Political Interference | Center for Effective Government

Disclosure at the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs: Written Comments and Telephone Records Suspiciously Absent

In 1981, President Reagan signed an executive order charging the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) with reviewing all economically significant rules and rejecting those that did not pass a strict cost-benefit test. Supporters of environmental, consumer, and worker protection standards have long criticized the office for failing to make its analyses public. Moreover, the office has a reputation for meeting with industry interests behind closed doors and for engaging in intrusive back-and-forth exchanges with agencies over proposed rules. This often results in the office delaying, watering down, or blocking new standards and safeguards.

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Sponsors of the Independent Agency Regulatory Analysis Act Try to Slip Bill in Under the Radar

The Independent Agency Regulatory Analysis Act (S. 3468), introduced on Aug. 1 by Sens. Mark Warner (D-VA), Rob Portman (R-OH), and Susan Collins (R-ME), may appear to be just another item in the string of anti-regulatory legislation considered, but not enacted, by the 112th Congress. Unfortunately, because it boasts both Democratic and Republican co-sponsors, it appears to be heading straight to mark-up within the Senate's Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee (HSGAC).

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Vote Imminent on House Bill that Would Shut Down Safeguards

The House will vote later this week on the misleadingly titled "Red Tape Reduction and Small Business Job Creation Act." The bill is a brazen attempt to shut down the system of public safeguards that protects our air, water, food, consumer products, and economy and would do nothing to create jobs.

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EPA Drops Rule to Require Basic Information on Agricultural Sources of Water Pollution

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently announced that it was withdrawing a proposed rule that would have required Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) to report basic information to the agency. CAFOs are livestock facilities or farms that confine large numbers of animals and do not grow crops on the land. The concentrated waste from these operations can contaminate groundwater supplies as it sinks into the earth. The rule in question would have required CAFO owners to provide information on operations that could result in water pollution. By dropping the rule, EPA appears to have succumbed to pressure from the agricultural community to limit transparency and citizens' rights to a healthy water supply.

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Federal Government Increases Online Access to Conflict-of-Interest Data

On March 22, the U.S. Senate passed the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act, or STOCK Act, which will put thousands of disclosures from congressional and executive branch officials online for the first time. President Obama will sign the legislation into law on April 4. Many state governments already provide some online access to similar disclosures, and others, such as Maryland, are considering following suit.

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Doing Little, Changing Everything: EPA's Carbon Pollution Standard for New Power Plants

Nearly five years after the U.S. Supreme Court directed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to determine whether carbon dioxide should be regulated as a "pollutant" under the Clean Air Act, the agency finally issued a proposed standard for carbon emissions from newly constructed power plants.

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The Regulatory Freeze Act: Legislation to Make the World More Dangerous and the Economy Weaker

The so-called Regulatory Freeze for Jobs Act, reported out of the House Judiciary Committee earlier today, is the clearest example yet of just how broken the national debate on public protections has become. This bill is ostensibly about getting Americans back to work, but the bill contains no provisions to address unemployment. Instead, it would gut the system of public protections that underpins our entire economy.

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States Releasing Information Online that Can Ensure Public Official Accountability

On March 19, OMB Watch released a new report that evaluates state and federal websites designed to ensure the accountability of public officials. The report, Upholding the Public's Trust: Key Features for Effective State Accountability Websites, examines state efforts to release public officials' integrity information online. Such transparency is crucial to guard against self-dealing and patronage. While states and the federal government have made progress in this area, more work lies ahead.

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Worker Safety Rule Under Review at OIRA for Over a Year: A Tale of Rulemaking Delay

This year, Feb. 14 signified more than a Valentine’s Day celebration for worker safety advocates. Last Tuesday marked the one-year anniversary of the regulatory review of a proposed rule issued by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) that would strengthen standards for protecting workers from crystalline silica, a known human carcinogen that is linked to fatalities and disabling illnesses such as silicosis.

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Cutting to the Heart of Nonprofits' Political Activities

A leak of documents allegedly produced by the Heartland Institute, a libertarian think tank organized as a 501(c)(3) institution, is just the latest contribution to the controversy surrounding politically active nonprofit organizations as the 2012 elections approach.

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