By now, we all know President Bush's recent changes to the regulatory process will further bottleneck federal regulatory policy in an attempt to help regulated industries escape new obligations. Specifically, changes regarding agency guidance documents will force those interpretive memos (often only suggestions) through a burdensome and unnecessary White House review process. For a preview of the nightmare the American public will face when these changes take effect (July 24), take a look at an article from BNA news service (subscription) published today. The article chronicles two guidance documents OMB has been sitting on for months. EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers jointly developed the guidance documents which concern wastewater processing. The story exemplifies a concern OMB Watch has expressed: businesses and communities often need direct clarifications from the federal government in order to operate with the utmost legality, safety and effectiveness. From BNA: Since January, environmental advocates, wastewater utility officials, and home builders have been asking both agencies, as well as OMB, when the guidance documents will be issued. "It's a mystery," Virginia Albrecht, an attorney with Hunton & Williams who has represented the National Association of Home Builders and the National Mining Association, told BNA May 3. Albrecht said the corps has a jurisdictional backlog of 20,000 cases, all awaiting final guidance. "The corps needs the guidance to do their job and they are frustrated," she added. EPA and the Corps chose to submit these guidance documents to OMB. Come July 24, agencies will no longer have that choice. This is the kind of delay agencies will have to grapple with. OMB refuses to indicate when it will complete review of these guidance documents, according to the article. Meanwhile, wastewater facilities will have to deal with uncertainty, and the American public will be put at risk.