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Showing 2,912 results

Matthew Freeman | April 7, 2011

GOP’s Latest Anti-Regulatory Effort is a (S)TRAIN; CPR’s Steinzor to Testify on New Bill

This afternoon at 1:00 p.m., the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Energy and Power will check one more box in the House GOP’s ongoing effort to demonstrate its appreciation to the corporate interests that helped elect them, by holding a hearing on a proposal disingenuously called the Transparency in Regulatory Analysis of Impacts […]

Ben Somberg | April 6, 2011

SBA Defends Peer Review Process on Regs Study; ‘Offered the Study for Review’ to Experts Beyond the Two Who Actually Responded

When the U.S. Small Business Administration issued a study last September claiming regulations cost the U.S. economy $1.75 Trillion in a single year, the agency trumpeted that the "report was peer reviewed consistent with the Office of Advocacy’s data quality guidelines." But the peer review file included with the study was embarrassingly meager — comments […]

Holly Doremus | April 5, 2011

White House Review Delays EPA Mountaintop Removal Guidance

Cross-posted from Legal Planet. EPA has announced that it will delay finalizing its guidance memorandum on Clean Water Act permitting for mountaintop removal mining projects pending review by the White House Office of Management and Budget. The announcement is bad news for Appalachian streams, and worse news for environmental interests hoping the Obama administration won’t […]

Daniel Farber | April 4, 2011

Environmental Justice and Adaptation to Climate Change

Cross-posted from Legal Planet. I’m beginning to wonder whether we need an “Endangered People Act” to ensure that the most vulnerable get the protection they need from climate change impacts. Climate change will disproportionately affect vulnerable individuals and poorer regions and countries, as I discuss in a recent paper comparing adaptation efforts in China, England, […]

Holly Doremus | April 1, 2011

Right on the Commerce Clause, Wrong on the ESA

Cross-posted from Legal Planet. As Rick noted earlier, the Ninth Circuit is now the fifth federal circuit court of appeals to reject a Commerce Clause challenge to the ESA. In San Luis & Delta-Mendota Water Authority v. Salazar, a Ninth Circuit panel upheld protection of the Delta smelt. I agree with Rick’s analysis of the […]

Sidney A. Shapiro | March 30, 2011

Key OSHA Health and Safety Initiative Potentially Delayed Months by OMB Nitpicking

Last week, the White House’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) approved a survey to be conducted for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) as part of the agency's efforts to develop an Injury and Illness Prevention Program (I2P2) standard. Surveys, like this one, have to be approved by OIRA according to the Paperwork […]

Ben Somberg | March 29, 2011

Robert Glicksman Testifies at House Hearing on Agency Rulemaking Process

CPR Member Scholar Robert Glicksman testifies at a hearing this afternoon on “Raising the Agencies’ Grades – Protecting the Economy, Assuring Regulatory Quality and Improving Assessments of Regulatory Need.” The hearing will be held by the Courts, Commercial and Administrate Law subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee. The hearing will feature two witnesses from the […]

Amy Sinden | March 29, 2011

EPA Punts on Cooling Water Rule; Despite Facts on the Ground, Decides Technology That Would Prevent Massive Fish Kills no Longer Feasible

Around 6pm ET last night, after most reporters had wrapped up, EPA issued its long-awaited proposed cooling water rule. Under the Clean Water Act, this rule is supposed to protect the billions of fish and other aquatic organisms that are killed each day when they are squashed against intake screens or sucked up into cooling water […]

Matthew Freeman | March 25, 2011

Echoes of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire in Today’s Debate over Regulation

One hundred years ago today, 146 people perished in one of the nation’s worst workplace tragedies – the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire in the heart of New York City. The story is gruesome, and each detail of exactly how so many people were trapped in a burning building was, and remains, a reminder of what […]