Regulatory Policy

Regulatory safeguards play a vital role in protecting us from hazards and ensuring that companies that pollute, make unsafe products, and create workplace hazards bear the cost of cleaning up their messes and preventing injuries and deaths. Still, the regulatory system is far from perfect: Rules take too long to develop; enforcement is often feeble; and political pressure from regulated industries has led to weak safeguards.

These systemic problems are made all the more severe by the determination of the Trump administration to undercut sensible safeguards across virtually all aspects of federal regulation. Moreover, the President and his team have taken aim at the the process by which such safeguards are developed, aiming to take a system already slanted in favor of industry profit at the expense of health, safety and the environment, and make it even less protective. For example, where critics of the use of cost-benefit analysis see a system that understates the value of safeguards and overstates the cost of implementing them -- making it difficult to adopt needed protections -- the Trump administration seeks simply to ignore benefits of safeguards, pretending they do not exist. The result is a regulatory system that fails to enforce landmark laws like the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act and more.

CPR exposes and opposes efforts by opponents of sensible safeguards to undermine the regulatory system, fighting back against knee-jerk opposition to environmental, health, and safety protections. Below, see what CPR Members Scholars and staff have had to say in reports, testimony, op-eds and more. Use the search box to narrow the list.

Joint Comments on proposal from the National Archives and Department of Interior

Joint comments from CPR and other institutions to the National Archives and Records Administration's on the Department of Interior's natural resources planning and development document records schedule, November 26, 2018.

Type: Letters to Agencies (Nov. 26, 2018)
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Joint Letter to Members of Congress from the Clean Budget Coalition urging passage of remaining FY19 appropriations bills without "poison pill" ideological policy riders

Joint Letter to Members of Congress from the Clean Budget Coalition urging passage of remaining FY19 appropriations bills without "poison pill" ideological policy riders, November 13, 2018.

Type: Legislative Testimony (Nov. 13, 2018)
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Justices express skepticism over using legislative motive in preemption analysis

Writing in SCOTUSblog, Emily Hammond reviews oral arguments in Virginia Uranium Mining v Warren.

Type: Op-Eds (Nov. 6, 2018)
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State pollution-permitting must be reformed to adapt to climate change

Writing in the Bay Journal, David Flores focuses on Maryland's pollution permitting and its impact on the Chesapeake Bay

Type: Op-Eds (Nov. 1, 2018)
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Author(s): David Flores
Whose science? A new era in regulatory 'science wars'

Wendy Wagner, Elizabeth Fisher, and Pasky Pascual, writing in Science, look at the renewed fight over clean science

Type: Op-Eds (Nov. 1, 2018)
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Author(s): Wendy Wagner
Can a hovercraft navigate the shoals of Yukon-Charley?

CPR's Sandi Zellmer previews a case over regulation of navigable waters and public lands.

Type: Op-Eds (Oct. 29, 2018)
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Author(s): Sandra Zellmer
Justices may consider role of legislative motive in preemption analysis

In SCOTUSblog, Emily Hammond previews a preemption case before the Supreme Court.

Type: Op-Eds (Oct. 29, 2018)
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Joint Letter from CPR Member Scholars and staff to Sen. Elizabeth Warren in support of the Anti-Corruption and Public Integrity Act, September 6, 2018.

Joint Letter from CPR Member Scholars and staff to Sen. Elizabeth Warren in support of the Anti-Corruption and Public Integrity Act, September 6, 2018.

Type: Legislative Testimony (Sept. 6, 2018)
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Author(s): Alejandro Camacho
Brett Kavanaugh's opportunistic corner-cutting

Rena Steinzor examines Brett Kavanaugh's selective citations.

Type: Op-Eds (Aug. 29, 2018)
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Author(s): Rena Steinzor
Trump’s Proposal to Replace the Clean Power Plan Endangers Public Health

Joel Mintz, writing for The Revelator, examines the Trump EPA's feeble substitute for the Clean Power Plan.

Type: Op-Eds (Aug. 29, 2018)
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Author(s): Joel Mintz

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