Blog

Tomorrow, the new OIRA Administrator, Howard Shelanski, will testify before the House Small Business Committee on the results of the government-wide “look-back” at existing regulations. It will be an opportunity for the Committee’s Republicans to continue their assault on government programs that keep our food safe, air and water clean, and highways fit for travel. Shelanski could follow in […]

The Senate’s grudging confirmation of Tom Perez as Secretary of Labor was the first piece of good news working people have had out of the federal government for quite some time. I know Perez–as a neighbor, a law school colleague, Maryland’s labor secretary, and a civil rights prosecutor. He’s a fearless, smart, and hard-driving public servant—exactly the […]

Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari, or review of  EME Homer City Generation v. EPA, 696 F.3d 7 (D.C. Cir. 2012), reh’g en banc denied, 2013 WL 656247 (D.C. Cir. Jan. 24, 2013). This is a welcome development, as the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals got many things wrong in its tossing out of […]

When you say “small business,” most people probably imagine a mom-and-pop corner grocery.  Actually, the federal Small Business Administration’s concept of small goes well beyond that.  For instance, it includes a computer business that does up to $25 million per year in business. A convenience store can do $27 million and still be considered “small,” […]

The Senate’s confirmation of Gina McCarthy as head of the Environmental Protection Agency is a welcome development and a signal that Congress and the President are willing to get serious about the Agency’s role in protecting the health of all Americans and the affects of climate change on the environment. It won’t be easy. Lawmakers […]

Environmentalists know about the Environmental Protection Agency’s Water Transfer Rule. See 40 CFR § 122.3(i). It states in essence that discharging polluted water from one body of water to another unpolluted body of water is not a discharge of a pollutant under the Clean Water Act. According to the EPA, this action would not be regulated […]

One day in May, climate change got a lot more expensive. The price tag on emissions – the value of the damages done by one more ton of CO2 in the air – used to be a mere $25 or so, in today’s dollars, according to an anonymous government task force that met in secret […]

Last week brought big news in the water quality world.  On July 10, American Rivers, the Conservation Law Foundation, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and several other environmental groups filed “residual designation authority” petitions for stormwater discharges across EPA Regions 1 (New England), 3 (mid-Atlantic), and 9 (southwestern states and California).  That may sound like an obscure and technical […]

This morning, the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee is expected to advance the “Energy Consumer Relief Act” for consideration. The Act would allow the head of the Department of Energy to veto any rules promulgated by the EPA with estimated “costs” of over $1 billion.  Center for Progressive Reform President Rena Steinzor testified against the […]