Blog Posts in Political Interference

Rushing To a Full Stop: Obama Gets It Right When He Talks About the Keystone Pipeline

 
Rejecting the Keystone XL pipeline this afternoon, President Obama blamed a short-circuited process that didn't allow the State Department to gather all the information it would have needed to consider before approving the permit.
 
In a statement, Obama said that "the rushed and arbitrary deadline insisted on by Congressional Republicans prevented a full assessment of the pipeline’s impact, especially the health and safety of the American people, as well as our environment."  Last November, he explained it this way:
 
"Because this permit decision could affect the health and safety of the American people as well as the environment, and because a number of concerns have been raised through a public process, we should take the time to ensure that all questions are properly addressed and all the potential impacts are properly understood.  The final decision should be guided by an open, transparent process that is informed by the best available science and the voices of the American people."
 
Obama is exactly right on those points.  At their core, agencies basically have one mission: to protect the well-being of the public.  The regulatory process is supposed to be about collecting and evaluating public input and the best available evidence, then making the decisions which best achieve that core goal.
 
As we wrote on Jan. 10, congressional Republicans made this virtually impossible by slipping a provision into the payroll tax bill that demanded a final ruling on the pipeline permit within 60 days.  This kind of obstructionism is just one in a string of examples of how political meddling in the regulatory process makes it harder for agencies to protect the American public.   

 

(Jessica Randall 01/18/12; 1 comment)

Congressional Budget Office Says Deregulation Will Not Create Jobs

 

On Tuesday, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released a report that concludes that deregulation will not create jobs. The report is the latest piece of evidence that the ongoing congressional attacks on public protections are misguided, at best.

Since the 112th Congress began its work in January, representatives and senators have offered up a slew of bills that would gut crucial safeguards. Some of these attacks, like the TRAIN Act and the Coal Residuals Reuse and Management Act have specifically targeted standards that would protect millions of Americans from dangerous air pollution and toxic waste. Others, like the REINS Act and the Regulatory Accountability Act, are broad and would grind the rulemaking process to a halt, endangering Americans' quality of life. Despite their supporters' claims, these bills do not constitute a jobs plan. Indeed, the bills' sponsors seem to be motivated by scoring points for future elections and garnering campaign cash.

The CBO report is just the most recent publication showing that there is no trade off between jobs and a good regulatory system. Studies by the Economic Policy Institute, statistics compiled by the U.S. Department of Labor, and surveys by McClatchy Newspapers, the National Association for Business Economics, and the Small Business Majority strongly reinforce this point. Individual business owners have testified – on camera – that most regulations are reasonable and that killing off regulations will not generate more jobs. You can listen to some of their stories here, here, here, and here.

Let's be clear: the economy crashed in 2008 because key regulations in the financial sector had been removed. These changes allowed banks and other institutions to take massive risks with other people's money as they raked in record profits themselves. Rolling back environmental, health, and safety standards is another version of this phenomenon: deregulation will allow particular companies to rake in higher profits while the risks and dangers to everyday Americans accumulate.

It's time for conservatives to give up their tired, discredited talking points about "job-killing" public protections and stop promoting efforts to kill rules that safeguard the public. Instead of wasting time with unconstructive attacks on our regulatory system, Congress should focus on making crucial investments in our nation's infrastructure and economy that will get Americans back to work.

(Jessica Randall 11/18/11; 3 comments)

Regulatory Accountability Act Would Undermine Crucial Protections for the American People

 

Eliminating lead in children's toys. Requiring seatbelts in automobiles. Reducing coal dust in mines. Preventing unsafe drugs and foods from entering the marketplace. Outlawing predatory loan rates and lending practices. If the bill deliberately mislabeled the Regulatory Accountability Act (RAA) had been put in place in 1960, none of these protections for the American people could have been developed.

A paper the Coalition for Sensible Safeguards (which I co-chair with Public Citizen's Robert Weissman) released Nov. 16 describes a number of federal standards and safeguards that have been designed to protect the health, safety, and general welfare of the American people that would have been blocked by the RAA (H.R. 3010/S. 1606) had it been law in earlier decades. The paper also spotlights several pending rules that are unlikely to go through should the RAA pass – rules that implement financial, workplace, and consumer protections that have already been passed into law by Congress.

