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Tuesday, January 30, 2007

NY Times and Washington Post Cover Bush Regulatory Amendments

Almost two weeks ago, President Bush amended the federal regulatory process in an attempt to delay regulations and take power out of Congress's hands. Now, the mainstream media has picked up the scent. A front page story in today's New York Times and a column in today's Washington Post both cover the story.

Posted by Matt Madia, 09:42:05 AM

Friday, January 19, 2007

Oversight of Tobacco Will Be Pushed by Kennedy

The New York Times and Washington Post report today that Sen. Ted Kennedy will reintroduce legislation calling for regulation of the tobacco industry. Kennedy first introduced the bill in 2004 when it was passed by the Senate but stalled in the House.

The bill proposes to place tobacco industry — which for years has been largely unregulated — within the regulatory view of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The FDA would be able to have a say in advertising, packaging, and content, according to the Washington Post. The rise in attention to this issue comes in response to a Harvard study concluding nicotine levels have been steadily rising in cigarettes.

This bill is a common sense approach to regulating a dangerous product; and should be considered reasonable by all parties, even tobacco farmers, who will be offered hefty compensation. It is a measure that lawmakers on both sides of the aisle should ardently support.

Posted by Matt Madia, 10:23:25 AM

Thursday, January 18, 2007

President Bush's Changes to Rulemaking Process Undermine Public Protections

Read OMB Watch's preliminary analysis here.

Posted by Matt Madia, 07:35:49 PM

President Bush Amends Rulemaking Process

This afternoon, President Bush announced amendments to Executive Order 12866 on Regulatory Planning and Review. EO 12866, originally issued by President Clinton, places the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) squarely in the middle of agencies' rulemaking process.

President Bush's amendments go even further in allowing the White House to force its own agenda on agencies. The most notable of the new amendments:

Impose a market failure criterion where agencies had previously been able to regulate based upon identification of threats to public welfare.
Force agencies to install presidential appointees as their intra-agency regulatory heads.
Force agency "guidance documents" (recommendations that clarify provisions in regulations) to go through the same OMB-micromanaged process as regulations do.

Ultimately, these amendments establish President Bush's anti-regulatory agenda, and make it more difficult for agencies to fulfill their role as protectors of the public.

Posted by Matt Madia, 05:40:08 PM

Thursday, January 11, 2007

Climate Change Opposition Funded by ExxonMobile
Ever wonder where all these climate change denialist groups came from? It wouldn't take a rocket scientist to guess they were funded by the oil and gas industry, but it did take the Union of Concerned Scientists to string together the facts, and the evidence is pretty damning. A new report from the Union of Concerned Scientists documents how the gas industry, and particularly ExxonMobil, has dumped millions of dollars into Astroturf organizations that seek to foster doubt about the existence of climate change. From the press release:

According to the report, ExxonMobil has funneled nearly $16 million between 1998 and 2005 to a network of 43 advocacy organizations that seek to confuse the public on global warming science.
"ExxonMobil has manufactured uncertainty about the human causes of global warming just as tobacco companies denied their product caused lung cancer," said Alden Meyer, the Union of Concerned Scientists' Director of Strategy & Policy. "A modest but effective investment has allowed the oil giant to fuel doubt about global warming to delay government a ction just as Big Tobacco did for over 40 years."

Posted by Genevieve Smith, 11:50:18 PM

Tuesday, January 09, 2007

EPA Takes Positive Action on Pressure-treated Lumber

Monday, EPA rejected calls from industry to allow the use of a chromium based substance in pressure-treated lumber. The chemical, acid copper chromate (ACC), contains a known carcinogen, hexavalent chromium. This decision is a continuation of a positive trend EPA began in 2004 when the agency banned arsenic from pressure-treated lumber.

Kudos to citizens and public interest groups such as Environmental Working Group who called for the ban on ACC; and thanks to EPA for preserving the safety of a product so common in our everyday lives.

Read Washington Post coverage of the issue here.

Posted by Matt Madia, 03:19:31 PM

Wednesday, January 03, 2007

An Unimpressive Century of Food Safety

This week marks the 100th Anniversary of the implementation of the Pure Food and Drug Act, a landmark piece of legislation calling for federal inspection of food products and paving the way for the creation of the Food and Drug Administration. However, as a January 2 New York Times editorial points out, advances in food safety are far from adequate considering how much time has elapsed.

Though nearly a century had passed, 2006 may have been the nadir of the federal food safety era. A spinach contamination outbreak in the fall killed three, and mysterious Taco Bell food poisonings only aggravated national concern. The Times editorial points out that anti-government conservatism has been a contributing factor in the declining safety:

Since the Reagan era, conservatives have tried to turn "government regulation" into an epithet…Food safety has been particularly hard-hit by this anti-regulatory climate.

The Times is calling for the new Congress to "hold hearings to get to the bottom of those recent food disasters and to explore what the next ones are likely to be." Here's to hoping the 110th puts food safety on its legislative plate.

Posted by Matt Madia, 11:12:31 AM

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