Political 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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Bill Text H.R. 3521

Congressional Accountability for Regulatory Information Act of 2000 (Introduced in the House January 24, 2000) 106th CONGRESS 2d Session H. R. 3521 To amend chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, to provide for a report by the General Accounting Office to Congress on agency regulatory actions, and for other purposes. IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES January 24, 2000 Mr. MCINTOSH introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on the

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Bill Creates GAO Office to Analyze Agency Rules

On Jan. 24, Rep. David McIntosh (R-IN) introduced the "Congressional Accountability for Regulatory Information Act" (H.R. 3521), which seeks to establish an office within GAO to review agency rulemakings at the request of Congress. A Senate version (S. 1198) has already been reported out of the Governmental Affairs Committee, and is awaiting floor action. Bill Summary

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Comments on OMB's Draft Report on Regulatory Accounting

Mr. John Morrall III Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs NEOB, Room 10235 1725 17th Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20503 Dear Mr. Morrall: On behalf of Citizens for Sensible Safeguards, a broad-based coalition of consumer, labor, environmental, and other public interest groups, I am writing to provide comments on OMB's draft report to Congress on the costs and benefits of federal regulations. As you know, we strongly oppose the idea of regulatory accounting.

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Take 2: Another Bill Creating GAO Office to Analyze Rules

On Feb. 16, Rep. Sue Kelly (R-NY) introduced the "Congressional Accountability for Regulatory Information Act" (H.R. 3669), which seeks to establish an office within GAO to review agency rulemakings at the request of Congress.

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Bill Requiring GAO Cost-Benefit Analysis Sent to Floor

The House Government Reform Committee reported legislation (H.R. 4744) to the floor today that would require the General Accounting Office (GAO) to conduct cost-benefit analysis of agency rules. H.R. 4744 was introduced only three days prior to the markup as a compromise between Reps. Sue Kelly (R-NY) and David McIntosh (R-IN) -- who had introduced separate versions of the legislation (H.R. 3669) & (H.R. 3521) earlier in the year.

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Bush May Exacerbate Deficiencies in Regulation

In a new report, OMB Watch speculates on what might occur under the Bush Administration. In addition to a regulatory moratorium, the report highlights a number of other consequences, including a rollback of protections for health, safety, and the environment, elevated costs in the rulemaking process, and OMB's more aggressive role in rejecting agency rules.

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OIRA Transparency Improves as Action Increases

Important health, safety, and environmental regulations have been under attack since the beginning of the Bush administration. Upon taking office last January, President Bush halted all regulatory actions in progress and began to roll back a slew of regulations implemented at the end of the Clinton administration. This included protections for ergonomics hazards in the workplace, standards for hard rock mining, and a ban on building new roads through national parks, just to name a few.

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Graham Reasserts White House Regulatory Review

Before Christine Todd Whitman can issue a new standard protecting against arsenic in drinking water, she must get his approval. Ditto if Tommy Thompson wants to collect information on nursing home performance. Or if Ann Veneman wants to require new testing for listeria in meat products. In fact, no health, safety, or environmental standard is beyond his reach.

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States Slack Off on Environmental Enforcement

In Baytown, Texas, there sits an Exxon Mobil oil refinery -- the nation's largest -- with one pitiful environmental record. As documented in this report from the SEED Coalition, the plant has repeatedly violated state and federal laws -- frequently releasing large volumes of pollution on an unsuspecting public without reporting plant problems to the proper authorities. Over the last several years, the refinery has been guilty of dozens of incidents resulting in excessive emissions.

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Industry Groups Compile Hit List for Administration

Here is a list of the 57 Information Collection Requests that were referenced in this Washington Post article on Tuesday, December 4. As described in the article, Barbara Kahlow, a Republican congressional aide for Rep. Doug Ose (R-CA), who chairs the House Subcommittee on Regulatory Affairs, convened key lobbyists to identify and rank regulations with associated paperwork that business groups find overly burdensome. According to Kahlow, this happened at the request of John Graham, administrator of OMB's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA).

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