A panel of business leaders comprising President Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness today published a “Road Map to Renewal,” including proposals for expanded oil and gas drilling, and, of particular interest, five pages of policy recommendations related to regulation. Among them were procedural proposals aimed at further hamstringing regulatory agencies in their effort to promulgate badly needed safeguards for health, safety, and the environment.
For example, the Council proposes:
It’s worth noting that several of the proposals from the Jobs Council are ideas industry and its Republican allies have been pushing for a while; the cost-benefit requirement for independent agencies, for example, was included in the Regulatory Accountability Act and CURB Act, two bills popular in the GOP. The comments-on-comments concept, meanwhile, has been touted by the anti-regulation Center for Regulatory Effectiveness.
All in all, the recommendations start from a false premise – that environmental, health and safety safeguards are the economy’s problem – and proceed toward an unwise conclusion – building in further layers of review by economists. In fact, the regulations that industry is most distressed by already undergo a cost-benefit analysis at the agencies and then endure an industry-friendly second review at the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. As a recent CPR report demonstrates, OIRA’s review is the gateway to a gross politicization of the process, one that commonly results in weaker safeguards. Further review by another team of economists will only serve to slow and weaken needed protections.
Regulations from EPA, OSHA, and the other agencies under the microscope are written to implement and enforce laws duly passed by Congress – the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Occupational Safety and Health Act and others. Industry finds such laws inconvenient. But when properly enforced, they keep Americans safe, protect our environment for future generations, and in the end, provide a fair and stable footing for the nation’s economy. It’s not surprising that a group primarily comprised of business leaders would offer up a series of proposals that would slant policymaking in this area toward industry’s bottom line. But it’s disappointing that they don’t see the larger picture.
The President and Congress should say thanks, but no thanks, to these anti-regulatory proposals.
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Rena Steinzor | January 17, 2012
A panel of business leaders comprising President Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness today published a “Road Map to Renewal,” including proposals for expanded oil and gas drilling, and, of particular interest, five pages of policy recommendations related to regulation. Among them were procedural proposals aimed at further hamstringing regulatory agencies in their effort to […]
Holly Doremus | January 14, 2012
Cross-posted from Legal Planet. Clearly I need to slow down Rick’s internet connection to get him to stop scooping me. Rick reported earlier that the President has floated a proposal to reorganize the Commerce Department and related agencies which would apparently include moving NOAA (all of NOAA, according to OMB’s Jeffrey Zeints, not just its ESA […]
Holly Doremus | January 11, 2012
Cross-posted from Legal Planet. As usual, I’m behind Rick on commenting on the latest Supreme Court development. (In my defense, it is the first day of classes, although I know that’s not much of an excuse.) Unlike Rick, I didn’t attend the oral argument (see lame excuse above), but having read the transcript I agree […]
Matt Shudtz | January 10, 2012
On Monday, GAO released its latest installment in what has become a somewhat regular series of reports on EPA’s Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) program. In 2008, GAO warned that “the IRIS database was at serious risk of becoming obsolete because the agency had not been able to keep its existing assessments current, decrease its […]
| January 9, 2012
If environmental cases had their own Olympics, the dispute between Chevron and Ecuador would be a contender for multiple gold medals. It seems to have a shot not only at winning the award for the largest damages, but also for running the longest and appearing in the most courtrooms. To recap: Residents of the Amazon […]
Rena Steinzor | January 9, 2012
With a reverential nod to maverick economist Jeff Madrick, who wrote a popular book of the same name, I begin today a series of blog posts entitled “The Age of Greed” that is designed to shine a bright spotlight into the dark corners where Washington lobbyists are busy looting the protection of public health, worker […]
Nina Mendelson | January 4, 2012
On January 9th, the Supreme Court will hear Sackett v. EPA, which concerns whether an individual has a right to a judicial hearing before, rather than after, an agency finalizes a so-called administrative compliance order. The case has important potential to undermine the environmental protection, including the government’s ability to promptly respond to environmental threats […]
Rena Steinzor | January 3, 2012
It’s my great pleasure to announce that the Board of Directors of CPR has selected Jake Caldwell to serve as our new executive director. He succeeds Shana Jones, who earlier this year announced she would be leaving CPR to teach environmental policy at Old Dominion University. Jake comes to CPR after six years at the […]
Sidney A. Shapiro | December 29, 2011
Senators Mark Warner (D-VA) and Jerry Moran (R-KS) introduced a bill earlier this month that proposes to change regulatory and tax policies with the goal of encouraging more entrepreneurial activity and creating more jobs. The legislation contains a grab-bag of proposals, such as allowing more aliens with professional expertise in stem cell research to become […]