A Look at Regulatory Agencies in Obama’s Frugal Budget

The Office of Management and Budget unveiled President Obama’s FY 2011 budget request on Monday. Obama has decided to propose a spending freeze for discretionary, non-defense budget items. (See OMB Watch’s statement here [1].) Because Obama has proposed an overall freeze and not a line-item-by-line-item freeze, spending could be transferred to other areas to reflect administration priorities.

The FY 2011 budget is a mixed bag for regulatory agencies, many of which suffered [2]from near-perennial raids on their coffers when President Bush was in power. In his first budget proposal submitted shortly after he took office, Obama tried to reverse some of the funding trends at regulatory agencies. His FY 2010 proposal was pretty good [3], but not great. As expected because of the spending freeze, the FY 2011 budget is a bit more subdued. Here is the run down.

Environment

Obama proposed almost $300 million in cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget for FY 2011 after an approximately $2.7 billion increase the year before. Interesting, however, is the “Clean Air and Global Climate Change” line item which gets a healthy boost to $540 million from $502 million. (Climate Science Watch [4]also points out that Obama has proposed a hefty $439 million increase for the U.S. Global Change Research Program, which covers climate issues.)

Food Safety

Obama’s budget would raise the Food and Drug Administration’s budget by about $500 million, including industry-paid licensing and registration fees, a.k.a. user fees. That does not include an additional $289 million in new user fees currently under consideration in Congress, $220 million of which would go towards food safety. As for run-of-the-mill appropriations, Obama’s budget increases the food safety line item to $848 million, from $784 million. Reactions from food safety advocates are mixed [5].

As for the regulator of all things meat and poultry, the Food Safety and Inspection Service, the Obama budget calls for a modest $18 million, or 1.6 percent, increase, and only 31 additional employees.

Worker Protection

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration would see a 2.5 percent increase under Obama’s proposal. But a look inside the numbers is more telling: The rulemaking division’s budget would rise to $24 million from $20 million – an important increase for an agency with an overwhelming [6] rulemaking agenda. The budget takes away $3 million, or about 4 percent, from compliance assistance programs, which critics say [7] are too lenient and did not deter bad behavior. Unfortunately, the Obama budget actually calls for a 51-person reduction in the OSHA workforce.

The Mine Safety and Health Administration’s budget would go from $356 million to $363 million. On the plus side, the Wage and Hour Division, which enforces minimum wage and child labor laws, among other worker rights issues – would see a $20 million, or 9 percent increase.

Consumer Product Safety

Last, but certainly not least, the Consumer Product Safety Commission. CPSC’s budget woes are probably the most well-chronicled of this lot. CPSC’s budget was halved [8](after adjusting for inflation) from the mid-1970’s to the 2000’s. Employment levels declined similarly.

But progress has been made in recent years, rising from about $63 million in FY 2007 to $118.2 million this year, plus about $4 million in industry fees. Last year, Obama proposed a minimal increase, which Congress improved upon. This year Obama is proposing a paltry $400,000 increase. For some obligatory perspective, the increase is about one half, of one millionth, of one percent, of the national defense budget. (Six zeros after the decimal, then a five.) The budget does call for an additional 46 employees, presumably because the agency can continue to absorb new hires because of the major funding increases in recent years.

The figures here are mostly taken from OMB budget documents, available here [9]. The budget’s Appendix provides the most detail. Leave questions or discrepancies in the comments.