Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA)

EPA Delays Rule to Limit Carbon Emissions from New Power Plants

Jan 8, 2015 by Katie Weatherford

UPDATE (1/8/2015): The White House has announced that EPA will not meet today’s deadline for issuing a final rule to limit carbon dioxide emissions from new power plants. Instead, the agency will not finalize the rule until mid-summer, skirting a statutory deadline that requires EPA to finalize the rule within one year of its proposal. On a press call Jan.

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New Report: Big Business Gaming the Rules Against Public Protections and Small Businesses

Nov 18, 2014 by Katie Weatherford

On Nov. 12, the Center for Effective Government released a new report finding that trade associations and their big business members are hijacking small business advisory panels that are part of the regulatory process. The panels are intended for small businesses to provide direct, early input to federal agencies about forthcoming health, safety, environmental, and consumer financial protections, but we found that small business voices are being drowned out.

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Delayed Health and Safety Standards Cost Lives

Mar 13, 2014 by Katherine McFate

On Tuesday, I testified at a hearing of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee's Subcommittee on the Efficiency and Effectiveness of Federal Programs and the Federal Workforce about why critical health and safety standards were being delayed and how we could improve the timeliness and transparency of the rulemaking process. A condensed version of my oral testimony follows, along with a link to my written testimony.

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House Republicans Return to Attacking Public Health and Environmental Protections

This week, the House of Representatives will vote on a series of anti-regulatory proposals during a campaign targeting important public health and environmental safeguards. While House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) has dubbed the campaign #StopGovtAbuse Week, the proposed legislation is in fact designed to delay or halt the rulemaking process by adding time-consuming and redundant procedural hurdles, by providing regulated industries additional opportunities to delay the process, and by stripping away the public's right to petition agencies when they fail to act.

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Rules to Watch (and Wait) for in 2014

Just before Thanksgiving, the White House quietly released the 2013 Unified Agenda, which contains information on a broad range of upcoming regulatory actions, as well as agencies’ regulatory plans detailing the most important significant regulatory and deregulatory actions they expect to propose or finalize during the coming year. On Jan. 7, agencies published in the Federal Register their regulatory flexibility agendas describing a subset of regulatory actions under development that may have a significant economic impact on a substantial number of small entities. While some important health and safety rules are slated to move forward, the Unified Agenda indicates that many long-awaited actions will not advance as proposed or final rules this year.

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Senate Subcommittee Hearing to Examine Costs of Regulatory Delay

Jul 31, 2013 by Katie Greenhaw

Tomorrow, the Senate Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Oversight, Federal Rights, and Agency Action will hold its first hearing on regulatory policy. The hearing, titled "Justice Delayed: The Human Cost of Regulatory Paralysis," will examine the important benefits of public protections and the very real costs of regulatory delay.

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With New Leader in Place, EPA Can Recommit to Its Environmental Agenda

On July 18, the Senate confirmed Gina McCarthy to lead the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), ending a 136-day delay. Nominated by President Obama in March, McCarthy was finally cleared by a bipartisan vote of 59-40.

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Success of EPA Climate Standards Will Depend on White House Support

Jul 26, 2013 by Katie Greenhaw

Back in June, President Obama announced a bold plan to address climate change. Now that Gina McCarthy has finally been confirmed as the administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), advocates are counting on the agency to move quickly on the president's promises.

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Congressional Briefing Debunks Anti-Regulatory Myths Behind "Reform" Bills

Last week, members of the House hosted an expert panel discussion to set the record straight on recurring anti-regulatory myths and dangerous legislative proposals. Aptly titled "Anti-Regulatory Myths: What Regulatory Critics Don't Tell You," the congressional briefing highlighted the importance of much-needed safeguards and debunked the most common misconceptions surrounding the regulatory process and the impacts of rules.

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Return of the Regulatory Accountability Act: A Veiled Threat to Public Protections

On May 23, Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) reintroduced the Regulatory Accountability Act (RAA), a serious threat to environmental standards, workplace safety rules, public health, and financial reform regulations. The Regulatory Accountability Act of 2013, (S. 1029, and its counterpart in the House, H.R. 2122), is the latest version of a bill first introduced in 2011 and then again in 2012. The seemingly innocuous legislation is a drastic overhaul of the Administrative Procedure Act that would undermine the regulatory process. Advertised by its sponsors as a bipartisan proposal to improve rulemaking, the RAA would actually do the opposite.

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