We here at REG•WATCH let positive thinking get the better of us. Yes, the White House did name Steven D. Aitken as the acting administrator of OIRA rather than John Morrall. The problem is that we were wrong in thinking John Morrall was going to be the acting administrator; he was named the acting deputy administrator. So, Aitken is the acting John Graham; Morrall is the acting Don Arbuckle. And, for a day there, in the absence of Arbuckle (deputy admin) serving as acting administrator for Graham, Morrall was in line to be the acting deputy acting as acting administrator.

Gotta love it: House Appropriations Committee spokesman John Scofield said lawmakers agree that performance-based budgeting is a good idea. However, he said Congress won’t likely give PART scores much weight as they make budget decisions. “We always said PART can be one of the tools, but we rely on justification from agencies and won’t use PART to supplant that,” he said. “It’s nice to get a cute little number . . . but PART tends to be an excuse to cut Congress’ priorities.”

("Legally iffy" is a technical term of art, of course.) On the heels of the Heinzerling article making the case against OIRA meddling from an admin law perspective, an article by Cardozo law prof Kevin Stack tackles OIRA meddling from a different starting point: statutory interpretation. Here's a look: In our constitutional system, the significance of the President's assertions of statutory powers should come as no surprise.

OIRA's meddling in regulations has already been dealt with fairly extensively in the context of separation of powers and the imperial presidency, but CPR member scholar Lisa Heinzerling now has a (characteristically brilliant) law review article framing OIRA's interference as an admin law problem: In recent years, the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) within the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has asserted a remarkable degree of authority over administrative agencies’ rulemaking processes. One of the ways in which OIRA has exercised