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.

sdd

Joint Letters from CPR re Administrative Law Judges

Joint Letters from CPR Member Scholars and staff to House Rules Committee Ranking Member and to House Education and Workforce Committee Ranking Member re Trump Executive Order on Administrative Law Judges, July 16, 2018.

Type: Legislative Testimony (July 16, 2018)
PDF: Admin Law Judges Letter
Download
Author(s): Victor Flatt, Robert Glicksman, Thomas McGarity, Matt Shudtz, Katie Tracy
Categories: Regulatory Policy Regulatory Policy

Justices may consider role of legislative motive in preemption analysis

In SCOTUSblog, Emily Hammond previews a preemption case before the Supreme Court.

Type: Op-Eds (Oct. 29, 2018)
PDF: Justices may consider role of legislative motive in preemption analysis
Download
Categories: Energy & Environment Energy & Environment Regulatory Policy Regulatory Policy

Justices express skepticism over using legislative motive in preemption analysis

Writing in SCOTUSblog, Emily Hammond reviews oral arguments in Virginia Uranium Mining v Warren.

Type: Op-Eds (Nov. 6, 2018)
PDF: Justices express skepticism over using legislative motive in preemption analysis
Download
Categories: Energy & Environment Energy & Environment Regulatory Policy Regulatory Policy