Because the RAA is focused on changing regulatory processes, it hasn't received much attention in the traditional media or from many citizens and public interest groups who are intensely concerned with defending and improving health, safety, and environmental standards. This is a huge mistake. This bill is a backdoor way for conservatives to prevent the implementation and enforcement of decades of public protections – without actually having to vote against the Clean Air Act or the Clean Water Act. Instead of putting themselves on record as allowing higher arsenic levels in our water and higher levels of air pollution, the RAA allows conservative members of Congress to simply "muck up" the implementation and enforcement of these laws by allowing more special interest influence of regulatory agencies, more litigation by deep-pocketed industry lobbyists, and ridiculous hurdles to rulemaking.

What's at stake here is nothing less than the system of public protections that has been built up over the past six decades – the system that led to dramatic improvements in air and water quality, food and product safety, and public health. While trade associations and business lobbyists constantly complain about the government regulations that produced these outcomes, businesses have learned to adapt, the economy has expanded and innovated, and our quality of life has continued to improve. The RAA's attack on that system puts these advances at risk.

What is perhaps most disturbing is that the assault on our regulatory system is coming at a time when we have a record number of imports from foreign countries and when our domestic regulatory agencies have neither the staff nor the resources to oversee the flood of imports. We need to be strengthening our regulatory and enforcement structures, not weakening them. This cynical effort to use the anxiety the public is feeling about the economy could wreak deep and lasting damage to our regulatory system. The American public needs to weigh in against this dangerous legislation, and the media needs to help them understand what is at stake.

Editor's Note: This piece was cross-posted on The Huffington Post.

(Katherine McFate 11/17/11; 1 comment)

Possible Senate Shenanigans on the REINS Act

 

Editor's note: This post is being regularly updated to reflect REINS Act-related developments in the Senate. Please check back often for the latest news, which you can find at the bottom of the post.

There are rumblings that as soon as today, the Senate GOP may begin to offer up the Regulations from the Executive In Need of Scrutiny (REINS) Act (S. 299) as an amendment to, or a substitute for, bills moving to the Senate floor for a vote. Such a move would limit the public's ability to have a say on this damaging legislation.

The REINS Act, sponsored by Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), would force all new, major health, safety, and environmental protections through a congressional approval process. Under the bill, if rules are not approved by both houses of Congress within 70 legislative days, those rules would be "tabled," which would essentially kill them. Such political interference with science and expert analysis is indefensible, and given the political chasm and gridlock in Congress, the REINS Act would make it impossible for agencies to carry out the mandate they have been given to safeguard Americans' air, water, food supply, and workplaces.

OMB Watch opposes the REINS Act and hopes that a majority of the Senate rejects any move to sneak such an extreme bill into other legislation.

UPDATE (11/03/2011): This afternoon (Thursday), Senate Republicans are expected to move forward with a so-called "side-by-side" alternative to the Democrats' transportation and infrastructure jobs bill (S. 1769). The Republican proposal, called the Long-Term Surface Transportation Extension Act of 2011 (S. 1786), is sponsored by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and includes several extreme proposals, including the REINS Act, a moratorium on standards that would protect the public from harm, and a rollback of air toxics rules for boilers and cement plants. The strategy here is clear: squelch full, democratic debate on damaging measures while gutting popular, protective laws and hoping that no one is paying attention. If the Hatch bill is successful, the rulemaking process would be stopped dead in its tracks, agencies would be unable to safeguard the American people from a variety of significant hazards, and the nation would be no closer to solving the jobs problem it currently faces.

UPDATE (11/03/2011): Shortly before 3:30 p.m. on Thursday, the Senate rejected a motion to proceed with S. 1786. The White House also issued a strongly worded Statement of Administration Policy on the bill, indicating that the president's senior advisors would have recommended a veto had the bill passed both houses of Congress.

UPDATE (11/08/2011): The Senate is indicating that it will once again take up the REINS Act, along with a host of other anti-regulatory attack legislation, as part of the so-called Jobs Through Growth Act (S. 1720), sponsored by Sen. John McCain (R-AZ). In addition to REINS, the bill contains a public protections moratorium, legislation targeting a "phantom" U.S. Environmental Protection Agency rule on coarse particulate matter that the agency has repeatedly said it would not issue, and many more provisions that would do nothing to solve the country's jobs crisis but would go far in making it impossible to protect the American people from harm. Like S. 1786, the McCain bill is an attempt to thwart democratic discourse by sneaking bills like the REINS Act through the back door with a minimum of public debate.

UPDATE (11/10/2011): This afternoon, the Senate soundly rejected S. 1720 in a 56-40 vote. Members from both sides of the aisle joined together to oppose this damaging bill.

