CPR Member Scholar Doug Kysar has a post over at Nature with more analysis on the Supreme Court's ruling this week in the American Electric Power v. Connecticut case. Writes Kysar:

The court went out of its way to emphasize that federal common-law actions would be barred, even if the EPA decides not to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions. In other words, the fact that the agency has authority under the Clean Air Act — even if it chooses not to exercise it — was enough, in the court's view, to cut the judiciary out of the equation, stating, "We see no room for a parallel track."

The problem with this is that the US system of limited and divided government is a web of interconnected nodes, not a row of parallel tracks. The courts should understand that part of judges' role is to prod and plea with other …

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, and what they're actually in charge of doing -- like the strength of our showerheads, the vigor of our toilet flushes, or the glow of our reading lamp -- you know, it’s hard not to laugh, or cry, about such things.

Actually, no.

The showerhead and toilet standards were set by Congress in the Energy Policy Act of 1992. From the law:

The maximum water use allowed for any showerhead manufactured after January 1, 1994, is 2.5 gallons per minute when measured at a flowing water pressure of 80 pounds …

We noted earlier this month that a U.S. Small Business Administration official had claimed that the danger of workplace noise was solved just as well with earplugs as it is with reducing the noise at its source -- despite extensive research to the contrary ("Presidential Appointee at SBA Maligns OSHA's Industrial Noise Proposal; Claims Ear Plugs 'Solve' the Problem").

The official, Winslow Sargeant, Chief Counsel for Advocacy at the SBA, has since given a slightly different line. From BNA's Occupational Safety and Health Reporter (4/28):

We strongly support regulations that protect worker safety and health," Sargeant said. "But with regard to the noise rule, we were unable to evaluate whether this proposal was necessary, as a matter of safety, or whether it was economically feasible.

If SBA has indeed not evaluated the safety necessity, it's troubling that Sargeant had previously made such a …

So far as regulatory safeguards are concerned, we've come a long way in 27 months. The Obama Administration started with federal agencies that had been devastated by eight years of an explicitly anti-regulatory president. Turning that around is not easy, and no President could do it in a day. So, as much as you see a lot of criticism in this space, you also see praise, because we've seen this Administration make important progress. From new rules on lead paint removal to construction crane safety to regulating greenhouse gases, there's a lot to applaud -- changes that will make real differences in people's lives.

But there are also a lot of rulemakings or other initiatives that fall somewhere in the "pending" category. Delay has a real cost in human health and lives. But the problem's not just that. It's that for many …

CPR Member Scholar Robert Glicksman testifies at a hearing this afternoon on "Raising the Agencies' Grades – Protecting the Economy, Assuring Regulatory Quality and Improving Assessments of Regulatory Need." The hearing will be held by the Courts, Commercial and Administrate Law subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee.

The hearing will feature two witnesses from the Mercatus Center, who will argue that federal agencies produce flawed regulations, and need to engage in more rigorous regulatory analysis to provide better justifications of the need for and content of regulations.

This misses the reality, Glicksman argues in his testimony:

while the current regulatory process is indeed flawed, the problems for the most part are not the result of agencies adopting regulations without justification or regulations whose social costs exceed their benefits.   Instead, the primary problem is regulatory dysfunction resulting from providing agencies with inadequate resources to fulfill their statutory responsibilities, not …

CPR Member Scholar Joel Mintz has an op-ed in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel taking a look at the House's continuing resolution for the FY 2011 budget and what it would do to the EPA. Writes Mintz:

House leaders would have us believe they're cutting fat from the budget. In fact, they're taking dead aim at nerves, muscles, and vital organs. EPA's existing regulations — and their enforcement — provide vital protections against emissions of toxic air and water pollutants, contamination of public water supplies, the abuse of dangerous pesticides, exposure of school children to asbestos, releases of poisonous chemicals from abandoned hazardous waste dumps, and the destruction of fish, shellfish, and other aquatic life.

If the House-proposed EPA budget cuts — or anything anywhere close to them — are enacted into law, EPA's ability to implement all of those protections (along with other important facets of …