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.

Courts Should Kill Trump's Pricey '2-for-1' Deregulation Order

Courts Should Kill Trump's Pricey '2-for-1' Deregulation Order, op-ed by Dan Farber

Type: Op-Eds (Feb. 10, 2017)
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Author(s): Daniel Farber
Joint Letter to OIRA re Guidance to Agencies on Implementation of 2-for-1 Deregulatory Executive Order

Joint Letter to OIRA from 31 CPR Member Scholars and Staff re Guidance to Agencies on Implementation of 2-for-1 Deregulatory Executive Order

Type: Letters to Agencies (Feb. 10, 2017)
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Federal Proposal Would Jeopardize Public Safety

Federal Proposal Would Jeopardize Public Safety, op-ed by Thomas McGarity

Type: Op-Eds (Feb. 2, 2017)
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Author(s): Thomas McGarity
Lisa Heinzerling's testimony before the Senate Commerce Committee on the importance of regulatory safeguards.

Lisa Heinzerling's February 1, 2017, testimony before the Senate Commerce Committee on the importance of regulatory safeguards.

Type: Legislative Testimony (Feb. 1, 2017)
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Author(s): Lisa Heinzerling
Quietly Passed Act Favors Profits Over Health and Safety

Quietly Passed Act Favors Profits Over Health and Safety, op-ed by Thomas McGarity

Type: Op-Eds (Jan. 21, 2017)
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Author(s): Thomas McGarity
Beware Compounded Drugs -- Especially Under Trump’s FDA

Writing for The American Prospect, Rena Steinzor observes that a burgeoning and little-regulated private industry that specially mixes drugs at so-called compounding pharmacies poses a public-health hazard that the Trump administration will only make worse.

Type: Op-Eds (Dec. 8, 2016)
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Author(s): Rena Steinzor

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