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.

The Trump Administration's Rulemaking Delays (chart)

The July 3, 2017, decision by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in Clean Air Council v. Pruitt renewed interest in the many rules that the Trump administration has delayed. In response, CPR Member Scholar Rena Steinzor and University of Maryland law student Elise Desiderio prepared a chart listing and describing every rule for which a Federal Register notice was published announcing a delay in either the effective date or the compliance date or both. The delays listed involve postponements beyond July 14, 2017. The list covers the period from January 20, 2017 to July 14, 2017.

Type: Reports (July 17, 2017)
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Author(s): Rena Steinzor, Elise Desiderio
Tangling Life-Saving Regulations in Red Tape

Tangling Life-Saving Regulations in Red Tape, op-ed by Dan Farber

Type: Op-Eds (July 5, 2017)
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Author(s): Daniel Farber
Regulatory Reform That Is Anything But

Regulatory Reform That Is Anything But, op-ed by William Buzbee

Type: Op-Eds (June 15, 2017)
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Author(s): William Buzbee
The Twin Demons of the Trump-Bannon Assault on Democracy

The Twin Demons of the Trump-Bannon Assault on Democracy, CPR Paper 1704, by CPR Member Scholar Joseph Tomain, June 2017.

Type: Reports (June 1, 2017)
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Author(s): Joseph Tomain
Congressional Review Act Targets

In the first few months of the Trump administration, Congress invoked a rarely used, little-known law called the Congressional Review Act to repeal a host of health, safety, and environmental regulations adopted during the Obama administration after years of consideration and public input. CPR tracked the congressional assault on our safeguards. See our chart from May 2017 detailing the damage.

Type: Reports (May 25, 2017)
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Author(s): Katie Tracy, James Goodwin
Portman's regulatory reform bill will increase costs, bureaucracy

Portman's regulatory reform bill will increase costs, bureaucracy, op-ed by Joseph P. Tomain

Type: Op-Eds (May 22, 2017)
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Author(s): Joseph Tomain
Joint comments to EPA on implementation of Trump Executive Orders 13771 and 13777.

Joint comments to EPA on implementation of Trump Executive Orders 13771 and 13777. Letter to EPA Associate Administrator Samantha Dravis from 25 CPR Member Scholars and Staff, May 15, 2017.

Type: Letters to Agencies (May 15, 2017)
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