(Rick Melberth 11/02/11; 1 comment)

Senate Currency Bill Saddled with Unrelated Anti-Regulatory Amendments

 

Some members of the Senate used floor consideration of the Currency Exchange Rate Oversight Reform Act of 2011, S. 1619, to push anti-regulatory measures through last-minute amendments. The bill was introduced to curb Chinese currency manipulation, yet it could now be tagged by amendments aimed at delaying or preventing environmental safeguards and obstructing the regulatory process.

Some observers expected voting to begin soon after a cloture vote on Oct. 6, but Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) says consideration will be delayed until Oct. 11. The unrelated (non-germane) amendments that are now expected to go to a vote include:

  • An amendment by Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY), entitled the "Cement Sector Regulatory Relief Act of 2011," that would halt long-awaited clean air rules and make substantial alterations to both the Clean Air Act and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) long-standing practice for establishing emissions standards for hazardous air pollutants. The House passed the companion bill, H.R. 2681, Oct.6, but Barrasso’s bill has not been the subject of hearings or debate since it was submitted to the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee two weeks ago.
  • An amendment by Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS) that would amend the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) and the Clean Water Act (CWA) to prohibit EPA from requiring permits for discharges of pesticides. As the result of a court decision, discharges to waters of the U.S. of pesticides or the application of pesticides will require National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permits beginning Oct. 31. Under Roberts’ amendment, any pesticide that is approved for sale, distribution, or use under FIFRA can be discharged into waterways without complying with CWA permit provisions.
  • Another amendment by Barrasso, #671, would require all federal agencies to prepare a Jobs Impact Statement for "every recommendation or report on proposals for legislation and other major Federal actions with potentially significant effects on jobs and job opportunities." What constitutes "potentially significant effects" is not defined. In preparing the Jobs Impact Statement, agencies are to consider the cumulative impacts of other pending actions that affect a particular industry. This would require agencies to make highly speculative determinations about a near-endless list of "pending actions" and would likely ignore the benefits, including job creation and quality-of-life improvements, that public protections bring to the country. Moreover, the Jobs Impact Statement would be required even for non-regulatory actions.
  • An amendment by Sen. Mike Johanns (R-NE), the "Farm Dust Regulation Prevention Act of 2011," that would limit the federal regulation of nuisance dust and establish a temporary prohibition against revising any national ambient air quality standard applicable to coarse particulate matter.

These represent only a few of the amendments submitted. Sens. James Inhofe (R-OK), Susan Collins (R-ME), and David Vitter (R-LA) also submitted anti-regulatory and anti-environment amendments to the currency bill, but Reid invoked cloture, preventing the amendments from moving to a vote. Inhofe targeted specific Clean Air Act rules that would limit toxic emissions from boilers, and Vitter’s amendment directed the approval of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline. Collins submitted the broader "Regulatory Time-Out" bill, which would place a one-year moratorium on new standards and safeguards that would help protect the American people from pollution, foodborne illnesses, workplace injuries, and unscrupulous financial institutions.

This is not the first time members of the 112th Congress have used last-minute amendments to quash protections unpopular with industry and special interest groups. On Sept. 27, OMB Watch wrote about similar tactics used in the House to push some of the same anti-environment provisions floated as amendments to the Senate currency exchange bill. Unfortunately, what appears to be a concerted effort to weaken standards and environmental protections by whatever means available has crossed over into the Senate. "Senate Republican aides said Republican senators are adamant that they get votes on at least the amendments targeting specific air pollutant rules governing cement plants and other industries in exchange for allowing the broader currency bill to go forward," BNA reported Oct. 6.

(Katie Greenhaw 10/11/11; 0 comments)

A Dangerous, Misguided Regulatory Attack

 

Today, Sens. Rob Portman (R-OH), Mark Pryor (D-AR), and Susan Collins (R-ME), and Reps. Collin Peterson (D-MN) and Lamar Smith (R-TX) announced their intention to propose a major revision of the Administrative Procedure Act – the basic legal framework that defines how federal rules are made – that would prevent or delay by years important health, safety, and environmental standards. It's hard to imagine a more damaging attack on the federal government's responsibility to protect the public from a wide range of threats.

The most recent draft of the forthcoming bill, currently known as the Regulatory Accountability Act of 2011, is a “solution” in search of a problem. The proposal is based on dangerous and misguided assumptions about the connection between regulations and job creation. For decades, economic studies have shown consistently that regulations do not negatively impact employment. In fact, some standards and environmental protections actually create jobs and generate new industries. Corporations and banks are sitting on more than a trillion dollars instead of investing those resources and creating jobs because demand is weak, not because of regulations.

