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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It's Official: Trump's policies deter EPA staff from enforcing the law

It's Official: Trump's policies deter EPA staff from enforcing the law, op-ed by Joel Mintz

Type: Op-Eds (Feb. 16, 2019)
PDF: It's official: Trump's policies deter EPA staff
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Author(s): Joel Mintz
Tags: enforcement assault on our safeguards
Categories: Energy & Environment Energy & Environment Regulatory Policy Regulatory Policy

What President Trump's Infrastructure Agenda Gets Wrong

What President Trump's Infrastructure Agenda Gets Wrong, op-ed by Alejandro Camacho
Type: Op-Eds (May 6, 2019)
PDF: What President Trump's Infrastructure Agenda Gets Wrong
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Author(s): Alejandro Camacho
Tags: infrastructure
Categories: Regulatory Policy Regulatory Policy

What the Census Case Will Say About the Supreme Court

What the Census Case Will Say About the Supreme Court, op-ed by William Buzbee
Type: Op-Eds (April 23, 2019)
PDF: What the Census Case Will Say About the Supreme Court
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Author(s): William Buzbee
Tags: census
Categories: Regulatory Policy Regulatory Policy

A defeat on offshore drilling extends the Trump administration's losing streak in court

A defeat on offshore drilling extends the Trump administration's losing streak in court, op-ed by Alejandro Camacho and Robert Glicksman

Type: Op-Eds (April 9, 2019)
PDF: A defeat on offshore drilling extends the Trump administration's losing streak in court
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Author(s): Robert Glicksman, Alejandro Camacho
Tags: Reorganizing Government offshore drilling
Categories: Energy & Environment Energy & Environment Regulatory Policy Regulatory Policy