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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Regulatory News Briefs

GAO Report Finds OSHA Underuses Audit System Bush Policies Leave Wetlands Open for Development Superfund Super Broke?

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Snowmobiles Allowed in Yellowstone Despite Court Loss

The National Park Service (NPS) has announced that it will allow up to 720 snowmobiles per day in Yellowstone, beginning this coming winter, while it works on a final rule on that matter. Despite a January federal court ruling rebuking the administration's efforts to reinstate the use of snowmobiles in Yellowstone National Park, NPS announced August 19 a plan that would allow snowmobile access to Yellowstone for up to three years while it drafts a new rule setting standards for snowmobile use.

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Kennedy Calls for OSHA Accountability in Letter to Chao

Senator Edward Kennedy, Ranking Member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, sent a letter to Department of Labor Secretary Elaine Chao on August 18 expressing his concern over the lack of "development and enforcement of health and safety regulation."

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Welcome!

Aug 23, 2004 by Matthew Madia

Welcome to OMB Watch's new regulatory policy blog, your home for quick alerts to the latest news and views about protections of the public interest. For permalinks, just click on the headline of any blog entry.

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White House Overrides Forest Service, Allows Gas Project

White House officials have overridden a decision by the U.S. Forest Service to deny a Texas energy company's request to explore for natural gas in a national forest, according to correspondence uncovered by the Los Angeles Times. Although the Forest Service originally denied the request by El Paso Corp. two years ago, the agency made an about-face earlier this month and laid the groundwork for a future approval of the company's request to drill in the Carson National Forest, a section of New Mexico's Valle Vidal adjacent to the nation's largest Boy Scout camp.

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Foxes in the Henhouse

Coverage of the Bush administration's record of appointing industry leaders to serve in the agencies that are supposed to regulate those same industries. The Second Bush Term

Secretary of Agribusiness --from The Nation's Online Beat (12/7/04)
Jonathan Snare, OSHA: Henhouses Overstaffed with Foxes ---from Molly Ivins at Alternet

The First Bush Term

Farewell to a Few Foxes
- Spencer Abraham, Secretary of Energy: NYT
- J. Steven Griles, no. 2 at USDA: AP, WP
- Dave Lauriski, MSHA
- Ann Veneman, USDA: NYT, WP

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Mine Safety Subordinated to Mining Company Interests

A front-page story in the New York Times August 9 examined the Bush administration's record over the last four years of subordinating mine safety issues to the special interests of the mining companies, stressing in particular the role of former mining executive Dave Lauriski, who is now head of the Mine Safety and Health Administration. Among the rollbacks of mining safety protections under Lauriski's leadership:

A proposed change to allow coal-dust levels in mines to quadruple, thus putting miners at a significantly increased risk of black lung.

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OSHA, Congress Weaken Workers' Protections Against TB

According to a July 30 memo from OSHA Deputy Assistant Layne Davis to OSHA Regional Administrators, field officers for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration must contact OSHA's Enforcement Directorate before issuing a citation of violations of new respiratory protection requirements for tuberculosis. This requirement further enervates a system of safeguards that has been increasingly weakened over the past year.

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Comments on OIRA 2004 Draft Report on Regulatory Costs and Benefits

<p>Download here

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SBA Proposes, Withdraws Proposal to Change Definition of 'Small Business'

Last week the Small Business Administration retracted its proposal to alter a powerful federal designation that affects the work of almost every federal agency. Only "small businesses," designated as such by SBA, are eligible for SBA loans and roughly a fifth of federal procurement contracts. But SBA's "size standards" also grant to small business privileges to challenge agency regulations both in rulemaking and rule enforcement periods. Defenders of agency effectiveness have more at stake in the debate over the definition of small business than is immediately apparent.

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