatory Transactions

Editor’s Note: In keeping with the requirement that IPDs ventilate all substantive regulatory perspectives, we present below the views on OSHA’s planned silica exposure regulation of two distinguished academicians, Robert R. M. Verchick and Michael L. Marlow. CRE’s view is that White House oversight of OSHA’s regulatory proposal needs to be understood within the historical context of the centralized regulatory review function, see Proper and Desirable Intervention by the President in Agency Rulemaking.

Michael L. Marlow, Mercatus Center/George Mason University (complete comment available here.)

Public Interest Comment to OSHA (November 27, 2013)

CONCLUSION

Editor’s Note: For more information about the power of audacious policy entrepreneurship, see here.

From: Bloomberg

Crash Families Channel Rage to Outlobby Airlines on Rules

By Alan Levin

One was a basketball coach. Another sold food packaging. Two were sisters-in-law of an insurance executive who died in the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.

With no Washington experience or deep-pocketed backers, these family members of victims of a 2009 plane crash near Buffalo, New York, channeled their grief and rage for four years to win U.S. rules reducing pilot fatigue and improving training and qualifications. They outmaneuvered industry opponents spending millions on lobbyists.

From: E&E Publishing

Jean Chemnick and Manuel Quiñones, E&E reporters

On one hand, U.S. EPA is promoting carbon capture and storage technologies for all new coal-fired power plants. On the other — would-be project developers say — are confusing, budget-busting permit requirements that hamstring the technology’s development.

The bottom line, some energy industry officials say: Carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) technologies aren’t ripe for a rulemaking.

“If not, we wouldn’t be spending [research and development money] on it,” said Charles McConnell, executive director of Rice University’s Energy and Environment Initiative and former chief of the Department of Energy’s Office of Fossil Energy. “Why spend a nickel on R&D? That’s what’s so stupid about the whole thing.”

From: Farm Futures

Legislators suggest EPA’s rulemaking could expand CWA legislation to include ponds and other small bodies of water

Compiled by staff

From: The Hill

By Julian Hattem

From: AgProfessional

Rich Keller, Editor, Ag Professional

The point of view of the Farmworker Justice organization is that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) took important steps last week to revise protections for farmworkers exposed to pesticides.

Farmworker Justice was one of the first, if not the first, announcing submission of an updated Worker Protection Standard to the White House Office of Management & Budget (OMB) for review.

From: The Hill

By Julian Hattem

Green organizations are cheering an attempt by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to solidify its authority over smaller streams and wetlands.

The period for the public to comment on the agency’s draft report, which makes the case for new rules, ends on Wednesday. The agency has received more than 100,000 comments on the study.

The EPA’s report is the first step to secure its ability to regulate the small bodies of water that feed into larger lakes and rivers.

Environmentalists agree with the EPA that oversight of those waters is necessary to protect the larger water sources.

From: Bloomberg

By Mark Drajem

Companies that make biofuels from corn husks, soy and other materials are mounting a last-ditch lobbying campaign to prevent a weakening of the U.S. renewable-fuel mandate, saying a lower requirement would set back an industry that is ready to blossom.

The Environmental Protection Agency, responding to complaints from refiners and fossil-fuel oil producers, has proposed a reduction in the amount of renewable fuels that refiners must blend into gasoline and diesel next year, according to a draft obtained by Bloomberg on Oct. 10.

From: Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP

Article By: Fred Reish, Bruce L. Ashton, Joshua J. Waldbeser

In our last newsletter, we wrote about the DOL’s (Department of Labor’s)  Advance Notice of Proposed Rule Making (ANPRM) concerning the projection of retirement income on ERISA participant benefit statements. Since that article was published, a number of  plan sponsor and service provider organizations have filed their comments with the DOL, and the comment period has now expired.  This article contains a general summary of the comments and our view of the next steps.

Editor’s Note:  Regulatory scholars increasingly study the influence on the federal regulatory process of the regulations promulgated by our major trading partners.

From: RegBlog

Edgar Mkrtchian

A European Commission proposal to regulate electronic cigarettes as pharmaceuticals has run into substantial roadblocks.  On October 8, the European Parliament passed an amendment to the Commission’s proposal.  As amended, the proposal would subject e-cigarettes to the same regulatory regime as normal cigarettes.  In the wake of upheaval, a final vote on the proposal has been delayed to help build a consensus.