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The large earthquake that struck central Italy on Monday is devastating not only for the immense human suffering—people killed and injured, and communities disrupted—but also for the priceless losses of Italian cultural heritage.  The Italian Ministry of culture has reported that the earthquake damaged a number of buildings of immeasurable historical significance, including the Basilica di […]

More than 100 groups and individuals have accepted the invitation from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to comment on the new Executive Order on Regulatory Review that the Obama Administration is currently considering.  The extended submission deadline is March 31.  So far, the comments reflect a strikingly wide dividing line between regulatory opponents, […]

On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court announced that it would not be accepting an appeal of a case involving the Bush Administration’s regulatory plan for reducing air mercury emissions from power plants.  For the last two decades, the regulation of mercury air pollution has been caught up in a long and winding journey reminiscent of Homer’s […]

In recent weeks, an unusual convergence of events has served to elevate somewhat the public profile of cost-benefit analysis (CBA).  Before then, CBA was an obscure and highly complex tool of policy analysis—the kind of thing that hardcore policy wonks would wonk about when the subjects of their usual policy wonkery weren’t wonkish enough.  Foreseeable […]

Observers concerned with the current dysfunctional state of the U.S. regulatory system will be letting out a collective sigh of relief following the publication of Executive Order 13497.  Among other things, this Order officially revokes the controversial Executive Order 13422, issued during George W. Bush Administration. Issued in 2007, Executive Order 13422 amended President Clinton’s […]

The past few weeks, Congress has been working on an economic stimulus bill intended to jolt the U.S. economy back to life.  Earlier in the week, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi projected that the bill will combine roughly $400 billion in infrastructure spending with roughly $200 billion of targeted tax cuts.   According to its […]

All last week, USA Today published a series of articles detailing the findings of its investigation into the toxic air pollutants afflicting many of the schools throughout the United States.  Using models developed by EPA for tracking toxic chemicals, USA Today investigators evaluated and ranked air quality for some 127,800 schools.  In particular, these models were […]

One of many areas in which the Bush Administration has sought to throw sand in the gears of the regulatory process is by tampering with the methods of risk assessment used by regulatory agencies as part of their process of gauging how much regulation, if any, is needed in a certain area.   More specifically, […]

Perhaps no other consequence of global climate change kindles the public’s fears like the prospect of catastrophic sea-level rise.  For years now, climate scientists have recognized the potential for increasing global surface temperatures to produce certain kinds of feedback loops that would accelerate the collapse of massive ice shelves in Greenland and Antarctica, leading to […]