The first of these bills, subtitled the "
Paperwork and Regulatory Improvements Act of 2004," authorizes a pilot project for "regulatory budgeting" at three of five public health, safety, or environment agencies. Although modified somewhat from its
first draft, in part because of
pressure from the White House, the bill managed to leap from subcommittee and move through mark-up in the full House government reform committee with its essential character intact.
Among
other things, the bill lays the groundwork for "regulatory budgeting," a dream of rationing protections of public health, safety, and environment by limiting the total amount of costs to industry from regulation. The bill would also require the Office of Management and Budget to submit its annual report on the costs and benefits of regulation as part of the White House's budget submissions, thus hiding the anti-regulatory projects launched each year through that report by burying it under the complexity of budget issues.
Democrats on the government reform committee attempted to weaken the bill through a series of amendments:
- One would have
eliminated the regulatory budgeting study altogether.
-
Another would have required OMB's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs to make all stages of its interventions in the regulatory process open to the public. Although OIRA is now more open than it has been, it still insists on keeping secret its discussions with industry and other special interests in the early stages of regulatory activity.
- Two amendments would have fixed the factual preamble of the bill by noting the
weaknesses in a study that purports to measure the burden of regulation and by pointing out the administration's record
increase in paperwork.
Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) tried both in mark-up and before the full House to insert an amendment that would have established a panel to study the politicization of science, but it was defeated just before the House voted to pass the bill.
The House also passed four bills that seek to weaken protections of workers' health and safety. One bill would require taxpayers to pay the legal costs of small employers who prevail in any administrative or enforcement case brought by OSHA regardless of whether the action was substantially justified. Another would undermine the Secretary of Labor's authority to interpret and enforce the law by giving deference to the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission -- the same commission that yet another of the bills would allow the administration to pack with two new members -- thus overturning a 1991 Supreme Court decision and effectively consolidating this administration's control over workplace safety issues for the long term.
The regulatory and OSHA bills have now been bundled as H.R. 2728, which is beginning to wend its way through the Senate.
Just as the League of Conservation Voters and a coalition of public interest groups that included OMB Watch worked to prevent House passage of the regulatory bill, now the Citizens for Sensible Safeguards coalition has set up an automated system so that people can alert their Senators to stop the combined bill from passing both houses.