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.

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Behind Closed Doors at the White House: How Politics Trumps Protection of Public Health, Worker Safety, and the Environment

Type: Reports (Nov. 30, 2011)
PDF: Behind Closed Doors at the White House: How Politics Trumps Protection of Public Health, Worker Safety, and the Environment
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Author(s): Rena Steinzor, Michael Patoka, James Goodwin
Tags: OIRA regulatory capture
Categories: Regulatory Policy Regulatory Policy

Comments to EPA Science Advisory Board on Science Integration for Decision Making

Comments from CPR Member Scholar Rena Steinzor and Senior Policy Analyst Matthew Shudtz on a draft report by the EPA Scientific Advisory Board's Committee on Science Integration for Decision Making

Type: Letters to Agencies (Jan. 24, 2012)
PDF: Comments to EPA Science Advisory Board (SAB). On January 24, 2012, CPR Member Scholar Rena Steinzor and Senior Policy Analyst Matthew Shudtz submitted comments on a draft report by the SAB's Committee on Science Integration for Decision Making.
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Author(s): Rena Steinzor, Matt Shudtz
Tags: advisory committees clean science
Categories: Energy & Environment Energy & Environment Regulatory Policy Regulatory Policy

Going Dark Down on the Farm: How Legalized Secrecy Gives Agribusiness a Federally Funded Free Ride, CPR White Paper 1213, September 2012, by Member Scholar Rena Steinzor and Policy Analyst Yee Huang.

Type: Reports (Sept. 14, 2012)
PDF: Going Dark Down on the Farm: How Legalized Secrecy Gives Agribusiness a Federally Funded Free Ride, CPR White Paper 1213, September 2012, by Member Scholar Rena Steinzor and Policy Analyst Yee Huang.
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Author(s): Rena Steinzor, Yee Huang
Tags: agricultural pollution Chesapeake
Categories: Energy & Environment Energy & Environment Regulatory Policy Regulatory Policy

Regulatory 'Pay-Go': Rationing the Public Interest, CPR Issue Alert 1214, October 2012, by Member Scholars Richard Murphy and Sidney Shapiro, and Policy Analyst James Goodwin.

Type: Reports (Oct. 2, 2012)
PDF: Regulatory 'Pay-Go': Rationing the Public Interest, CPR Issue Alert 1214, October 2012, by Member Scholars Richard Murphy and Sidney Shapiro, and Policy Analyst James Goodwin.
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Author(s): Sidney Shapiro, Richard Murphy, James Goodwin
Tags: regulatory review
Categories: Regulatory Policy Regulatory Policy