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Wednesday, May 16, 2007

The Unfortunate Inevitability of a Regulatory Bottleneck

This week, a number of business journals across the country are running an article titled, "New Regulatory Czar Will Have Plenty to Review," by Kent Hoover. (Here it is in the Philadelphia Business Journal.) The article spotlights Susan Dudley in her new position as administrator of OMB's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA).

The article's title is apropos, as a number of factors are converging to make the last two years of the Bush administration an interesting time in regulatory policy. First, President Bush's recent changes to the regulatory process will force thousands of agency guidance documents to undergo OIRA review for the first time.

Second, OIRA has been without a full-time administrator since John Graham left in February 2006. There is likely a backlog of decisions for Dudley to make.

Third, the waning years of a presidency are notorious for resulting in a surge of regulatory activity. As a president's relevance declines, there is a natural tendency to take the path of least resistance in order to leave a policy legacy. The article quotes Tom Sullivan from the SBA as equating this time to "the end of the NBA playoffs," in terms of intensity and increasing public attention.

But these two years are more likely to resemble a rugby scrum than a fast-paced NBA match-up. OIRA will maintain its resource and staff levels for the remainder of Bush's term. Meanwhile, an unprecedented amount of paperwork will descend on a hapless, under-staffed OIRA. The results won't be pretty.

"This is life — too few resources, too many things to do," Dudley says in the article. It's unfortunate how correct Dudley may be.