A recent survey of small business owners by the Small Business Majority reveals that they do not believe regulations are affecting their ability to grow their businesses. Rather, economic uncertainty (i.e., lack of demand for their products) and the rising cost of doing business are what they worry about most. Likewise, in an August survey of business economists, a large majority reported that the current regulatory climate in this country is good for business and the economy.

If the provisions of the proposal (as described in a fact sheet from Portman's office) become law, they will result in a near-moratorium on rules by creating even more obstacles for agencies to overcome in issuing standards that keep us safe from contaminated food, product defects, and polluted air and water. In addition, the proposal would shift the locus of regulatory decisions to the courts and out of agencies' hands by providing multiple new opportunities for deep-pocketed corporate interests to challenge agencies at nearly every step of the process. When such special favors are granted to special interests, everyday Americans are further shut out of the regulatory process, giving them less of an opportunity to participate in this essential function of democratic governance.

For example, the proposed bill could allow cost-benefit analysis to be reviewed by the courts at both the proposed and final stages of the rulemaking process. If this happens, rules would not only languish for years, but courts would be empowered to substitute cost considerations for the health and safety of the American people – the basis of important laws like those that protect workers and our environment. This court-dominated process would be incredibly costly, wasting resources instead of enabling agencies to address problems in a timely and responsive fashion. This shift would favor wealthy business interests, not small businesses. The proposal's judicial review provisions would also shift the responsibility for agency oversight from Congress to the courts and swamp an already overburdened federal court system.

If Sens. Pryor, Portman, et al. want to constructively reform the federal regulatory process, they should work to reduce the barriers that make it difficult for agencies to fulfill the missions they’ve been assigned: to enforce the rules that protect the American people from environmental, chemical, and workplace dangers and establish the foundations for healthy economic growth.

Editor's Note: This post has been updated to clarify the potential scope of judicial review that the Regulatory Accountability Act would write into law.

(Rick Melberth 09/22/11; 4 comments)

EPA Scientific Integrity Proposal Missing Critical Elements

 

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) draft scientific integrity policy is missing critical elements needed to effectively safeguard science at the agency, OMB Watch said in comments filed yesterday. The policy must be improved if the agency is to ensure that the best science informs policy decisions that affect the health and environmental quality of all Americans.

The Obama administration recognizes that sound, uncensored science is critically important to protecting our health, economy, and environment. Consequently, President Obama issued a memo shortly after taking office, establishing protections for scientific integrity and directing agencies to implement them. Unfortunately, implementation of that memo has been sluggish and uneven. However, there have been some bright spots, such as the draft policy at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which OMB Watch praised.

EPA's efforts have been more mixed. For example, the process to develop a policy at EPA has been mostly open: the agency posted a draft policy and solicited public comment. But the openness has been less than full-fledged, as important appendices and references are missing from the policy posted. EPA should be sure the public has an opportunity to comment on a complete version of the policy before finalizing it.

The content of EPA's draft policy is also flawed. The draft policy moves in the right direction but stops short of what's needed to adequately protect scientific integrity. Fundamentally, an effective scientific integrity policy must do two things: prevent political interference with science and protect the free flow of scientific information. EPA's draft policy is inadequate on both counts. As we say in our comments:

In general, the portions of EPA’s draft policy that have been released to date establish the appropriate principles for scientific integrity, particularly in striving to keep science free from political interference and to foster a culture of scientific openness. However, the translation of these principles into effective policies is lacking, and we recommend that EPA make significant changes to the draft policy to address this gap.

To improve EPA's draft policy, OMB Watch makes these recommendations in our comments:

  1. Make the prohibitions on political interference with science enforceable;
  2. Strengthen protections for the free flow of scientific information;
  3. Protect personnel who blow the whistle on scientific integrity violations;
  4. Improve scientific integrity in peer review and federal advisory committees;
  5. Expand the role and responsibilities of the Scientific Integrity Committee; and
  6. Strengthen scientific integrity in interagency processes.

EPA's draft suggests that the agency understands the central role of scientific integrity in achieving its critical work to protect Americans' health and natural resources. But EPA needs more than just principles in order to have a policy that effectively upholds scientific integrity. Luckily, EPA has a great model to draw from: the draft NOAA policy. We're hopeful that EPA will make the revisions necessary to ensure that EPA science continues to be top-caliber research that Americans can trust.

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(Gavin Baker 09/07/11; 2 comments)

Obama Orders EPA to Withdraw Ozone Rule

 

President Obama today ordered U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lisa Jackson to withdraw the final ozone rule the agency has been developing. The new ozone rule would have replaced those set by the Bush administration in 2008 that have not been implemented and which Jackson called "legally indefensible."

