According to Wall Street Journal (subscription only), the FDA has been negotiating with industry to increase user fees, money paid by the drug industry to FDA ostensibly to help speed up drug approval. Small user fees were first introduced at FDA in the early 90's after industry complained that drug approval was too slow. The fees now make up over half of FDA's budget for drug reviews. Now FDA if negotiating yet another increase in these fees at closed-door meetings with industry representatives, several of them former FDA officials, according to the article:

From Earthjustice: A federal judge ruled that the Bush administration "plainly violated" the Endangered Species Act when it issued a regulation that eliminated reviews of new pesticides by federal wildlife biologists.

In a column for WorkingForChange, Bill Berkowitz compiles a pretty damning case against Susan Dudley. Berkowitz interviews a variety of advocates for public health, safety and the environment, all of whom express deep concerns about the nomination: "If Dudley is confirmed by the Senate, she will further strip them of their ability to stand up to government secrecy, politicization and corporate interests," said Public Citizen President Joan Claybrook. "Throughout her career, Dudley has consistently fought against government safeguards and advocated a radical, hands-off approach.

The White House's annual draft "regulatory accounting" report once again fails to correct enormous errors that have been pointed out repeatedly over the years. There has been a very nice improvement: finally, many of the cost-benefit analyses used in the report are identified and in some cases linked to.