A Return to Common Sense: Protecting Health, Safety, and the Environment Through Pragmatic Regulatory Impact Analysis

Rena Steinzor is the Edward M. Robertson Professor of Law at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law, and a past president of the Center for Progressive Reform. She is the author of Why Not Jail? Industrial Catastrophes, Corporate Malfeasance, and Government Inaction.

Professor Steinzor has taught an environmental law survey course, seminars in risk assessments and critical issues in environmental law and science, administrative law, contracts, torts and counseling and negotiation. She has written in the areas of (1) regulatory dysfunction in agencies assigned to protect public health, worker and consumer safety, and the environment; (2) the role of centralized White House review on the protectiveness of regulation; (3) environmental federalism, including so-called "unfunded mandates" imposed on state and local governments by the federal government and the impact on public health of devolving authority and responsibility for solving environmental problems; (4) the implications of industry self-regulation on the protection of the environment and human health; (5) "market-based" alternatives to traditional regulation; and (6) political interference with regulatory science.

She is the editor, with Christopher Schroeder, of the CPR-sponsored book A New Progressive Agenda for Public Health and the Environment, published by Carolina Academic Press. She is also the editor, with Wendy Wagner, of the book Rescuing Science from Politics, published by Cambridge University Press in 2006. Her book, Mother Earth and Uncle Sam: How Pollution and Hollow Government Hurt Our Kids was published by the University of Texas Press in December 2007. With Professor Sidney Shapiro of Wake Forest Law School, she co-authored The People’s Agents and the Battle to Protect the American Public: Special Interests, Government, and Threats to Health, Safety, and the Environment published by the University of Chicago Press in 2010.

Professor Steinzor began her legal career in 1976, and entered academia in January 1994. From 1987 through 1993, she was associated - first as "of counsel" and ultimately as the partner in charge of the environmental practice - at Spiegel & McDiarmid, a 45-lawyer, Washington, D.C. firm representing approximately 400 cities, counties, states, and public agencies in the energy, environmental, communications, and transportation fields. The practice counseled federal, state, and municipal clients regarding compliance with federal and state laws and regulations.

Prior to joining Spiegel & McDiarmid, Professor Steinzor served as Staff Counsel, Subcommittee on Commerce, Transportation, and Tourism of the Energy and Commerce Committee, U.S. House of Representatives (James J. Florio, Chairman). She was the primary staff person responsible for legislation that became the "Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act of 1986" (Public Law 99-499) and the "Asbestos Hazard Emergency Response Act" (Public Law 99-519). She also prepared legislation to reauthorize the Toxic Substances Control Act during the 98th Congress.

Professor Steinzor has testified before Congress on several occasions, most recently regarding the impact of health, safety, and environmental regulations on the economy.

Rena Steinzor
University of Maryland Carey School of Law
Baltimore, MD
410.706 0564
email
website

Amy Sinden is a Professor of Law at the Temple University Beasley School of Law in Philadelphia. She has been a visiting professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School and at the Temple-Tsinghua Masters of Law program in Beijing, China.

Professor Sinden has taught, lectured, and written in the areas of environmental law, natural resources law, regulatory design, and cost-benefit analysis, human rights, and climate change. 

Before joining the Temple Law School faculty in 2001, Professor Sinden served as senior counsel for Citizens for Pennsylvania's Future, handling litigation on behalf of PennFuture and other citizens' and environmental groups. Prior to this position, she was an associate attorney for Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund (formerly the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund) in Seattle, Washington, where she represented a range of environmental, fishing, and other groups in litigation focusing on endangered species, clean water, and water conservation issues. In addition to her involvement with environmental issues, Professor Sinden was an attorney at Community Legal Services in Philadelphia, where she represented parents in civil child abuse and neglect proceedings, and advocated on behalf of welfare recipients seeking job training and education. Professor Sinden served twice as a law clerk, first for Judge John F. Gerry of the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey, and later for Judge Dolores K. Sloviter of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. Professor Sinden graduated summa cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1991.

