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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Regulatory Policy Developments: 1998

Links take you to pages from our old website Two Regulatory ‘Reform' Provisions Enacted (12/23/98) The last-minute budget deal reached between the Clinton Administration and the congressional majority includes two broad, problematic regulatory "reform" provisions that apply to the operations of all federal agencies. Regulatory Reformers Make Few Gains in 105th Congress (12/23/98)

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Regulatory Policy Developments: 1997

Links will take you to pages from our old website. Index: Oppose the Regulatory Improvement Act of 1997 (S. 981) Regulatory Notebook (12/19/97) Updates on "takings" legislation, OSHA overhaul, and unfunded mandates reform. EPA Forms Advisory Panel for Endocrine Disruptor Screening Process (11/97)

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Regulatory Policy Developments: 1996

Note: These archive links take you to articles from our old website. HOME SEARCH Regulatory News Sorted By Date 1996 Regulatory Fights Likely to Continue (12/31/96) Even before the 105th Congress convenes, public interest groups are gearing up for another round of fights to protect public safeguards. Find out what will be happening with regulatory reform, federal mandates, and local flexibility/devolution.

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Agencies Continue to Abandon Protective Plans

Key agencies charged with protecting public health, safety and the environment continued to abandon work on long-identified priorities for new or improved regulatory safeguards, according to the fall 2004 Unified Agenda released last December.

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White House Adds Rule to Hit List After Calling it 'Accomplishment'

Just three months after touting an interim rule controlling Listeria in ready-to-eat meats as a "regulatory reform accomplishment," the White House added that same rule to a list of regulations to be weakened or eliminated. Corporate special interests nominated the Listeria rule for rollbacks in response to a call from the White House's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, which used its annual draft report on the costs and benefits of regulations last February to request industry's nominations for regulatory protections to be weakened or eliminated.

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Sunset, Results Commission Proposals Likely

Both the White House and congressional Republicans have vowed to introduce legislative packages that would force programs to fight for their lives every 10 years and would link controversial performance ratings to decisions about the very structure of government.

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EPA To Roll Back Lead-Based Paint Protection

Mar 23, 2005 by Guest Blogger

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) recently released internal EPA documents that show that Environmental Protection Agency acting administrator, Stephen Johnson, plans to replace a regulation under development by EPA requiring certification of construction workers renovating buildings that may contain lead paint with a voluntary compliance standard. This move to a voluntary standard significantly weakens the regulation and puts more workers and children at risk for lead exposure from dust and debris. From the press release:

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EPA Ignores Cost-Benefit Analysis on Mercury Rule

Mar 22, 2005 by Guest Blogger

From the Washington Post: When the Environmental Protection Agency unveiled a rule last week to limit mercury emissions from U.S. power plants, officials emphasized that the controls could not be more aggressive because the cost to industry already far exceeded the public health payoff. What they did not reveal is that a Harvard University study paid for by the EPA, co-authored by an EPA scientist and peer-reviewed by two other EPA scientists had reached the opposite conclusion.

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Appeals Court Rejects Right of Action in Open Government Law

A federal appeals court has ruled that the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA), an open government statute designed to guarantee that committees advising federal agencies are not biased, does not create a private right of action.

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Is Cost-Benefit Analysis Needed?

Cost-benefit analysis (CBA) is often touted by the administration and conservative think tanks as a neutral tool in policymaking, but recent studies by legal scholars show that CBA is inherently political and may even advise against what we consider our most immutable public protections. Three recent articles examine the neutrality of CBA both in theory and in practice and analyze the arguments of CBA's greatest proponents. This analysis reviews those articles and critiques CBA as a regulatory tool.

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