Citizen Health & Safety

EPA Ignores Cost-Benefit Analysis on Mercury Rule

Mar 22, 2005 by Guest Blogger

From the Washington Post: When the Environmental Protection Agency unveiled a rule last week to limit mercury emissions from U.S. power plants, officials emphasized that the controls could not be more aggressive because the cost to industry already far exceeded the public health payoff. What they did not reveal is that a Harvard University study paid for by the EPA, co-authored by an EPA scientist and peer-reviewed by two other EPA scientists had reached the opposite conclusion.

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Appeals Court Rejects Right of Action in Open Government Law

A federal appeals court has ruled that the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA), an open government statute designed to guarantee that committees advising federal agencies are not biased, does not create a private right of action.

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Is Cost-Benefit Analysis Needed?

Cost-benefit analysis (CBA) is often touted by the administration and conservative think tanks as a neutral tool in policymaking, but recent studies by legal scholars show that CBA is inherently political and may even advise against what we consider our most immutable public protections. Three recent articles examine the neutrality of CBA both in theory and in practice and analyze the arguments of CBA's greatest proponents. This analysis reviews those articles and critiques CBA as a regulatory tool.

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Bill for DHS to Waive All Law Rides on Iraq War Supplemental

The House of Representatives voted to attach H.R. 418, the REAL ID Act — a bill that includes a dangerous provision empowering the Secretary of Homeland Security to waive all law when securing the nation’s borders — as a rider to the Iraq war supplemental, which passed the House and now is moving to the Senate. The House decided on March 16 to attach H.R. 418 as a rider by voice vote and subsequently voted out the must-pass supplemental with a vote of 388-43.

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House Committee Approves Government Performance Rating Bill

The House Government Reform Committee favorably reported out of committee the Program Assessment and Results Act, a bill that would have the effect of codifying the administration's controversial tool for rating program effectiveness. The bill is expected to move to the House floor this spring. The committee voted 18-14 to send the bill to the House floor during a March 10 markup session, after rejecting every amendment offered by committee Democrats.

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White House Endorses Parts of Anti-Regulatory Hit List

The White House released the final version of its 2004-05 anti-regulatory hit list, with a report detailing 76 out of 189 items from the industry-nominated list that received the endorsement of the White House and agencies.

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GOP Threatens to Turn ‘Unfunded Mandates’ Into Roadblock

Republican lawmakers in both the House and the Senate have fired the first shots in an upcoming battle to turn the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act into an insurmountable obstacle to legislation designed to address unmet needs. House Republicans fired first by launching a series of hearings, and Senate Republicans followed up with an under-the-radar section in the budget resolution that uses UMRA to make it harder to pass laws such as an increase in minimum wage or improvements in civil rights protections.

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Data Quality Act Debated

Data Quality Act experts, featuring OMB Watch’s Sean Moulton, will be debating the faults and merits of the Data Quality Act (DQA) at a March 30 discussion hosted by the Environmental Law Institute (ELI). Among the law’s aspects to be discussed are judicial review, and its implications for environmental protections.

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