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Lena Pons | July 7, 2011

Looking Back, But How Much Looking Ahead? Agencies Release Regulatory Agendas Months Late

The Administration has been busy promoting President Obama’s new approach to regulatory review, which required federal regulatory agencies to produce plans for how they would review existing regulations and look for regulations to cut. But while the mad dash to find regulations the administration can trot out as misguided or outdated continued, the agencies were delayed […]

Amy Sinden | June 30, 2011

OIRA’s Annual Report to Congress on the Benefits and Costs of Regulation: Sunstein Rips another Page from the Republican Playbook

Upon reading the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs’ (OIRA) latest annual Report to Congress on the Benefits and Costs of Federal Regulations, one can be forgiven for wondering momentarily whether the 2008 election was just a dream and whether we’re still in the midst of a Republican administration. OIRA is telling us that […]

Rena Steinzor | June 28, 2011

Cass Sunstein and the Obama Legacy

Cross-posted from ACSblog. A series of catastrophic regulatory failures in recent years has focused attention on the weakened condition of regulatory agencies assigned to protect public health, worker and consumer safety, and the environment. The failures are the product of a destructive convergence of funding shortfalls, political attacks, and outmoded legal authority, setting the stage […]

Sidney A. Shapiro | June 24, 2011

Evan Bayh Kicks off Anti-Regulatory Campaign With Series of Falsehoods

On Wednesday, former senator Evan Bayh joined former George W. Bush Chief of Staff Andy Card at the Chamber of Commerce to formally announce their plans to tour around the country campaigning against regulations. The pair have already jumped into a series of falsehoods, endorsing, for example, the discredited SBA-sponsored study claiming regulations cost $1.75 […]

Sidney A. Shapiro | June 22, 2011

Four Anti-Regulatory Proposals to Get Senate Hearing Thursday

Fact: It often takes agencies up to 10 years (in some cases even longer) to develop and issue critical regulations needed to protect people and the environment. These delays may save corporations money, but they impose real and preventable costs in terms of lives lost, money wasted, and ecosystems destroyed. The reasons for this delay are not […]

Matthew Freeman | June 20, 2011

Chamber of Commerce Gets the Law Wrong in its Argument to the White House Against Listing BPA as a Chemical of Concern

As part of its ongoing campaign to derail health, safety, and environmental regulations that it regards as inconvenient to industry, the Chamber of Commerce sent a letter earlier this month to Cass Sunstein, Administrator of the White Hosue Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, calling on him to push the EPA to suspend an initiative […]

Matthew Freeman | June 17, 2011

Administration Pandering to Anti-Regulatory Business Leaders Gets Cold Shoulder

The Washington Post reports today on the White House’s latest failed effort to extract political gain from the President’s misguided “regulatory look-back,” led with disturbing enthusiasm by Cass Sunstein, administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. The story tells us a lot about the thinking of the man who controls access […]

Ben Somberg | June 7, 2011

Pawlenty Attacks Government ‘Bureaucrats’ For Shower Efficiency Requirements Enacted by Congress, Signed by George H.W. Bush

How easy it is to make fun of those out-of-control, unelected government bureaucrats! The examples of their wild behavior are just so plentiful. Here’s Tim Pawlenty in his big economic speech this morning (prepared remarks, video): Conservatives have long made the federal bureaucracy the butt of jokes. And considering some of the bureaucrats in Washington, […]

James Goodwin | June 3, 2011

Sunstein Denounces SBA’s ‘Deeply Flawed’ Study of Regulatory Costs

In testimony before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs in mid-April, Cass Sunstein, Administrator of the White House’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), was asked to comment on a much-disputed $1.75 trillion estimate of the annual cost of federal regulations. The number comes from a report commissioned by the Small […]