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.

CPR Perspective: Technology-Based Standards: The Advantages of Technology-Based Standards in Protecting Health, Safety, and the Environment

CPR Perspective: 'Statutory Design: The Advantages of Technology-Based Standards in Protecting Health, Safety, and the Environment,' by Robert L. Glicksman. CPR's Perspectives Series is a set of monographs by CPR Member Scholars on timely and important health, safety, and environmental topics. Each Perspective provides a thumbnail sketch of the competing arguments concerning a substantive or procedural principle for developing appropriate health, safety and environmental policies, and closes with the Member Scholar-author's proposed approach to the issue.

Type: Reports (Sept. 23, 2009)
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Author(s): Robert Glicksman
Regulatory Dysfunction: How Insufficient Resources, Outdated Laws, and Political Interference Cripple the 'Protector Agencies'

Regulatory Dysfunction: How Insufficient Resources, Outdated Laws, and Political Interference Cripple the 'Protector Agencies,' CPR White Paper 906

Type: Reports (Aug. 12, 2009)
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Author(s): Rena Steinzor, Sidney Shapiro, Matt Shudtz
Thomas McGarity's Testimony on preemption of state tort laws in cases involving medical devices, before the Senate HELP Committee

Thomas McGarity's August 4, 2009, testimony on preemption of state tort laws in cases involving medical devices, before the Senate HELP Committee

Type: Legislative Testimony (Aug. 4, 2009)
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Author(s): Thomas McGarity
Congress's Authority to Correct the Courts' Preemption Decisions

Congress's Authority to Correct the Courts' Preemption Decisions, CPR White Paper 905

Type: Reports (July 29, 2009)
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Author(s): William Buzbee, Bill Funk, Thomas McGarity, Sidney Shapiro, Matt Shudtz
CPR Perspective: Information Quality: Putting the Agencies in Charge of Information Quality

CPR Perspective: Information Quality Act by Sidney Shapiro. CPR's Perspectives Series is a set of monographs by CPR Member Scholars on timely and important health, safety, and environmental topics. Each Perspective provides a thumbnail sketch of the competing arguments concerning a substantive or procedural principle for developing appropriate health, safety and environmental policies, and closes with the Member Scholar-author's proposed approach to the issue.

Type: Reports (July 1, 2009)
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Author(s): Sidney Shapiro
Editorial Memorandum on Cost Benefit Analysis and the Sunstein Nomination
Editorial Memorandum: Cost-Benefit Analysis and the Sunstein Nomination, by Rena Steinzor
Type: Editorial Memos (June 5, 2009)
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The Cost-Benefit Dodge: Used to Dilute Regulation

The Cost-Benefit Dodge: Used to Dilute Regulation, op-ed by Catherine O'Neill and Amy Sinden

Type: Op-Eds (June 5, 2009)
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Author(s): Catherine O'Neill, Amy Sinden
Letter to White House Science Advisor on Scientific Integrity

Letter to White House Science Advisor on Scientific Integrity from CPR's Rena Steinzor

Type: Letters to Agencies (May 13, 2009)
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Author(s): Rena Steinzor
Editorial Memorandum on the NHTSA's effort to preempt state emissions standards
Editorial Memorandum on the NHTSA's effort to preempt state emissions standards, by Rena Steinzor
Type: Editorial Memos (May 6, 2009)
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