Reports & Analyses

Reports & Analyses:

For other in-depth analyses see:

Congressional testimony given by OMB Watch
Comments filed by OMB Watch
Archived issues of OMB Watch's Executive Report

Analysis

Polluted Logic: How EPA's ozone standard illustrates the flaws of cost-benefit analysis 12/05/2007
This analysis tracks EPA's recent revision of the national standard for ozone and uses it as a case example of the problems of cost-benefit analysis in regulatory decision making. Read More

Sunset Commission Legislation in the 110th Congress 12/05/2007
This analysis describes the problems with sunset commissions and compares three sunset commission proposals that have emerged in the 110th Congress. Read More

E.O. 13422: Unanswered and Unaccountable 11/28/2007
On Jan. 18, 2007, President George W. Bush issued Executive Order 13422, which amends Executive Order 12866, Regulatory Planning and Review. As of July 24, 2007, agencies are to be in full compliance with the changes. But despite great attention paid by Congress, the media and the public, little new information has surfaced. This analysis outlines the ways in which the American people remain in the dark about how these changes will influence the way our government operates. Read More

A Failure to Govern: Bush's Attack on the Regulatory Process 03/22/2007

A Failure to Govern: Bush's Attack on the Regulatory Process outlines President Bush's recent changes to the regulatory process. The report details the potential impacts the changes will have on federal agencies and the American public, as well as what the changes mean to democracy at large.

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Issue Brief: Sunset Commission Proposals 07/17/2006
This issue brief discusses the leading sunset commission proposals in the last months of the 109th Congress and identifies whether they live up to their promise of cutting waste and improving management of federal programs, or whether they present new problems. Read More

Cow Sense: The Bush Administration's Broken Record on Mad Cow Disease 04/06/2006

The Bush administration has failed the public time and time again on mad cow disease, putting corporate special interests above the public interest.

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More than Paperwork 03/06/2006
Despite its name, the Paperwork Reduction Act concerns much more than paperwork: it is a comprehensive law for management of information resources. Find out more with this backgrounder and this at-a-glance summary of the major parts of the PRA. Read More

Regulation and Competitiveness 08/12/2005
Anti-regulatory arguments claim that regulation is inherently a burden that weakens the competitiveness of American businesses in the global market. This issue brief examines the many scholarly studies that indicate the opposite is true: regulation does not hinder U.S. competitiveness but, instead, may actually increase the competitive advantage of the United States. Read More

Why Performance Standards May Be Superior to Cap-and-Trade 08/08/2005
Cap-and-trade regimes do a worse job at stimulating innovative pollution control methods than performance standards, according to a new scholarly article challenging the industry-backed position that emissions trading and market-based programs are inherently superior to so-called “command-and-control” regulation. This analysis reviews the article and outlines the reasons why performance standards may be superior to cap-and-trade. Read More

The Going-Out-of-Business Myth 07/09/2005
Again and again, when new regulatory protections have been proposed, corporate lobbyists have argued that business would be bankrupted and forced to go out of business. Again and again, they have been proven wrong. Check out this fact sheet showing examples of cases when compliance cost estimates turned out to be overstated. Read More

PART Backgrounder 04/10/2005
Learn more about the Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART), the White House's controversial program for measuring program effectiveness with meaningless numbers that are then used to justify political budget cut decisions. Read More

Is Cost-Benefit Analysis Needed? 03/21/2005
Cost-benefit analysis (CBA) is often touted by the administration and conservative think tanks as a neutral tool in policymaking, but recent studies by legal scholars show that CBA is inherently political and may even advise against what we consider our most immutable public protections. Three recent articles examine the neutrality of CBA both in theory and in practice and analyze the arguments of CBA's greatest proponents. This analysis reviews those articles and critiques CBA as a regulatory tool. Read More

The Bush Regulatory Record: A Pattern of Failure 09/05/2004

How far has the administration gone in placing special interests over the public interest? Read The Bush Regulatory Record: A Pattern of Failure, which analyzes the Fall 2003 and Spring 2004 editions of the Unified Agenda and places them in the four-year context.

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Special Interest Takeover: The Bush Administration and the Dismantling of Public Safeguards 05/05/2004

The Bush administration's first term was marked by a historic effort to eliminate the public's protections. Read more.

Recent CSS Reports 02/09/2002
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