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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Conservatives Use Budget Process Reform as Opportunity to Push Program Sunsets

Press reports indicate that House conservatives are pushing for budget process reform changes as a condition of securing their votes on the upcoming House budget resolution, and their demands include a controversial proposal for a program sunset commission. The House GOP leadership may give serious consideration to such a proposal in order to pass a budget resolution this year.

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White House Says, 'Let's Have More Arsenic in Drinking Water'

Apr 2, 2006 by Guest Blogger

You might have read in the news about an EPA plan to make it easier for drinking water systems to reduce the quality of your drinking water, even when it comes to such hazards as arsenic, radon, and lead.

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Questioning QALYs and CEA

Mar 27, 2006 by Guest Blogger

Merrill Goozner of CSPI has a blog with an entry helpfully going through Quality Adjusted Life Years: Medical economists conduct these cost-benefit studies to determine if a new drug, medical device or surgical procedure is worth its pricetag. But how do they determine benefits? Over the years, the profession has developed a tool for measuring medical value known as the quality adjusted life year, or QALY. One year of perfect health gets a score of one QALY. If a patient is bedridden and in constant pain for that entire year, it might be considered a .3 (three-tenths of a year) QALY.

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Hearing Highlights Confusion Caused by "Legalese" in Regulation

Writing regulations in a way that is clear and easy to understand will save the government, taxpayers and regulated communities time and money, according to witnesses testifying on Mar. 1 before the House Government Reform Committee's Subcommittee on Regulatory Affairs.

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Testimony on Reauthorization of the Paperwork Reduction Act

Testimony of J. Robert Shull, Director of Regulatory Policy, before the Subcommittee on Regulatory Affairs of the House Committee on Government Reform

on "The Paperwork Reduction Act at 25: Opportunities to Strengthen and Improve the Law"

Mar. 8, 2006

Read the press release

Download the prepared statement and appendix.Testimony of J. Robert Shull, Director of Regulatory Policy, before the Subcommittee on Regulatory Affairs of the House Committee on Government Reform

on "The Paperwork Reduction Act at 25: Opportunities to Strengthen and Improve the Law"

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More than Paperwork

Despite its name, the Paperwork Reduction Act concerns much more than paperwork: it is a comprehensive law for management of information resources. Find out more with this backgrounder and this at-a-glance summary of the major parts of the PRA.

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GAO Reports: Paperwork Reduction Act

A compendium of GAO Reports related to the Paperwork Reduction Act and information management policy.

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Reg Reform Meets Lochner

Feb 27, 2006 by Guest Blogger

Law professor and Center for Progressive Reform member scholar David Driesen has written a provocative paper comparing the positions of reg "reform" advocates with the anti-government attitudes of the architects of the Lochner era jurisprudence.

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What Others Are Saying About PART

OMB Watch is not alone in criticizing the White House's Program Assessment Rating Tool. See what others have had to say recently about this flawed measure. PART Punishes Programs for Following the Law Clay Johnson, OMB deputy director, when asked in a congressional hearing, "[I]s it possible for a program to get a poor rating simply because it does what's required by statute and not necessarily what OMB might like for that program to do?": Yes.

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White House Pushes for Sunsets, Reorganization Power

The White House used its annual budget submission yet again as a platform to call for policies that would distort the management of government programs. Both the budget submission that was released Feb. 6 and the follow-up document detailing programs slated for elimination or deep cuts reiterated the White House's call for sunset and reorganization authority legislation.

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