This afternoon, Speaker Paul Ryan is scheduled to announce the House majority's latest plan to weaken the U.S. system of regulatory safeguards on which all Americans depend. The following is Center for Progressive Reform Senior Policy Analyst James Goodwin's reaction to this plan:
Speaker Ryan and his anti-regulatory apostles in the House would have you believe that their latest attack strategy on our system of regulatory safeguards is a serious, forward-looking plan. In fact, everything it contains is not just old, but stale. The talking points are hackneyed; the so-called supporting research was debunked long ago; and the proposals it contains are bad ideas that have been trotted out countless times before. This plan would take us back to the laissez-faire days of the Gilded Age. An America run by robber barons didn't serve us well then, and it certainly wouldn't serve us well in the 21st century.
Thanks to the U.S. regulatory system, we have come a long way from the days when rivers caught fire, cars exploded in rear-end collisions, workers contracted brown lung disease from breathing cotton dust, and a chemical haze settled over the industrial zones of the country's cities and towns. The available evidence demonstrates U.S. regulations have greatly benefited the American public while the failure to regulate has cost us dearly. The House majority's plan is to hobble regulatory safeguards across the board, making the world a more comfortable place for polluters and manufacturers of unsafe products while leaving Americans more vulnerable to a host of hazards.
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James Goodwin | June 14, 2016
This afternoon, Speaker Paul Ryan is scheduled to announce the House majority’s latest plan to weaken the U.S. system of regulatory safeguards on which all Americans depend. The following is Center for Progressive Reform Senior Policy Analyst James Goodwin’s reaction to this plan: Speaker Ryan and his anti-regulatory apostles in the House would have you […]
Robert L. Glicksman | June 10, 2016
Originally published by the George Washington Law Review The Supreme Court held in U.S. Army Corps of Engineers v. Hawkes Co.1 that a determination by the United States Army Corps of Engineers (“Corps”) that the owners of land used for peat mining were obliged to apply to the Corps for a permit under the Clean […]
Daniel Farber | June 9, 2016
As I wrote earlier this week, environmental enforcement is not nearly as effective as it should be. EPA and others have been working on finding creative ways of obtaining compliance, often with the help of new technology. One aspect of enforcement that has become clear is the need to focus on small, dispersed sources that […]
Evan Isaacson | June 8, 2016
Late last month, almost 250 water quality advocates and officials convened in Annapolis for what is likely one of the largest gatherings of Chesapeake Bay experts. The 2016 Choose Clean Water Coalition conference brought together experts from each of the seven Bay jurisdictions and the federal government to share their experiences and ideas and to […]
Hannah Wiseman | June 7, 2016
The Colorado Supreme Court’s decisions last month holding that local governments in Colorado could not ban or place long-term moratoria on hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) added to the growing list of states that have preempted local control over this oil and gas production method. This is a troublesome trend and one that calls for closer scrutiny […]
James Goodwin | June 6, 2016
Tomorrow, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee’s Subcommittee on Superfund, Waste Management, and Regulatory Oversight is set to hold a hearing investigating the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) compliance with the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act (UMRA). UMRA is striking because it was passed in 1995 as part of then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s attacks on the […]
Daniel Farber | June 6, 2016
The political debate over regulation tends to focus on the regulations themselves. But enforcing the regulations is just as important. Despite what you might think from the howls of business groups and conservative commentators, the enforcement system is not nearly as strong as it should be. Twenty years after passage of the Clean Water Act, […]
Matthew Freeman | June 3, 2016
We have an in-house guideline about bragging on CPRBlog, which is that we try to keep it to a minimum. It’s not so much a matter of modesty as it is that we think the work our Member Scholars and staff do speaks for itself. But we’re going to suspend our usual practice for a […]
David Driesen | June 2, 2016
During the last few years, airlines have increased their reliance on “bait-and-switch” scheduling. They induce travelers to choose their airline based on advertised routes and schedules. They know that especially good routes are valuable and generally charge more for a good route than a bad one. Long after travelers have taken the bait, often paying […]