As OMB Watch recently reported, EPA is preparing to announce the regulatory scheme it will pursue for regulating greenhouse gas emissions in accordance with the Supreme Court's April decision which said greenhouse gases could be considered a pollutant under the Clean Air Act.

An EPA official has reportedly indicated the agency will pursue a regulatory scheme similar to that of California and the other states, wherein the agency would set targets to reduce emissions over time, according to BNA news service (subscription). More information on EPA's plans may surface when the agency releases its annual Regulatory Plan later in 2007.

EPA may only be in the early stages of a rulemaking, but the White House is already all over this like white on rice. As Frank O'Donnell at the Blog for Clean Air points out, the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs has already held at least four meetings regarding potential greenhouse gas emissions regulations.

The list of attendees does not engender much confidence in the outcome of the rule. In addition to government personnel from EPA, USDA and the Departments of Transportation and Energy, OIRA has met with Shell, Frontier Oil, Hyundai, Nissan, Honda, Toyota, and some power companies from Nebraska.

Reg•Watch will wait patiently to see if OIRA invites anyone from the environmental, public health or energy security communities to solicit input.

One of the OIRA meetings also included a representative from the Vice President's Office. The Bush White House has kept Cheney's presence in these meetings to a minimum and generally only brings in a representative from the VP's office for the most significant of agency regulations.

Thanks to the Pump Handle blog for pointing out this story. The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce are lobbying the White House, potentially with the aim of derailing an important worker safety rule.

The Pump Handle has some background on the rule:

More than 8 years ago, OSHA proposed a rule designed to clarify that employers are supposed to provide and pay for [personal protective equipment (PPE)] . . . Under Bush's Labor Department, a final version of the rule was in perpetual limbo until two labor unions filed suit in January 2007 to compel OSHA to issue it.

OMB's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) began reviewing the rule on Sept. 10. Although OSHA and Department of Labor officials have committed to issuing the final rule in November, OIRA could continue its review of the rule into the new year under the rules of Executive Order 12866, Regulatory Planning and Review.

Meanwhile, on Oct. 23, officials from NAM and the Chamber of Commerce met with officials from OMB to discuss the rule. Because these meetings occur behind closed doors, it is unlikely the public will ever know what was discussed.

What we do know is that no official from OSHA was present. E.O. 12866 requires a representative from the appropriate agency (in this case OSHA) to attend these meetings or, if a representative cannot attend, requires the public be notified as to why no agency official was present. No explanation has been made public.

Regular readers of Reg•Watch may remember a similar story surrounding OMB's review of EPA's national ambient air quality standard for ozone. In that instance, no EPA official was present at a meeting featuring lobbyists from the Chemical Industry Institute and the Auto Alliance.

Reg•Watch hopes this is not becoming a trend with OMB reviews.

Reg•Watch Update: "Congressmen Press Dudley on Review of OSHA Rule"

Yesterday, Reg•Watch blogged about how the White House Office of Management and Budget made significant edits to the congressional testimony of Julie Gerberding, the head of the CDC. Gerberding testified before the Senate on the public health impacts of climate change.

The health and policy blog GoozNews has another take on the issue. The blog points out that the blame lies not only with the White House but with Gerberding herself. Check it out: Gerberding and Her Censors

Yesterday, Julie Gerberding, head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), was supposed to testify in front of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee about the threat global warming poses to public health. Instead, Gerberding spoke in detail of preparedness and health tracking but addressed public health impacts only cursorily.

Gerberding didn't speak of the ways global warming may impact public health because the White House wouldn't let her, as the Associated Press first reported yesterday. While reviewing Gerberding's testimony, the White House Office of Management and Budget cut out seven pages, about half, of the testimony. The removed sections include information on extreme weather events and food and water-borne disease, among other things.

OMB routinely reviews the congressional testimony of executive branch officials. OMB has been reviewing testimony since President Nixon reorganized (and politicized) the office. Although OMB has no explicit legal authority to do so, review and minor edits are commonplace.

Edits to Gerberding's testimony are not minor. In fact, they are appallingly major. Of course, the White House is denying any wrongdoing. According to AP, Press Secretary Dana Perino made this statement: "It was not watered down in terms of its science. It wasn't watered down in terms of the concerns that climate change raises for public health."

That is, quite frankly, a lie. Fortunately, the nonprofit group Climate Science Watch has obtained a copy of the original testimony, so you can compare for yourself.

