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Cass Sunstein, President Obama's controversial nominee for Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), will go before the Senate's Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee for his confirmation hearing on Tuesday (May 12). The “Regulatory Czar,” as this position is known, wields enormous influence over the substance of federal regulations affecting matters […]

At long last, the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) is getting the injection of new blood that it has needed for years. President Obama announced today that he will nominate a new Chairwoman and a new Commissioner for the agency. This is great news. CPSC has been operating with just two commissioners for several years. […]

Last week I discussed how the institution of judicial review has been used to amplify the deregulatory nature of cost-benefit analysis.  This week, I'll talk about some possible remedies. An unusual synergy exists between the institutions of cost-benefit analysis and judicial review.  Under most circumstances, the institution of judicial review is arguably neutral with regard to […]

For the last few years now, CPR’s Member Scholars have made the case that cost-benefit analysis is, by itself, fundamentally deregulatory in nature.  Unfortunately, other institutions in our federal government tend to exacerbate the deregulatory nature of cost-benefit analysis.  Whether by design or dumb luck, cost-benefit analysis allows regulatory opponents to use those institutions—most notably […]

According to media accounts, President Obama today nominated Harvard law professor Cass Sunstein to be the director of OMB's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs — the so-called "regulatory czar."  CPR President Rena Steinzor reacts to the news: I welcome Cass Sunstein’s nomination to be the Obama Administration’s regulatory czar. His past support for cost-benefit […]

Say you live in an urban neighborhood where crime is worrisome but not overwhelming. The police are chronically understaffed, with no money to walk the beat, and instead depend on what we might call a “deterrence-based enforcement system” – making high-profile arrests, prosecuting the worst violators, and relying on the resulting publicity to frighten others […]

On Wednesday, April 1, the Supreme Court issued its ruling in Entergy vs. EPA, holding that it was permissible for EPA to use cost-benefit analysis as its method of regulatory analysis in devising a regulation on power plant water intake structures.  Member Scholar Amy Sinden blogged on the decision that day, here.  Member Scholar Thomas […]

The Supreme Court today upheld a decision from the Bush administration’s EPA that was good for industry and bad for the environmental health of our rivers and estuaries (my brief press statement on the case, Entergy v. EPA, is here; the court’s decision is here).  But the majority opinion by Justice Scalia was written narrowly […]

Two years ago, a pair of well-meaning economists, Richard Morgenstern and Winston Harrington, who work at the moderate think tank Resources for the Future (RFF) got a large grant from the Smith Richardson Foundation to convene a group of well-credentialed academics to consider how to improve “cost-benefit analysis” (CBA). Unfortunately, their long-awaited report, released at […]