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Rena Steinzor

Professor of Law

Rena Steinzor | March 20, 2009

The People’s Agents: When the Fox Guards the Hen House…and Is Paid by Perdue

The financial cataclysm gripping the country is often (and rightly) blamed on a lax system of public and private oversight of financial institutions. On the private side, investors trusted huge auditing companies like Arthur Anderson to rate multinational corporations for fiscal soundness. Meanwhile, Arthur Anderson also took handsome fees from the same corporations to conduct […]

Rena Steinzor | March 17, 2009

Delivering Health, Safety, and a Clean Environment: CPR Submits Comments for New Executive Order on Regulatory Review

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) invited public comments on the design of its new Executive Order on regulatory review, and CPR has now submitted our recommendations. We urged the Obama Administration to make fundamental changes in how OMB and prospective “regulatory czar” Cass Sunstein operate. We're hopeful that the new Administration will convert […]

Rena Steinzor | March 6, 2009

The People’s Agents: Rescuing the Occupational Safety and Health Administration

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is the most maligned and least respected federal agency with responsibility for protecting people’s lives. Now that Hilda Solis has been confirmed as Secretary of the Department of Labor, we can only hope that a new OSHA administrator with a strong stomach, an iron will, and a “yes […]

Rena Steinzor | February 27, 2009

OMB Seeks Public Input on New Executive Order on Regulatory Review

Late last week, I sent a letter to Peter Orszag, Director of the White House Office of Management and Budget that, among other things, called on OMB to allow for public participation in the design of its new Executive Order governing federal regulatory review. I’m happy to see that OMB has decided to do just […]

Rena Steinzor | February 10, 2009

Cass Sunstein’s ‘Yes, We Can’

We’ve written a great deal about Cass Sunstein, the Harvard law professor who is expected to get the nod to be the “regulatory czar” for the Obama Administration.   In a nutshell, our concern is that Sunstein will stifle the efforts of health, safety, and environmental protection agencies to struggle to their feet after eight long […]

Rena Steinzor | January 26, 2009

Cass Sunstein and OIRA

This morning, the Center for Progressive Reform published a report on some of the issues that will confront President Obama’s “regulatory czar” Cass Sunstein, if, as seems likely, he is nominated and confirmed to be the director of OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. I’ve blogged on this before, and our report, Reinvigorating Protection […]

Rena Steinzor | January 9, 2009

The Sunstein Appointment: More Here Than Meets the Eye

Thursday’s big news on the regulatory front was that President-elect Obama plans to nominate Harvard Professor Cass Sunstein to be the head of the White House Office of Management and Budget’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) – the so-called “regulatory czar” of the federal government. The appointment means that those of us expecting […]

Rena Steinzor | January 6, 2009

Regulators Cozying Up to Regulated Industry

A story in the Washington Post over the holidays offers up a nice case study in how regulated industries and federal agencies charged with regulating them have grown far too cozy. The story drew back the curtain on how the manufacturer of a toxic metal called beryllium managed to defeat efforts by the Occupational Safety […]

Rena Steinzor | December 12, 2008

Time for EPA to Ride in the Front Seat

President-elect Barack Obama seems close to naming Lisa Jackson, now head of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, to lead the Environmental Protection Agency. Jackson, or whoever ends up getting the appointment, will surely get a raft of advice from friends and closet enemies alike. Most of it will have to do with regulations […]