Climate Science Watch has posted the original draft and the final version submitted to the Senate committee. By comparing the two versions, you can find that with one long highlight and one stroke of the 'Delete" button, OMB removed pages 2-8 in their entirety.

In 1996, Congress passed legislation mandating EPA assess the health impacts of endocrine disruptors — a class of chemicals which affect the way the body regulates mood, growth and development. Until this summer, EPA had made no progress in evaluating the chemicals impacts.

When EPA finally unveiled its endocrine disruptor screening program, which includes risk assessments for evaluating the chemicals, it turned out not to be worth the wait. Critics assailed EPA's program as scientifically flawed and accused the agency of designing experiments to purposefully minimize findings of adverse effects.

Now, the White House Office of Management and Budget is reviewing the structure of the risk assessment and the selection of chemicals that EPA will test.

OMB's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) generally reviews agency proposed and final regulations. However, because of recent changes President Bush made to the regulatory process, OIRA can now review agency "guidance documents." Guidance documents are an ill-defined class of agency information which may include policy interpretations and the research and supporting materials that go into regulation, like EPA's endocrine disruptor screening program.

It is unclear who made the decision to submit the screening program and list of chemicals for review: EPA or OIRA. It may also turn out to be unclear what changes the review ultimately brings. Because of a gross lack of transparency in the OIRA review process, the public is left in the dark.

Sen. Wayne Allard (R-CO) has introduced an amendment to the Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations bill (H.R. 3043) that would threaten the budgets of important federal programs. The amendment would tie a program's budget to the White House Office of Management and Budget's Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART) — a flawed measure of a program's effectiveness and efficiency.

Allard's amendment would make PART ratings a trigger for budget cuts. If a program is rated "ineffective" by OMB assessors, the budget of that program would be automatically cut by 10 percent.

Imagine the possibilities. If the White House opposed a certain program — even if that program was an exemplar of government virtue and efficiency — OMB could deem the program "ineffective," leading to across the board budget cuts.

This is far from a conspiracy theory. OMB often doles out "ineffective" ratings on flimsy pretenses. Consider EPA's Air Quality Grants and Permitting Program which "support[s] the prevention and control of air pollution at the state and local level" by issuing pollution management permits and research and development grants.

OMB has deemed the program ineffective because it does not currently have efficiency measures in place and because "It is not clear that the current grant allocation methods for program implementation funding or for air pollution monitoring efforts are adequate." (Who among us does not fear the horrors of unclear grant allocation methods...)

Allard's amendment is bad policy that will likely yield bad results. The Senate may consider the amendment as it debates the appropriations bill today and tomorrow. Allard's amendment may come up for debate as soon as this afternoon. You can tell your senator to oppose Allard's amendment by calling or emailing. (Senate switchboard: 202-224-3121)

For months, the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs has been blocking the finalization of a rule that would enhance protections for the North Atlantic right whale. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is pursuing the rulemaking because the right whale is one of the most critically endangered marine species in the world.

Under Executive Order 12866, Regulatory Planning and Review, agencies are required to submit significant rules to the White House in order to give OIRA an opportunity to review and edit the rule.

However E.O. 12866 prescribes a time limit for the OIRA review period. OIRA is to complete its review within 90 days of receiving the rule from the agency. In consultation with the agency, OIRA may extend the review period once for 30 days. NOAA submitted the draft of the final rule on Feb. 20, 2007 which means OIRA has exceeded the time limit by 118 days and counting.

OIRA is holding up another NOAA rule as well. On May 29, NOAA submitted a draft proposed rule in which the agency hopes to expand protections for krill. Krill are shrimp-like creatures that serve as an important source of food for whales and other marine animals. Krill are the most abundant organism on earth (in terms of mass) but the species is in decline, according to an episode of Planet Earth Reg•Watch recently saw on the Discovery Channel.

OIRA generally places rules into three categories: economically significant (those expected to have an economic impact of $100 million or more); other significant (those that interfere with the actions of other agencies, materially alter budgetary impacts, or raise novel legal or policy issues); and nonsignificant (those OIRA wants to review even though they fail to meet any of the aforementioned criteria.)

The right whale rule is considered economically significant — the kind of rule OIRA generally pays lots of attention to. But the krill rule is considered nonsignificant which means the rule drew OIRA's attention for non-economic reasons.

Of course, because of the murkiness of the OIRA review process, the public is shut out of all proceedings. Therefore, it is currently impossible to know what OIRA has been doing with the rules all this time.