Obama's interference in rulemaking process is reminiscent of the many times President Bush interfered in agency rulemaking. The decision, transmitted to Jackson in a letter Sept. 2, is likely to revive the lawsuits by environmental groups that had been on hold pending the outcome of the final rule, according to an Inside EPA article published Sept. 2. The rule was submitted by EPA in July to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) for its review. Obama's decision leaves in place less stringent standards which were set in 1997.

Reaction by the environmental and public health communities has been justifiably harsh. Rather than focusing on the public health benefits of the ozone rule, Obama's order to withdrawal the rule cites some of the false, anti-regulatory rhetoric coming from corporate interests and their allies in Congress. Obama should defend EPA and its mission and the important role federal agencies play in providing critical health, safety, and environmental benefits.

(Rick Melberth 09/02/11; 30 comments)

How to Strengthen Transparency in the U.S. Open Government Plan

 

Yesterday, OMB Watch submitted its recommendations for the Obama administration's national plan for the Open Government Partnership (OGP). The administration will unveil its plan, with new concrete commitments to increase transparency, at the international OGP meeting on Sept. 20.

Seven other countries will also announce their national open government plans at that summit, organized around the United Nations General Assembly meeting. For the U.S. as well as the other participants, OGP has been an impetus to action for transparency. The national plan to be released in September is an important opportunity for the administration to expand on its progress in strengthening open government in order to empower Americans and build a better democracy.

In blog posts on Aug. 8 and Aug. 22, the administration asked for feedback on six topics to inform the development of its national plan. Reforms in these areas, including improving federal websites and promoting corporate accountability, would constitute a positive agenda for the U.S. Open Government Plan.

Our comments offer recommendations on each of the six topics. Among the ideas offered, OMB Watch encouraged the administration to:

  1. Transform Regulations.gov into a one-stop shop for citizens to learn about rulemaking
  2. Establish federal website standards that encourage proactive disclosure, identification of public priorities, and visualization tools
  3. Improve Data.gov with common data formats, identifiers, and user-friendly interfaces
  4. Strengthen records management with smarter IT investments and email policy
  5. Make regulatory compliance information more user-friendly
  6. Promote corporate accountability with better disclosure

In addition to these comments, OMB Watch has consulted with the administration on other topics that would make excellent contributions to the U.S. Open Government Plan. Meaningful reforms to the six consultation topics would be a significant step forward, but we hope that the administration will consider additional initiatives as well. For instance, the White House could establish an award, similar to the SAVE Award, to recognize the best contributions to open government by federal employees. Such an award could be an important way to foster a culture of openness within government and would be a helpful complement to the policy reforms the administration is considering.

We invite readers to join the discussion by sending their thoughts on the six topics by email to opengov@ostp.gov.

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(Gavin Baker 09/01/11; 3 comments)

Business Economists: Current Regulatory Environment Good for Business and Economy

 

The August 2011 Economic Policy Survey from the National Association for Business Economics (NABE) found that a large majority of business economists have a positive perspective on the regulatory environment in the United States, contradicting the overheated, anti-regulatory rhetoric coming from Big Business lobbying shops.

According to the survey:

Regulatory activity has gained a lot of attention, with many groups suggesting that American businesses are overregulated by the current administration. With that said, 80 percent of survey respondents felt that the current regulatory environment was "good" for American businesses and the overall economy.

Moreover, according to these experts, many of whom work hands-on in the business world, the watchword "uncertainty," when used by many businesses, refers to anxieties over the weak economy, not so-called "regulatory uncertainty." Nearly 75 percent of survey respondents said that "once the economy starts to improve, such anxieties will go away." NABE also noted, "The majority of survey respondents indicated that while uncertainty might be a concern, it is not a major one."

The NABE survey is the latest piece of evidence that the sky is not falling when it comes to regulations or the regulatory environment. In fact, recent studies from the independent Economic Policy Institute clearly show that regulations do not have a significant impact on job loss overall, that some rules can help create jobs in certain sectors, and that specific regulatory protections, including a series of environmental and public health standards from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), can have significant economic and quality-of-life benefits. Other studies and reports, including pieces from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the Congressional Research Service (CRS), and the Clean Air Council, illustrate that industry messaging on regulations is misleading and that the benefits of key public protections far outweigh their costs to business.

The bottom-line take-away from all of this evidence, coupled with common sense? The American people simply do not have to – and should not be asked to – choose between job creation and protecting their families and communities from environmental, workplace, and consumer product hazards.

(Rick Melberth 08/25/11; 6 comments)