President Obama issued the latest salvo in the Administration's efforts to placate the business community this morning, in the form of a new Executive Order called “Identifying and Reducing Regulatory Burdens.” The Order would expand and enhance the unfunded mandate that would require agencies to scour through the rule books, finding “excessive” rules that would save regulated companies big money. As I have written elsewhere in this space, the latest example of such an effort would jeopardize food safety by allowing huge poultry processors to self-inspect for salmonella, not incidentally making the lot of the workers who are already overburdened by workplace safety hazards close to intolerable.
The new order sugarcoats its regressive mandate by instructing agencies to seek “public comment” on regulatory “look-backs,” which in practice does not mean comments from mom and pop, who are unlikely to spend their spare time on regulations.gov watching out for the manufacture of dangerous consumer products. While nice in theory, this window dressing cannot obscure the fact that the process announced here is explicitly tilted in a one-way direction toward deregulation. The public comments could include calls to strengthen existing protections, and such strengthening might very well be good for the economy—as regulations often are, industry's "job-killing" rhetoric notwithstanding. Yet the order explicitly says that agencies are to prioritize “those initiatives that will produce significant quantifiable monetary savings or significant quantifiable reductions in paperwork burdens.” The White House is saying agencies should take all the public comment – but prioritize the de-regulation ideas.
The Administration has sought no new funding for agencies to re-examine existing rules. OIRA Administrator Cass Sunstein has been questioned by reporters and concerned Members of Congress on how agencies can do this work without taking away from existing work to protect the public; he has repeatedly asserted that agencies will simply get the work done. This is nonsense. A check of the latest regulatory agendas shows agencies are behind on countless important rules to protect the public’s health and safety. The EPA, for example, recently delayed, again, a rule to limit mercury and other toxic pollutants from industrial boilers.
Going on a hunt for existing regulations to weaken cannot help these busy and under-resourced agencies in their efforts to adopt important new protections for the public as they become inundated in requests from regulated industries to scale back their efforts to protect public health and safety. Having the White House pile on at this moment, when it has already effectively shut down efforts to promulgate long overdue rules to protect workers from silica, asthmatics from smog, and children from heavy agricultural machinery, is a sign that Mr. Sunstein and his staff are less interested in making sure that regulatory agencies are fulfilling their statutory obligation to protect Americans and the environment from a variety of possible harms, than they are in placating industry critics of the President.
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Rena Steinzor | May 10, 2012
President Obama issued the latest salvo in the Administration’s efforts to placate the business community this morning, in the form of a new Executive Order called “Identifying and Reducing Regulatory Burdens.” The Order would expand and enhance the unfunded mandate that would require agencies to scour through the rule books, finding “excessive” rules that would […]
Ben Somberg | May 9, 2012
When the Administration withdrew a rule last month prohibiting young agricultural workers from performing some particularly dangerous tasks, the Department of Labor’s statement didnt’t just say it was tabling the proposal, or reconsidering it, or even starting over from scratch. It went an extra step, adding: “To be clear, this regulation will not be pursued […]
Rena Steinzor | May 8, 2012
Electoral politics or public policy? Policy or politics? One ripe example of how the White House rides herd on health and safety agencies, thinking about politics, not policy to determine what they should do, is provided by the latest poster child for curbing allegedly “excessive rules”: a U.S. Department of Agriculture proposal to take federal […]
Holly Doremus | May 7, 2012
Cross-posted from Legal Planet. You would think that by now federal agencies would have the NEPA process pretty well down. After all, it’s been the law since 1970, requiring that every federal agency prepare an environmental impact statement before committing itself to environmentally harmful actions. And it’s not that hard to do. Agencies just have […]
Chris Wold | May 4, 2012
In the nearly 20 years since the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) entered into force, the linkages between trade and environmental harm have become clearer than ever. Trade agreements can lead to significant adverse environmental impacts, particularly when countries do not have sufficient environmental laws, policies, and institutions—and trade alone will not increase the […]
Rena Steinzor | May 3, 2012
By CPR President Rena Steinzor and Media Manager Ben Somberg Internal EPA emails obtained by CPR through a FOIA request reveal EPA officials’ frustration regarding the White House’s efforts to triangulate House Republicans’ ferocious attacks on regulations. A White House letter last year emphasizing regulatory costs but barely describing the lives saved and injuries avoided […]
David Hunter | May 2, 2012
On one level, President Obama’s Executive Order issued Tuesday, “Promoting International Regulatory Cooperation,” seems benign enough. After all, who would be against international cooperation and a desire to “reduce, eliminate or prevent unnecessary differences in regulatory requirements”? Moreover, the Order on its face does little more than set out priorities and procedures for enhancing international […]
| May 1, 2012
a(broad) perspective Today’s post is third in a series on a recent CPR white paper, Reclaiming Global Environmental Leadership: Why the United States Should Ratify Ten Pending Environmental Treaties. Each month, this series will discuss one of these ten treaties. Previous posts are here. Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movement of Hazardous Wastes […]
Matthew Freeman | April 30, 2012
Last week, Bloomberg News ran a curious story conflating a range of issues under the banner of regulatory rollbacks. The piece keys off of the ongoing GOP push to deregulate America. That effort has been going on for decades, of course, but in the wake of the recession (made possible, not coincidentally, by deregulation in the […]