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Showing 488 results

Matt Shudtz | July 23, 2013

Shelanski to Testify on Regulatory Look-Back, Hopefully with an Update on the Poultry Slaughter Rule

Tomorrow, the new OIRA Administrator, Howard Shelanski, will testify before the House Small Business Committee on the results of the government-wide “look-back” at existing regulations. It will be an opportunity for the Committee’s Republicans to continue their assault on government programs that keep our food safe, air and water clean, and highways fit for travel. Shelanski could follow in […]

Thomas McGarity | July 2, 2013

Anything but Generic: Supreme Court Preemption Opinion Calls for Correction from Congress and the FDA

Lost among the high-profile opinions that the Supreme Court issued during the past two weeks was a case that attracted little media attention, but is of great importance to the millions of Americans who take generic drugs. Karen Bartlett, a secretary for an insurance company filed the lawsuit against generic drug manufacturer Mutual Pharmaceutical Company. […]

Matt Shudtz | June 20, 2013

House Amendment to Farm Bill Would Spur USDA Action on Flawed Poultry Slaughter Rule

Hot on the heels of a USDA Inspector General’s report that highlights the failings of privatizing pork inspection, the House yesterday approved an amendment to the Farm Bill that pressures USDA to institute the same type of system in the poultry slaughter industry.  The poultry rule, which we’ve written about in this space before, is […]

Lisa Heinzerling | June 11, 2013

The Obama Administration’s Plan B for Plan B: Compliance, or Defiance?

The Obama Administration’s announcement that it will comply with a district court’s order that it make emergency contraceptives available to all women and girls without a prescription comes as a welcome development in a long-running administrative-law fiasco. But the Administration’s specific suggestions as to how it will set things right, set forth in letters sent yesterday […]

Lisa Heinzerling | June 11, 2013

EPA’s Formaldehyde Rule: The Mystery of the Shrinking Benefits

Why does the White House take so long to review rules from the regulatory agencies?  As I have documented elsewhere, many rules have been stuck at the White House’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) for years.  Some of these remain there to this day.  What is the White House doing for the months […]

Lisa Heinzerling | May 29, 2013

The FDA Doubles Down On Its Plan B Troubles

Cross-posted on ACSBlog. A panel of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York has just taken under consideration the Food and Drug Administration’s motion for a stay of a district court order directing the agency to make levonorgestrel-based emergency contraceptives available to women and girls of any age without a prescription and without […]

Matt Shudtz | May 3, 2013

Large OSHA Fine for Poultry Processor Highlights Flaw in USDA Proposal to Revise Inspection System

Just days before The Washington Post’s Kimberly Kindy published her eye-opening story of chemical showers in chicken processing plants and the untimely death of a federal food safety inspector, OSHA announced fines totaling $58,775 in a case involving a worker fatality at another chicken processing plant – this one in Canton, Georgia. According to OSHA’s press […]

Matthew Freeman | April 29, 2013

Tom McGarity Op-Ed in the Christian Science Monitor: Feeble Oversight in West, Texas, Was No Accident

CPR’s Tom McGarity has an op-ed in this morning’s Christian Science Monitor describing the regulatory environment in which that West, Texas, fertilizer plant came to have a large stockpile of explosive material while operating with little or no oversight from state or federal authorities. An April 17 explosion at the plant claimed at least 15 […]

Matt Shudtz | April 10, 2013

President’s Proposed Budget Assumes Savings from Finalizing Proposed USDA Poultry Inspection Rule That Would Be Harmful to Food Safety, Workers, and the Environment

For more than a year now, food safety and worker safety advocates have been fighting a proposal out of USDA’s Food Safety Inspection Service that would pull most government inspectors off poultry slaughter lines in favor of potentially un-trained company inspectors, speed up the lines, and allow companies to use additional antimicrobial chemicals to cover […]