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 letter from CPR Member Scholars to Senate Homeland Security Committee leaders re the Regulatory Accountability Act, S. 951.

Joint letter from 27 CPR Member Scholars, May 15, 2017, letter to Sens. Ron Johnson (Chair of the Senate Homeland Security Committee) and Claire McCaskill (Ranking Member) re the Regulatory Accountability Act, S. 951.

Type: Legislative Testimony (May 15, 2017)
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Regulatory Targets: Congressional GOP Takes Aim at Safeguards

In the first four months of his presidency, Donald Trump and his congressional allies used the Congressional Review Act to repeal 14 Obama era health, safety, labor, financial, education, energy, environmental rules. The law allows Congress to block "major" rules within 60 legislative days of adoption, with a joint resolution (not subject to the Senate's normal 60-vote requirement) and president's signature. CPR tracked the damage.

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Author(s): Katie Tracy, James Goodwin
100 Days, Trump and Precaution

100 Days, Trump and Precaution, op-ed by David Driesen and William Banks

Type: Op-Eds (May 1, 2017)
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Author(s): David Driesen
Trump's New 'Regulatory Czar': Poised to Lead the Assault on Our Safeguards

Trump's New 'Regulatory Czar': Poised to Lead the Assault on Our Safeguards, CPR Paper 1701. The report by CPR Member Scholars Thomas McGarity, Amy Sinden, Rena Steinzor, and Robert Verchick, and CPR Senior Policy Analyst James Goodwin, examines Neomi Rao’s background and concludes the her modest record of “scholarship and other public statements reflect a deep distrust of federal agencies and their role as policymaking institutions within our constitutional system of government.”

Type: Reports (April 20, 2017)
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Author(s): Amy Sinden, Rena Steinzor, Robert Verchick, Thomas McGarity, James Goodwin
The War on Regulation

Writing in The American Prospect, Rena Steinzor describes the early stages of Donald Trump's assault on our safeguards, foreshadowing the pitched battles to come over regulation in all areas.

Type: Op-Eds (April 17, 2017)
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Author(s): Rena Steinzor
Trump Can Order, But Federal Judges Will Decide on Climate Rules

Trump Can Order, But Federal Judges Will Decide on Climate Rules, op-ed by Victor Flatt

Type: Op-Eds (April 1, 2017)
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Author(s): Victor Flatt
Trump Cuts and the EPA: Making America Less Healthy Again

Trump Cuts and the EPA: Making America Less Healthy Again, op-ed by Joel Mintz

Type: Op-Eds (March 22, 2017)
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Author(s): Joel Mintz
Texas Perspectives: EPA Just Adopted a See-No-Evil Policy

Texas Perspectives: EPA Just Adopted a See-No-Evil Policy, op-ed by Thomas McGarity

Type: Op-Eds (March 14, 2017)
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Author(s): Thomas McGarity

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