MEDIA ALERT: Tuesday, February 1, 2004 Contacts:    J. Robert Shull, OMB Watch, (202) 234-8494 (ext. 276)    Rob Perks, Natural Resources Defense Council, (202) 289-2420 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.” There are two key events to watch for:

1. The White House has announced that its budget release next week will include two proposals for overhauling government programs and forcing them to fight for their lives every ten years. (Click here for the White House press release.)
2. The Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) within the White House’s Office of Management and Budget will also be announcing some time this month its “regulatory reform priorities,” compiled from an industry-generated hit list of regulatory protections to be weakened or destroyed. (Click here for more on the industry hit list.)

Plans for selling out our safeguards to corporate special interests picked up pace in December, when President Bush convened an economic summit at which he cited “regulatory reform” as a prime objective for his second term. “America has a growing, dynamic and changing economy…the economy remains handicapped by unnecessary tax and regulatory burdens…[T]he president wants to streamline regulations and reduce paperwork.” (Click here for the White House fact sheet.) To this end, the White House Office of Management & Budget reportedly has been coordinating secretly with industry interests to brainstorm anti-regulatory strategies. The man behind these plans is Dr. John Graham, head of OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA). Graham founded and formerly headed the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis, an industry-funded think thank that routinely advocated against regulatory protections. He is one of the chief architects of some of the most environmentally destructive legislation ever to be considered by the U.S. Congress. His schemes date back to Newt Gingrich’s “Contract With America,” which included so-called regulatory relief bills that would have fundamentally undermined the ability of government agencies to issue health and safety standards by imposing costly and time-consuming procedures. In his current capacity, Graham has used the power of the White House to insert cost-benefit hurdles to indefinitely delay or substantially weaken protective rules and regulations. Click here for more details on Graham’s background and his involvement in this issue, and here for more about Graham’s meetings with industry. Click here for a helpful overview of the regulatory “reform” battles to come in Congress. Meantime, feel free to contact NRDC or OMB Watch for more details. Additional background information is available at www.ombwatch.org/regs/InCongress. ###