Blog

The tagline that the producers of Food, Inc. are using to promote their Academy Award-winning documentary is “You’ll never look at dinner the same way.” They’re quite right. The film airs on many PBS stations this evening (and on others throughout the course of the next week). See for yourself. I came to it expecting that I’d end […]

For the past 6 months, OIRA has hosted an all-out assault on EPA’s proposed coal ash waste rule, as a parade of representatives from King Coal and the coal ash reuse industry have walked in to attack any and every aspect of the hybrid approach the agency reportedly proposed. (Under the hybrid approach, EPA would […]

A recent Water Policy Report article reported that EPA is considering dramatic changes to its Clean Water Act enforcement and permitting program and oversight of state permitting programs. Many of the changes under consideration, including prioritizing the most significant pollution problems, strengthening oversight of states, and improving transparency and accountability, are long overdue. Passed in […]

As the Pump Handle noted earlier this week, OSHA submitted its draft final rule on construction cranes and derricks to OMB on Friday of last week. It’s good news that the process is now moving along. The cranes and derricks rule has been a long saga, and it was one of the case studies in […]

The Competitive Enterprise Institute is upset with the way administrative law works. On Thursday they released their annual report on the costs of regulations. I hesitate to dignify it with pixels, but here goes. CEI has a problem with agency rulemaking altogether: Congress should answer for the compliance costs (and benefits) of federal regulations. Requiring […]

In “Minding the Climate Gap: What’s at Stake if California’s Climate Law Isn’t Done Right and Right Away,” released Wednesday, researchers from several California universities have correlated the relationship between greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and associated co-pollutants in several California industries. The results demonstrate that California’s climate law, AB 32, enacted in 2006, could help […]

Senator Frank Lautenberg today released the  “Safe Chemicals Act of 2010 ” — a bill to reform the Toxic Substances Control Act. Representatives Rush and Waxman released a discussion draft of related legislation in the House. Here are reactions from Environmental Defense Fund, Environmental Working Group, Natural Resources Defence Council, and Safer Chemicals, Healthy Familes […]

Informal rulemaking under the Administrative Procedure Act was, as the late Kenneth Culp Davis opined, “one of the greatest inventions of modern government.” It not only decreased the procedural requirements (and therefore the overhead) of “formal” rulemaking, but it also broadened the universe of persons able to participate in the informal proceeding to the public […]

Cross-posted from The Pump Handle. Last month, the US Dept of Labor (DOL) and MSHA were celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Coal Mine Health and Safety Act.  Their proclamations said: “…this law represents a watershed moment in the improvement of occupational health and safety in the United States. It was the precursor to the […]