VapeMentors, the Fat Cat Vapor Shop, and Cosmic Fog Vapors All Walk Into an Obscure White House Office...
This week appears to mark the end of an extraordinary period in the history of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), the shadowy bureau charged with reviewing and revising pending agency rules, which too often ensures they are not overly inconvenient for affected industries. For the last month and a half, a Mos Eisley-esque mélange of characters has streamed through the front doors to lobby OIRA’s gang of economists and political operatives over a pending rule that would establish the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) authority to regulate non-traditional tobacco products including e-cigarettes and flavored cigars the same way it does with more traditional tobacco products, such as cigarettes and smokeless tobacco. OIRA’s review of the rule, which comes at the end of a rulemaking process that has already stretched more than five years, provides these groups with one last chance to influence the substance of the rule before the FDA is able to formally publish the final version and begin implementing its provisions.
Once completed, the FDA’s “deeming” rule, as it has become known, would represent a huge step forward for public health by subjecting harmful and increasingly popular tobacco products …
This morning, CPR President and Loyola University, New Orleans, Law Professor Robert R.M. Verchick testifies at a hearing convened by the Senate Budget Committee to examine a dangerous regulatory policy proposal known as “regulatory budgeting.”
As he explains in his testimony, regulatory budgeting represents a stark departure from the traditional focus of regulatory policy discussions, which have long been concerned with improving the effectiveness—or quality—of regulatory decision-making. Regulatory budgeting, by contrast, makes the total number—or quantity—of regulations the primary focus, relegating concerns of individual regulatory quality to a matter of secondary importance.
Regulatory budgeting seeks to impose an arbitrary cap on total regulatory costs. According to one version, agencies would get an annual regulatory budget—much like their appropriations budget—which would constrain how many new regulations the agency could implement during the covered time period. Agencies could seek to exceed that …
In a post last week, I noted that, over the last year, the Obama Administration has finalized all or part of several of the 13 regulatory actions highlighted in a 2014 Center for Progressive Reform report challenging the President to focus renewed energy during the remainder of his term on securing critical new protections for people and the environment. But the President’s to-do list isn’t finished, and for the remaining regulatory actions on the list, progress has been modest or, in some cases, apparently non-existent. Each of these regulatory actions, if completed, would likewise contribute to President Obama’s increasingly impressive body of work on public safeguards, which when taken as a whole is making our air and water healthier, our homes and workplaces safer, and our environment better protected against irreversible degradation. In contrast, to leave this work unfinished would be—to borrow a …
From the moment they secured majorities in both chambers, congressional Republicans have made no secret of their intention to launch an all-out, guerilla warfare-style campaign against the federal government — and even the very notion of governance itself. Accordingly, they have pursued a strategy of salt-the-earth sabotage designed to spread like a communicable disease the dysfunction that has long characterized the legislative branch to the executive branch. Given the unrepentant nihilism, many political observers were quick to pen their epitaphs for the Obama Administration after the 2014 mid-term elections, opining that little progress would be made during the final two years in office, particularly where public safeguards and environmental protections were concerned.
But something funny has happened over the last year. To the dismay of congressional Republicans and their corporate benefactors, the Obama Administration has had one of the most productive years of any president in recent memory …
Opponents of safeguards are fond of decrying what they claim is a regulatory system out of control, churning out rules at a break-neck pace. It’s not difficult to refute this claim when the president releases the twice-annual regulatory agenda, which spells out all the active rulemakings that are currently pending and the expected timetables for making progress on those rules that agencies expect to make over the next 12 months. Sure enough, time and time again the semiannual regulatory agenda demonstrate that most facets of the regulatory system are moving along at a snail’s pace, the victims of politics, under-funded agencies, and a rulemaking process that favors industry.
By comparing the expected timetables in this regulatory agenda against those from the most recent one in Spring 2015, one can see how the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and other agencies …
Fostering informed debate about sound regulatory policy to protect health, safety, and the environment is one of the Center for Progressive Reform’s fundamental objectives. Presidential candidates, on the other hand, like to focus on the issues that get them elected, not necessarily the issues that are important.
Unfortunately, the media is increasingly complicit in avoiding genuine issue discussions. Weekend before last, GOP candidate Carly Fiorina appeared on ABC’s Sunday public affairs talk show, “This Week,” and in response to an essentially political question about Paul Ryan from the usually fine ABC journalist Martha Raddatz, Fiorina veered into regulatory policy. Here’s ABC’s transcript:
RADDATZ: I want to start off with Paul Ryan. He was a congressional staffer, elected to the House at age 28. Is he too much of a Washington insider to change so-called business as usual in Washington?
CARLY FIORINA (R), PRESIDENTIAL …
How to make health and safety a personal priority for industry officials.
According to economists, firms have little reason to take into account the cost of externalities — that is to say, the harms their activities may impose on others. The traditional solutions are damage remedies or taxes to transfer the financial cost to the industry, or regulation to force industries to limit their harmful activities. Why not try a more direct solution? Why not require owners and managers to expose themselves to the same risks?
For instance, we could require managers of nuclear plants, utility officials, and officials of reactor manufacturers to live within a mile of the plant, along with their families. That would enhance the incentive to think of safety. Similarly, we might require oil company executives and their families to live within a mile of a refinery, so they would experience the same risks …
This morning, CPR Member Scholar and University of Maryland School of Law professor Rena Steinzor testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works Subcommittee on Superfund, Waste and Regulatory Oversight for a hearing focused on, "Oversight of Regulatory Impact Analysis for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Regulations."
In her testimony, Steinzor noted the limitations of "Regulatory Impact Analysis," or RIA, which agencies are mandated to conduct on all rules they finalize and measures the rules' "costs and benefits." When measuring the costs and benefits of EPA rules geared toward protecting the public health, safety and the environment, Steinzor noted that RIA comes up short, asking the Subcommitee members,"What's the cost of preventing an asthma attack?"
However, given EPA's mandate to conduct cost-benefit analysis on all rules she said, "EPA’s work in this area is the gold standard for …
Courtesy of the New York Times, here’s a bit of reporting that is emblematic of the way the press has covered the Volkswagen emissions-cheating scandal:
Volkswagen said on Tuesday that the scandal would cut deeply into this year’s profit. And the company’s shares plunged again, ending the day 35 percent below the closing price on Friday, before news of the diesel deception broke. As a result, the company’s stock market value has declined about €25 billion in two days of trading.
The media have covered the VW story with great vigor, to my ear, more even than the GM ignition scandal that claimed more than 120 lives — the number that GM so acknowledges. But most of the VW coverage is about money, not health and not the environment, even though both are clearly in play.
Another Times story focuses on the litigation that …
Modern-day snake oil peddlers may have found a way to keep consumers quiet about their ineffective products: non-disparagement clauses, also known as gag clauses. These clauses, slipped into the fine print of form contracts, can restrict a consumer’s ability to post negative reviews of a product online. Non-disparagement clauses, which can vary in scope, generally prevent consumers from publicizing negative reviews of a product or company. This restriction includes comments made on online forums like Yelp or even complaints to the Better Business Bureau. When a consumer violates the gag clause, the company often will enact punitive measures, like charging the consumer a financial penalty. As long as companies can get away with including hidden terms like non-disparagement clauses in their contracts, consumers will not be operating in a fair marketplace. Fortunately, the federal government has demonstrated its willingness to step in to protect consumers against …
