Seven Bright Spots of 2018
A version of this post was originally published on Legal Planet.
Yes, it was a grim year in many ways. But there actually were some bright spots. Here are just the high points.
- Scott Pruitt. Pruitt resigned under fire. While his successor may be more successful in some ways, the fact remains that Pruitt was a disgrace. We're better off without him. Trump was apparently unfazed by his incompetence and aversion to hard work. But the succession of scandals and investigations – about personal travel at government expense, extravagance, the top-secret phone booth in his office, and so on and so on – eventually got to be too much of a distraction that threatened to undermine Trump's own monopoly on the spotlight.
- Ryan Zinke. Yet another bad apple who was forced out. His acting replacement is equally wrong-headed and more competent but has multiple conflicts of interest that require him to recuse himself from many disputes. Which is probably a good thing.
- Judicial rulings. The Trump administration continued to have a terrible record in court on environmental issues. According to Brookings, the administration's record is now one in eighteen. Apart from losing litigation over its efforts to postpone Obama-era rules without obeying …
As we prepare to tie a bow on 2018, it’s worth looking back at the various op-eds CPR’s Member Scholars and staff penned over the course of the year. You can find and read every single one of them on our op-ed page. But here are some highlights for quick(er) perusal:
- In February, CPR’s Founding President, Tom McGarity had a piece in The American Prospect, reviewing the damage done by the GOP congressional majority by means of the Congressional Review Act.
- Lisa Heinzerling had a March piece in The Washington Post pointing out that, on at least one front, the President is losing his war on sensible safeguards, because, as it turns out, the courts sometimes insist that regulatory agencies follow the Administrative Procedure Act, even when the President is eager to ignore it.
- In June, CPR President Rob Verchick was in the …
While regulatory policy developments might not lead evening news broadcasts or dominate newspaper headlines, they can have an enormous impact on our day-to-day lives. Regulatory policy has been a particular hotbed of activity during the Trump administration, which swept into office determined to undermine or corrupt the institutions responsible for keeping Americans and their environment secure against unacceptable risks of harm. So, it is no surprise that 2018 was another busy year in regulatory policy. Here are 10 of the biggest stories I’ve followed, in no particular order:
- First full year of the Executive Order 13771 “regulatory budget.” The single most significant step that the Trump administration has taken on regulatory policy was its issuance of Executive Order 13771, which required executive branch agencies to eliminate at least two existing regulatory actions for each new one they issued. It further required agencies to ensure that the …
- 1 (current)