Professor Sinden's recent academic writings have criticized the misuse of economic theory in environmental law, arguing against the use of cost-benefit analysis in environmental standard setting and countering claims that private property rights can solve environmental problems in the absence of government regulation. She has also written about the application of classical human rights norms to environmental conflicts. Recent publications include Formality and Informality in Cost-Benefit Analysis, 2015 Utah L. Rev. 93, The Missing Instrument: Dirty Input Limits, 33 Harv. Envtl. L. Rev. 65 (2009), with fellow CPR Member Scholar David Driesen, Cost-Benefit Analysis: New Foundationas on Shifting Sand, 3 Reg. & Governance 48 (2009), with Douglas Kysar and David Driesen, The Tragedy of the Commons and the Myth of a Private Property Solution, 78 U. COLO. L. REV. 533 (2007).

Amy Sinden
Temple University Beasley School of Law
Philadelphia, PA 
215.204.4969
email
website

Sidney A. Shapiro holds the Fletcher Chair in Administrative Law at the Wake Forest University School of Law and is the Associate Dean for Research and Development. He is a member of the board of directors of the Center for Progressive Reform.

Professor Shapiro has taught and written in the areas of Administrative Law, Regulatory Law and Policy, Environmental Policy, and Occupational Safety and Health Law for 25 years.

While in academia, Shapiro has served as a consultant to the Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS), the Office of Technology Assessment of the U.S. Congress (OTA), and the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). With Professor Thomas O. McGarity, Professor Shapiro designed and helped initiate a rulemaking prioritization process for OSHA rulemaking during the early 1990s. As a consultant to OTA, Professor Shapiro assessed various regulatory tools or options that agencies can use to implement regulation. As a consultant to ACUS, Professor Shapiro studied the efficacy of the regulatory process at EPA (noise control), OSHA, and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Professor Shapiro began his legal career as a trial attorney in the Bureau of Competition of the Federal Trade Commission and later worked as the Deputy Legal Counsel, Secretary's Review Panel on New Drug Regulation at the Department of Health, Education and Welfare.

Professor Shapiro has published widely in the areas of regulatory law and policy. He co-authored The People’s Agents and the Battle to Protect the American Public: Special Interests, Government, and Threats to Health, Safety, and the Environment, with CPR President, Rena Steinzor. This book reviewed years of government actions and inactions leading to the decline of the five protector agencies. His book, Risk Regulation at Risk: Restoring a Pragmatic Approach, analyzes health and safety and environmental protection laws and policy, and argues for a pragmatic approach to policy in these areas instead of using economic analysis to set regulatory goals. Workers at Risk, co-authored with Thomas O. McGarity, describes rulemaking, implementation and enforcement in the Occupational Safety and Health Administration from its inception in 1970 through 1990. The book analyzes OSHA's strengths and weaknesses and makes many recommendations for improving standard-setting and enforcement. Shapiro's casebook, Administrative Law and Procedure: A Problem Approach, co-authored with William Funk and Russell Weaver, is used in administrative law courses at law schools throughout the country. His casebook, Regulatory Policy and Law, is the first of its kind, and is used to train lawyers to evaluate and advocate for public policy.

Professor Shapiro has published dozens of articles on regulatory policy, health and safety laws, environmental law and administrative law in prominent law reviews, such as the Harvard Law Review, Duke Law Journal and the Wake Forest Law Review, as well as in specialty journals, such as the Administrative Law Review and the Ecology Law Quarterly.

Professor Shapiro has been an active participant in efforts to improve health, safety and environmental quality in the United States. He has testified before congressional committees on administrative law and occupational safety and health issues. He has worked with various public interest groups in advisory and support capacities, including Public Citizen Global Trade Watch, Public Citizen Congress Watch, and OMB Watch. 

Sidney Shapiro
Wake Forest University School of Law
Winston-Salem, NC
336.758.7320
email
website

James Goodwin, J.D., M.P.P., is a Senior Policy Analyst with the Center for Progressive Reform. He joined CPR in May of 2008. Prior to joining CPR, Mr. Goodwin worked as a legal intern for the Environmental Law Institute and EcoLogix Group, Inc. He is a published author with articles on human rights and environmental law and policy appearing in the Michigan Journal of Public Affairs and the New England Law Review (co-author with Armin Rosencranz).

Mr. Goodwin graduated magna cum laude from Kalamazoo College, where he received a B.A. with honors in Political Science. He received his law degree (with a certificate in environmental law) from the University of Maryland School of Law, where he graduated magna cum laude, and his master’s degree in public policy (concentration in environmental policy) from the University of Maryland School of Public Policy, where he graduated as class valedictorian. While at the University of Maryland School of Law, Mr. Goodwin was a member of the Moot Court team. He is a member of Order of the Coif and Phi Beta Kappa. 

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