Susan Wood, a professor at George Washington University's school of public health and former FDA whistleblower, wrote an op-ed in today's Boston Globe examining how President Bush has undermined the federal government's role in assuring public health by staffing agencies with inappropriate people — or simply not staffing them at all.

Wood accuses Bush of refusing to "staff important health-related positions with qualified individuals willing to provide science-based advice." She provides a list of important government posts currently filled by interim appointees. (The "acting" status of important government positions is a government-wide problem.)

As Wood points out, filling top government posts with unqualified leaders — or refusing to fill them at all — leads to scientifically questionable decision making. Ultimately, that can undermine the important public health protections our government has a responsibility to provide. Wood concludes by stating:

To ensure the health of our families we need strong, consistent leaders who value the integrity of science, make decisions on the best available information, and support prevention. Without that leadership, we will not succeed in promoting the health of all Americans.

On Monday, federal agencies released their semiannual Unified Agenda of regulatory and deregulatory actions. The fall version of the Unified Agenda also includes agencies' annual Regulatory Plan.

The Unified Agenda lists all of the rules an agency is in the process of considering. It also lists regulatory actions completed since the last Unified Agenda and potential long-term actions.

The Regulatory Plan includes only the most important actions an agency is considering and includes a more detailed description of those rules and regulations. Entries in both the Unified Agenda and Regulatory Plan include timetables for completion of rules.

This year, the Unified Agenda has gone paperless. Instead of being published in the Federal Register, Unified Agenda entries are now available in a searchable database housed at RegInfo.gov, a website run by the General Services Administration and OMB. Since the Unified Agenda has gone paperless, you will also be unable to find entries in the PDF version of the Federal Register on the Government Printing Office website.

The more-detailed Regulatory Plan is still being published in the Federal Register. Also, if a rule is expected to have an impact on a substantial number of small businesses, (even if it is not included in the Regulatory Plan,) it must still be published in the Federal Register. (The Regulatory Flexibility Act requires agencies to publish these kinds of rules in the Federal Register.)

A GovExec.com article says the shift to online publication of the Unified Agenda will save the government $800,000. Also from the article:

"The Unified Regulatory Agenda and annual Regulatory Plan will be more accessible on the Internet in an enhanced user-friendly, searchable database format," said Susan Dudley, administrator of OMB's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. She said that in addition to improving transparency, the transition should "increase the public's access to the rule-making process."

Kudos to the government officials responsible for making this switch. Reg•Watch hopes they continue to find ways to use technology to make the regulatory process more accessible to the public.

Reg•Watch often complains about the flaws of cost-benefit analysis and the overemphasis policy makers place on it as a tool in decision making. However, when discussing cost-benefit analysis in the abstract, it is difficult to show the practical problems associated with its use.

For a case example showing just how problematic cost-benefit analysis can be, read OMB Watch's new analysis, Polluted Logic: How EPA's ozone standard illustrates the flaws of cost-benefit analysis in regulatory decision making.

Polluted Logic tracks EPA's current revision of the national standard for ozone and shows how the use of cost-benefit analysis in the rulemaking has been useless to policy makers and has only complicated the debate over whether to tighten the standard.

As the paper discusses, EPA's ozone standard serves as a case example of some of the big problems with cost-benefit analysis in regulatory decision making:

• Cost-benefit analysis is problematic for health, environment, civil rights, and safety rulemakings because of the magnitude of intangible and invaluable benefits;
• Cost-benefit analysis often runs counter to congressional intent expressed in federal law; and
• Cost-benefit analysis allows the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs to manipulate regulations to serve an intended ideological agenda.

Download the paper here: Polluted Logic: How EPA's ozone standard illustrates the flaws of cost-benefit analysis in regulatory decision making.