Today, Rep. Fred Upton and the rest of his anti-environmental allies on the House Energy and Commerce Committee are probably suffering from a stingingbout of buyers' remorse as the Government Accountability Office report they requested didn't deliver the answer they were seeking. The Commerce Committee hoped to demonstrate that “In many instances, EPA has entered into settlements or consent decrees committing the agency to undertake significant new rule-makings subject to specific timelines or schedules, including rule-makings that may result in substantial new compliance costs.” Instead, what they got was the truth. Settlement agreements are rarely used. When they are used, they are simply requiring the Agency to complete a rule it is already mandated to complete by Congress. The timing of the report is impeccable as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Thomas Donohue spent a great deal of time this morning railing against so-called "sue and settle" tactics and calling for Congress to undertake forms to address it. What the GAO found was that several environmental laws do allow citizens to sue the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) when it fails to take certain specified actions according to certain specified deadlines. These suits do not result in settlement agreements very often. And when these suits do end in settlement agreements, the effects of the agreements themselves are extremely limited. First, the agreements merely set a schedule to issue statutorily mandated rules and they never include terms related to the substantive outcome of the rule. Second, in setting the schedules, the agreements have only a minimal impact on the affected agency office's priority setting.
Finally, the GAO report found that the EPA always allowed for public comment on the settlement agreement--directly refuting industry's claims that they are cooked up behind closed doors, away from public scrutiny.
The report is worth a read, and I would particularly encourage Rep. Upton and other purveyors of the "sue and settle" myth to give it a close read.
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James Goodwin | January 14, 2015
Today, Rep. Fred Upton and the rest of his anti-environmental allies on the House Energy and Commerce Committee are probably suffering from a stingingbout of buyers’ remorse as the Government Accountability Office report they requested didn’t deliver the answer they were seeking. The Commerce Committee hoped to demonstrate that “In many instances, EPA has entered into settlements or consent […]
Sidney A. Shapiro | January 13, 2015
Today, the House of Representatives voted to pass the Regulatory Accountability Act of 2015, which would amend the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) to add over 74 new procedural requirements to the rule-making process, including more than 29 new “documentation” requirements. The goal of administrative procedure is to ensure that the government’s adoption of regulation is accountable […]
Rena Steinzor | January 9, 2015
A year ago, about 300,000 people in and around Charleston, West Virginia, lost their drinking water source when thousands of gallons of a toxic chemical known as MCHM (4-methylcyclohexanemethanol) leaked into the nearby Elk River through a hole in a rusted-out storage tank. Last month, the wheels of justice began to catch up with the […]
Erin Kesler | January 9, 2015
This week, House Republicans re-introduced the “Regulatory Accountability Act of 2015,” (H.R. 185). Proponents of the bill are claiming that it would “modernize” the rule-making process and streamline government inefficiencies. In fact, the RAA would bog down attempts by federal agencies to protect our health, safety and environment in red tape by adding over 74 new requirements […]
Matt Shudtz | December 23, 2014
We are closing out the “Path to Progress” series for this year with a potential bright spot. In its Fall 2014 Regulatory Agenda, the Obama Administration set a target date of March 2015 for finalizing new rules designed to prevent and minimize the consequences of derailments in trains carrying crude oil and other highly hazardous […]
Erin Kesler | December 19, 2014
Today, the EPA announced national standards governing coal waste from coal-fired power plants, also known as coal ash. The rule does not treat coal ash as a hazardous material, but as household garbage. CPR President and University of Maryland law professor Rena Steinzor reacted to the classification: It’s bitterly disappointing that the electric utility industry, which earns profits hand over fist, has succeeded […]
Anne Havemann | December 18, 2014
The main tool available to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to limit the amount of pollution discharged into the nation’s waterways is a system of permits issued to polluters that restricts how much they may discharge. This permitting scheme, the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES), requires permittees to monitor their operations and report back […]
Rena Steinzor | December 17, 2014
CPR President Rena Steinzor issued the following statement in response to today’s announcement that a grand jury had indicted owners and managers of Freedom Industries in connection with the massive leak of 4-methylcyclohexanemethanol (MHCM) that fouled the Elk River and triggered a drinking water ban for 300,000 residents earlier this year: Booth Goodwin continues to […]
Matt Shudtz | December 17, 2014
Today, Nebraska Appleseed, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and several allied organizations sent a letter to OSHA requesting a response to their petition for a rulemaking on work speed in poultry and meatpacking plants. The groups originally submitted the petition to OSHA over a year ago, and it’s been radio silence ever since. Meanwhile, tens […]