OMB's controversial hit list of regulatory protections to be weakened or eliminated was debated today before the Regulatory Affairs Subcommittee of the House Government Reform Committee. (Read testimony by Public Citizen's Joan Claybrook here.) Although Rep. Candice Miller insisted that regulations protecting workers, consumers, and the environment are somehow driving the auto industry to bankruptcy, the scholarly evidence compels a different conclusion: as we noted in comments on an OMB report, the best available evidence is that regulations actually stimulate the economy by inducing firms to discover more efficient operations and by leveling the playing field so that good corporate citizens aren't penalized for making safer, cleaner products. (If anything's harming manufacturers, it isn't regulatory safeguards... but it might be something else.)