Who Will Run the EPA?

From Member Scholar Lisa Heinzerling's new article in the Yale Journal on Regulation:

With President Obama's nomination of Gina McCarthy as the new Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), much attention has turned to her record as the EPA official in charge of air pollution programs, experience as the head of two states’ environmental agencies, and views on specific policies and priorities. And with the President’s nomination of Sylvia Mathews Burwell to be the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), attention has likewise turned to her record and experience. Few recognize, however, the tight relationship between the two nominations: the Obama administration’s approach to governing will make Ms. Burwell Ms. McCarthy’s boss. ...

But it turns out the OMB itself seems not to want to accept accountability for running U.S. environmental policy. In a new law review article by Cass Sunstein, the former head of the OMB office that acts as the White House’s regulatory gatekeeper, Sunstein insists that he actually didn’t have very much power. In fact, he says, decisions about rules most frequently turned on other players in the White House, Cabinet heads outside the agency proposing the rule, or even career staff in other agencies or in the OMB itself. In Sunstein’s rendering, it appears that everyone is responsible for the shape and scope of environmental policy in this administration. Which means no one is accountable.

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