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.

Wave of Corporate Wrongdoing Demands More Prosecution, Not Less

Writing for the Huffington Post, Rena Steinzor and Dan Dudis point to a recent wave of corporate criminality -- from the Wells Fargo fake account scandal to the Volkswagen scheme to evade air pollution standards -- and call for criminal prosecutions of companies and their leaders.

Type: Op-Eds (Nov. 30, 2016)
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Author(s): Rena Steinzor
House's September Agenda a Red Flag for November

House's September Agenda a Red Flag for November, op-ed by James Goodwin

Type: Op-Eds (Sept. 26, 2016)
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Author(s): James Goodwin
Obama's Use of Executive Orders to Bypass Gridlock

Obama's Use of Executive Orders to Bypass Gridlock, op-ed by Rena Steinzor and Sidney Shapiro

Type: Op-Eds (Aug. 26, 2016)
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Author(s): Rena Steinzor, Sidney Shapiro
The politicization of science a damaging trend in North Carolina

The politicization of science a damaging trend in North Carolina, op-ed by Sidney Shapiro

Type: Op-Eds (Aug. 18, 2016)
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Author(s): Sidney Shapiro
Memo to the Next President: A Progressive Vision of Government and Protective Safeguards
Type: Reports (Aug. 3, 2016)
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Author(s): Alejandro Camacho, Robert Glicksman, David Driesen, Thomas McGarity, Sidney Shapiro, Joseph Tomain, Robert Verchick, James Goodwin
Barack Obama's Path to Progress in 2015-16: Thirteen Essential Regulatory Actions [UPDATED]

In 2014, the Center for Progressive Reform issued a report identifying 13 key regulatory actions that the Obama administration should be certain to finish before June of 2016, in order to ensure that the rules would 1) make it out of the regulatory pipeline during Obama's tenure, and 2) be finalized in time to be safe from repeal by the successor administration. In 2016, CPR followed up to see whether the Obama administration had adopted the necessary sense of urgency. (Read the online version of this report for the 2016 updates.)

Type: Reports (Aug. 1, 2016)
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Author(s): Rena Steinzor, James Goodwin, Matt Shudtz, Anne Havemann
Memo to the Next President: Let's Make Government Work for All of Us
Memo to the Next President: Let's Make Government Work for All of Us
Type: Editorial Memos (July 18, 2016)
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