* EPA has withdrawn 90 agenda items, most addressing clean air and water, and in the first half of 2004 failed to achieve 73 percent of benchmark items it scheduled for completion.

* FDA has withdrawn 62 agenda items, including one to track contaminated blood, and in the first half of 2004 failed to achieve 70 percent of benchmark items it scheduled for completion.

* NHTSA has withdrawn 31 auto safety agenda items and, in the first half of 2004, failed to achieve 71 percent of the benchmark items scheduled for completion.

* OSHA has withdrawn 24 agenda items, including one to protect workers from exposure to tuberculosis, and in the first half of 2004 it failed to advance 75 percent of benchmark items scheduled for action. It also eliminated data collection on musculoskeletal disorders.

Combined, these four agencies have either withdrawn or failed to complete work on a majority of the regulatory priorities already on the agenda when the Bush administration took office — ranging from 56 percent at the EPA to 86 percent at OSHA. Moreover, the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has approved only 25 economically significant rules total for the four agencies -- roughly half the number approved during each term of the Clinton administration and a third of those approved during the Bush I administration.

"When our government abdicates its responsibility to provide us the protections we need, people suffer," said Robert Shull, the report's lead author and Senior Regulatory Policy Analyst with OMB Watch. "It weakens our nation and has long-term implications for generations to come."

"Since 2001, key regulatory plans have been abandoned, and those few major rules that have been undertaken favor corporate over public interests," said Gary Bass, OMB Watch Executive Director. "Statistics show a pattern of neglect, but not how the few rules being done decidedly favor industry."

This report updates and expands our May 2004 report, "Special Interest Takeover: The Bush Administration and the Dismantling of Public Safeguards," which OMB Watch and Center for American Progress produced for Citizens for Sensible Safeguards (CSS). Download both reports and background at www.ombwatch.org/regs. ###

OMB Watch is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization located in Washington, DC, and was founded in 1983 to promote government accountability and citizen participation, and to lift the veil of secrecy shrouding the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the federal agencies it oversees.