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Showing 913 results

James Goodwin | March 19, 2019

Public Interest Community Calls on EPA Administrator to Halt Dangerous ‘Benefits-Busting Rule’

Today, the Center for Progressive Reform and 46 other environmental, labor, and public health organizations sent a letter to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Andrew Wheeler calling on him to withdraw the agency's pending "benefits-busting" rule. Wheeler was recently confirmed as the official agency head, and, as the letter notes, he can begin his tenure on […]

Joel A. Mintz | March 11, 2019

Due to NEPA, Trump’s ‘One-In, Two-Out’ Order Does Not Apply to Environmentally Protective Regulations

This post is adapted from a recent law review article published in the University of Missouri—Kansas City Law Review. In myriad ways – from speeches, favoritism toward polluting industries, and ill-advised regulatory rollbacks – the Trump administration has consistently exhibited unrestrained antagonism toward regulatory safeguards for health, safety, and the environment. One of the earliest […]

James Goodwin | March 7, 2019

The Missing Ingredient in the Green New Deal

To this point, much of the focus in the discussion over the Green New Deal has been on the substance of the vision it lays out for a better society – and why shouldn't it be? There's some really exciting stuff included in the Green New Deal's toplines, which are by now well-rehearsed: a full-scale […]

James Goodwin | February 28, 2019

Resolution of Disapproval: Call for Repealing the CRA Featured in ‘The Environmental Forum’

The return of divided government promises to bring with it a welcome, albeit temporary, reprieve from the unprecedented abuse of the Congressional Review Act (CRA) that we witnessed during the 115th Congress. As I argue in an article featured in the March/April edition of The Environmental Forum, published by the Environmental Law Institute, the CRA […]

James Goodwin | February 4, 2019

Rao’s Record as Regulatory Czar Raises Red Flags

Tomorrow morning, Neomi Rao, the current administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), is set to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee for a hearing on her nomination to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. If confirmed, she would fill the open seat once occupied by Supreme […]

Daniel Farber | January 31, 2019

Flipping the Conservative Agenda

Originally published on Legal Planet. Conservatives, with full support from Donald Trump, have come up with a menu of ways to weaken the regulatory state. In honor of National Backward Day – that's an actual thing, in case you're wondering, and it's today – let's think about reversing those ideas. In other words, let's try […]

Daniel Farber | January 17, 2019

Regulatory Review in Anti-Regulatory Times: Congress

Originally published on Legal Planet. In theory, cost-benefit analysis should be just as relevant when the government is deregulating as when it is imposing new regulations. But things don't seem to work that way. This is the second of two blog posts analyzing how costs and benefits figured in decisions during the past two years […]

James Goodwin | January 15, 2019

Wheeler Hearing Provides Opportunity to Learn More about ‘Benefits-Busting’ Rule

During his tenure, former Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt launched multiple assaults on environmental and public health safeguards. His attacks on clean air standards and water quality regulations made so little sense in our reality that he went to the absurd and extreme lengths of creating an alternative reality to make them look […]

Daniel Farber | January 9, 2019

How Trump Officials Abuse Cost-Benefit Analysis to Attack Regulations

This op-ed was orignally published in the Washington Monthly. In December of 2017, Donald Trump gathered the press for a variation on a familiar activity from his real estate mogul days. Stretched between a tower of paper taller than himself, representing all current federal regulations, and a small stack labeled "1960," was a thick piece […]