White House Influence and Interference

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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Budget Slashes Enforcement at FDA, EPA

The White Houseï¿½s fiscal year 2006 budget submission will mean big cuts in food and drug safety inspection as well as state enforcement of environmental protections. FDA Amidst mounting concern over the safety of our food supply from threats such as mad cow disease and bioterrorism and after a storm of criticism about FDAï¿½s botched inspection of British flu vaccine facilities, which led to a vaccine shortage this winter, FDAï¿½s budget proposes cuts to nearly all of its inspection programs.

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Another glimpse at results and sunsets

Feb 11, 2005 by Guest Blogger

The budget document finally released today (late Friday, but of course) detailing the programs to be eliminated or cut includes some additional language reflecting the White House's anti-regulatory proposals we discussed before. Here's the new text: Results Commissions

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Budget Includes Anti-Regulatory Proposals

As expected, the White House included several threats of new anti-regulatory initiatives in today’s budget release to Congress. As OMB Watch reported earlier, the White House used the occasion of the budget release to announce two proposals for creating unelected commissions with far-reaching powers to weaken protections of the public health, safety, civil rights, and environment:

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White House, Congress Gearing Up For Attack On Public Safeguards

The White House is poised to roll back 30 years of progress on the nation’s health, safety and environmental protections. Upcoming White House proposals, expected this month, threaten to dramatically overhaul – and possibly destroy – these federal safeguards in a give-away to corporate special interests, camouflaged under the Orwellian guise of “regulatory reform.”

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White House wants to cut government at the knees

Jan 27, 2005 by Guest Blogger

The White House announced that the FY 2006 budget will include two proposals for dramatic overhauls of government oversight that would become the Gatling gun for destroying federal programs that protect the public health, safety, civil rights, and environment.

One proposal would create a Sunset Commission to review program performance. As a Congress Daily AM article elaborates, the proposal would also force all government programs to cease serving the public after ten years, unless Congress affirmatively votes to keep the program alive.

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Someone's in the kitchen with OIRA

Jan 21, 2005 by Guest Blogger

What's cooking on the anti-regulatory front? Follow your nose... to the OIRA log of meetings with industry. These meetings have already begun in 2005: Meeting with the International Dairy Foods Association about FDA rules on "Food Standards: General Principles and Food Standards Modernization" About this pending rulemaking (RIN 0910-AC54):

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Graham: Industry's Friend in the White House

<p>Learn more about John Graham, administrator of the White House's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, in this report and this Disinfopedia entry.

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White House Meets with Industry to Plan Deregulatory Strategy

Over the past several months, the White House has met with industry representatives to develop a sweeping deregulatory strategy. The White House's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) has given industry a leg-up on the upcoming reauthorization of the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA). According to Inside EPA, OIRA has been working with a coalition of industry groups to strategize using the PRA reauthorization as a vehicle for developing new anti-regulatory policies.

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Bush Renominates Industry-Backed Radical Right-wingers to Federal Bench

Just two days before Christmas, the White House announced its intention to renominate to the federal bench 20 radical right-wing and corporate-friendly extremists whose nominations had been thwarted in the 108th Congress. The White House will be supported in this effort by both social conservatives, who see Bush nominees as friendly to conservative positions on controversial social issues like abortion, and the corporate sector, which is dedicating millions of dollars in an unprecedented lobbying effort on behalf of the Bush judicial picks. Safeguards at Stake

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White House Advances Anti-Regulatory Hit List

The White House waited until eight days before Christmas to reveal its new regulatory ï¿½reformï¿½ plan instructing agencies to review and complete action plans on a regulatory hit list of over 200 suggestions for reversing protections of the public interest, mostly proposed by industry lobbyists.

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