Big oil is knocking on the White House's door looking for sympathy over an EPA proposal to tighten the national standard for ozone, aka smog. On January 25, representatives from ExxonMobil and the American Petroleum Institute met behind closed doors with officials from EPA and the White House Office of Management and Budget's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA). (Frank O'Donnell at the Blog for Clean Air has the full story.)

President Bush's FY 2009 budget request, announced Feb. 4, proposes level funding for the Consumer Product Safety Commission — essentially a budget cut when adjusted for inflation. Bush has chosen to flat-line the agency's funding even though the public, media, and Congress are realizing resource shortfalls at CPSC have undermined its ability to ensure product safety. A new article by OMB Watch tracks the history of budget and staffing cuts at the agency and shows how CPSC's resources have not kept pace with the growth of the industries it regulates, specifically the toy industry and the ATV industry.

Check out a new opinion column by OMB Watch titled, "How Bush Undermines Government Regulation," available at the Campaign for America's Future website. The column discusses how cost-benefit analysis in regulatory decision making can be a barrier to the promise of good government: By using cost-benefit analysis and forcing regulators onto an economic playing field, detractors of government regulation have perverted its image into one of job loss and higher consumer prices.

Resource shortfalls at the Food and Drug Administration were the focus of a House panel hearing yesterday. The House Energy and Commmerce subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight heard from members of FDA's Science Advisory Board who recently completed a report titled, "FDA Science and Mission at Risk." Among other things, the report highlighted how funding and staffing have not kept pace with FDA's ever-growing responsibilities to ensure the safety of the nation's food and drug supply.