This morning, CPR Member Scholar Sidney Shapiro will testify before Rep. Darrell Issa's House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on the economic value of regulation. He'll be a lone voice on the roster of witnesses. The hearing will have two panels of witnesses. The first will feature five industry representatives, and the second will feature two representatives of right-wing think tanks (Heritage and Mercatus), one leader of a nonprofit that advocates for small businesses, and Shapiro. That would be eight witnesses who may be expected to support Issa's witch hunt for burdensome regulations, versus one defender of efforts to actually enforce the laws Congress has passed to protect health, safety, the environment, workplace safety, consumer rights and more.
Shapiro's may be a lone voice, but it'll be a clear one. And Shapiro's testimony will cover a fair amount of territory. Among other things, he'll review the findings of the recent CPR report he co-authored demolishing the Small Business Administration's Crain and Crain report, which provides the flimsy basis for the frequently heard assertion that regulations impose an annual burden of $1.75 trillion on the economy. (Spoiler: The number is severely overcooked, and the authors don't bother to account for the economic benefits of regulation, which happen to be larger than the costs.)
Another topic certain to come up is the GOP's REINS Act, the scam of a proposal to block all regulations from taking effect unless they are specifically approved by both houses of Congress within 70 days of submission and then signed into effect by the President. The proposal is a transparent effort to create a mountain-sized obstacle to enforcement of laws that the GOP and its business supporters don't like, but which nevertheless are the law of the land. About a dozen things about the proposal scream "bad idea," and Shapiro described them in a backgrounder last fall. (It's pegged to the 2010 iteration of the bill, but the current version is no better.)
Today's hearing starts at 9:30 ET, and the Committee's website promises a video feed, and CPRBlog will be live-tweeting from the hearing room. Follow @CPRBlog.
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Matthew Freeman | February 10, 2011
This morning, CPR Member Scholar Sidney Shapiro will testify before Rep. Darrell Issa’s House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on the economic value of regulation. He’ll be a lone voice on the roster of witnesses. The hearing will have two panels of witnesses. The first will feature five industry representatives, and the second will feature two […]
Matthew Freeman | February 10, 2011
CPR Member Scholar Noah Sachs has a piece on The New Republic‘s website dismantling the GOP House majority’s favority piece of anti-regulatory legislation, the REINS Act. The proposal would block all regulations from taking effect unless they are specifically approved by both houses of Congress within 70 days of submission and then signed into effect by […]
Matthew Freeman | February 10, 2011
We’ll be live-tweeting today’s hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Follow @CPRBlog.
Holly Doremus | February 9, 2011
Cross-posted from Legal Planet. Conservative media and bloggers are making much of a ruling last week by Judge Martin Feldman of the Eastern District of Louisiana that the Department of Interior was in contempt of his June 2010 order enjoining enforcement of the May moratorium on new deepwater exploratory drilling for oil. The Washington Times, […]
Sidney A. Shapiro | February 8, 2011
Having voted to repeal health care legislation, House Republicans have now taken aim at government regulations, describing efforts to protect people and the environment as “job-killing.” This claim conveniently papers over the fact that it was the lack of regulation of Wall Street that tanked the economy and caused the current downturn. But nonetheless, seeking […]
Celeste Monforton | February 8, 2011
Cross-posted from The Pump Handle. I was already tired of President Obama repeating the Republican's rhetoric about big, bad regulations, how they stifle job creation, put an unnecessary burden on businesses, and make our economy less competitive. He did so last month in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal and in his State of […]
Rena Steinzor | February 2, 2011
Today’s announcement by EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson that EPA will move toward regulating perchlorate, reversing a decision by the George W. Bush Administration, is bittersweet. It’s great that EPA has recognized the need to regulate, but the agency has adopted such a leisurely timeline that the entire effort could end up being undercut. The agency […]
Yee Huang | February 1, 2011
a(broad) perspective While discussion of adapting to climate change is finally beginning to take off in the United States, other governments from Bangladesh to the Netherlands have already laid the foundation to develop concrete policies and implement strategies to address the impacts. Last week, a report released by the UK’s Environment Agency specifically identified relocation of […]
Dan Rohlf | January 28, 2011
In his State of the Union speech to Congress Tuesday night, President Obama suggested that reducing inefficient federal bureaucracy can help reduce federal spending and promote economic growth. Stretching to find a lighthearted example of government ineptness, the President quipped that “the Interior Department is in charge of salmon while they’re in fresh water, but […]