As reported in the recent Citizens for Sensible Safeguards report Special Interest Takeover, one of the many threats to our regulatory system is the lack of enforcement of existing regulation. In recent years, the budgets for agency enforcement efforts have been slashed and personnel have been cut. The EPA's Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance, for example, has seen a reduction in staff of 12 percent, bringing its staff numbers to the lowest levels since the formation of the agency.

Citizens for Sensible Safeguards released a new report documenting a systematic attack on regulatory protections to a standing-room-only crowd at an event that featured former federal workers who have resigned in protest of that attack. The report, Special Interest Takeover: The Bush Administration and the Dismantling of Public Safeguards, was produced on behalf of Citizens for Sensible Safeguards by OMB Watch and the Center for American Progress.

The Environmental Protection Agency delayed the final adoption of new rules governing emission of the powerful neurotoxin mercury, but EPA Administrator Mike Leavitt vowed that the administration would not be withdrawing the controversial regulations despite widespread opposition. In the new timetable, the EPA will continue to accept comments on its proposed rules on emissions of mercury by power plants until March 15, 2005, and the rules will not be finally adopted until May 2005.

The White House and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) made changes to a report from the National Academy of Sciences on the toxicology of mercury, a powerful neurotoxin that is especially dangerous to pregnant women and young children. According to documents obtained by the New York Times, White House staff made editorial interventions in the report, which was commissioned by Congress to establish the science on the risks associated with mercury. The White House's alterations downplayed the risks of mercury, replaced specific enumerations of mercury-related harms with bland, general