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Thursday, April 12, 2007

OIRA: "Freakonomics to the 10th Power"

Yesterday, the Senate Appropriation Committee held a hearing to examine the budget of the White House Office of Management and Budget (not the federal budget, but the budget of OMB itself). During the hearing, Subcommittee Chairman and Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) questioned OMB Director Rob Portman on a number of issues. These included the recess appointment of Susan Dudley to be the administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) at OMB, and the installation of Regulatory Policy Officers (RPOs) in federal agencies as required by recent White House changes to the regulatory process.

Durbin addressed OIRA at large, calling its work "Freakonomics to the 10th power." He then pointed out some of Dudley's anti-regulatory positions and asked Portman to identify the need for presidentially appointed regulatory foot-soldiers — the RPOs — to invade each agency. Durbin said the White House appeared to be "attempting to take away the regulatory authority of agencies."

Unfortunately (but not surprisingly), Portman evaded questioning. He gave a roundabout answer on Dudley, and did not appear to be familiar with her record. By the time Portman was done avoiding the Dudley issue, everyone had forgotten about the RPO question, and it was never answered. Almost three months after the amendments to the regulatory process, no senior administration official has answered any questions or said anything meaningful about the changes.