Setting and Enforcing Regulations

Feb 8, 2016

Top 400 Taxpayers See Tax Rates Rise, But There’s More to the Story

As Americans were gathering party supplies to greet the New Year, the Internal Revenue Service released their annual report of cumulative tax data reported on the 400 tax r...

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Feb 4, 2016

Chlorine Bleach Plants Needlessly Endanger 63 Million Americans

Chlorine bleach plants across the U.S. put millions of Americans in danger of a chlorine gas release, a substance so toxic it has been used as a chemical weapon. Greenpeace’s new repo...

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Jan 25, 2016

U.S. Industrial Facilities Reported Fewer Toxic Releases in 2014

The Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) data for 2014 is now available. The good news: total toxic releases by reporting facilities decreased by nearly six percent from 2013 levels. Howe...

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Jan 22, 2016

Methane Causes Climate Change. Here's How the President Plans to Cut Emissions by 40-45 Percent.

UPDATE (Jan. 22, 2016): Today, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) released its proposed rule to reduce methane emissions...

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Administration Mixes Politics with Science

The Bush administration is overhauling scientific advisory committees that were reaching conclusions contrary to its political objectives, according to a recent article in the Washington Post. Findings by these committees, which are made up by private experts and are found at virtually every agency, frequently form the foundation for regulatory action, which the administration seems determined to avoid at all costs. Not surprisingly, the administration is moving to stack the deck in favor of its predetermined views. Specifically:

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Correction and New Information on EPA's Children's Health Report

In the September 3, 2002, issue of the Watcher, we reported that OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) requested to review an EPA report on children’s health prior to publication. Further conversation with EPA staff clarified that although OIRA participated in the review, it was OMB budget staff that made the request. We have revised our original article to reflect this new understanding.

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Report Links Environmental Rollbacks to Industry Contributions

Earthjustice and Public Campaign recently released a joint report that links recent Bush rollbacks of environmental protections to industry campaign contributions. Specifically:

The administration revoked protections against hard rock mining -- allowing increased dumping in streams, rivers and wetlands -- as mining interests forked over a total of $3.1 million to the Bush-Cheney campaign and the Republican National Committee during the 2000-2002 election cycles;

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Bush Directs Expedited Environmental Reviews for Transportation Projects

President Bush issued an executive order on September 18 that directs federal agencies to speed environmental reviews for major transportation projects.

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EPA Issues Weak Rule on Snowmobile Emissions After Earful from Graham

A final EPA rule to cut emissions from snowmobiles and other off-road vehicles is weaker than the agency’s original proposal, which met resistance from the vice president’s office and John Graham, administrator of OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), who sided with the snowmobile industry.

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FCC Calls for Major Review of Media Ownership Rules

On September 12, the Federal Communications Commission adopted a notice of proposed rulemaking as part of its biennial review of media ownership rules mandated under the 1996 Telecommunications Act to determine whether the marketplace is sufficiently ensuring the goals of local responsiveness, diversity, and competition with respect to local media, or if existing rules need to be maintained or modified, in order to promote these goals.

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Bush Solution to Forest Fires: Remove the Forest

The Bush administration sent a legislative proposal to Congress on Sept. 5 that would allow increased commercial logging of old-growth trees in national forests, purportedly to reduce runaway forest fires that have plagued the West in recent years, even though such trees are not the source of the problem.

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House to Vote on Bill Directing Privacy Assessments for New Rules

Within the next month, the House is expected to vote on a bill (H.R. 4561) -- sponsored by Rep. Bob Barr (R-GA) and cleared by the Judiciary Committee on Sept. 10 -- that directs federal agencies to conduct a “privacy impact analysis” for new regulations. This analysis is to describe:

the extent personally identifiable information is collected under a proposed or final rule, assuring participation by affected individuals in the rulemaking where the agency finds a “significant privacy impact”;
whether affected individuals can access this information;

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OMB Reviewing EPA Report on Children's Health

In an effort well outside the scope of its traditional activities, the Office of Management and Budget is reviewing an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) report on children’s health before publication -- the first time, to our knowledge, OMB has ever involved itself in the shaping of a scientific study.

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Bush Makes Controversial Recess Appointment to USDA

President Bush took the opportunity while Congress was in recess to appoint controversial nominee Thomas Dorr as undersecretary of the U. S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), which will allow him to serve for a year without Senate confirmation. Recess appointments are not uncommon for contentious nominees that lack bipartisan support when the Senate and executive branch are controlled by opposing parties. Yet President Bush went even further than most presidents in appointing Dorr, because Dorr did not even have the support of fellow Republicans.

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