Showing 836 results
Rena Steinzor | April 14, 2009
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 […]
Thomas McGarity | April 3, 2009
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 […]
Amy Sinden | April 1, 2009
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 […]
Rena Steinzor | March 31, 2009
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 […]
James Goodwin | March 26, 2009
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, […]
Matt Shudtz | March 20, 2009
In his appearance on Jay Leno’s show last night, President Obama argued (video, transcript) for financial regulations by making a comparison between credit cards, mortgages, and toasters: “When you buy a toaster, if it explodes in your face there’s a law that says your toasters need to be safe. But when you get a credit […]
Rena Steinzor | March 20, 2009
The financial cataclysm gripping the country is often (and rightly) blamed on a lax system of public and private oversight of financial institutions. On the private side, investors trusted huge auditing companies like Arthur Anderson to rate multinational corporations for fiscal soundness. Meanwhile, Arthur Anderson also took handsome fees from the same corporations to conduct […]
Rena Steinzor | March 17, 2009
The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) invited public comments on the design of its new Executive Order on regulatory review, and CPR has now submitted our recommendations. We urged the Obama Administration to make fundamental changes in how OMB and prospective “regulatory czar” Cass Sunstein operate. We're hopeful that the new Administration will convert […]
Rena Steinzor | February 27, 2009
Late last week, I sent a letter to Peter Orszag, Director of the White House Office of Management and Budget that, among other things, called on OMB to allow for public participation in the design of its new Executive Order governing federal regulatory review. I’m happy to see that OMB has decided to do just […]