On Jan. 30, President Obama directed Peter Orszag, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, to review the federal regulatory review process and provide him, in the next 100 days, with recommendations for a new executive order to guide such review. In other words, the recommendations should be on Obama’s desk by early May.
The meat of the memo, published in the Federal Register and reported by OMB Watch, is as follows:
Among other things, the recommendations should offer suggestions for the relationship between OIRA and the agencies; provide guidance on disclosure and transparency; encourage public participation in agency regulatory processes; offer suggestions on the role of cost-benefit analysis; address the role of distributional considerations, fairness, and concern for the interests of future generations; identify methods of ensuring that regulatory review does not produce undue delay; clarify the role of the behavioral sciences in formulating regulatory policy; and identify the best tools for achieving public goals through the regulatory process.
OIRA, you will recall, would be the agency headed up by Cass Sunstein and responsible for what Obama refers to in the memo as “centralized review.” Sunstein, of course, will have much to say in the way of “suggestions on the role of cost-benefit analysis” in the regulatory review process.
Positive notes in the listing include his continued emphasis on disclosure, transparency and public participation — a move that could show an aversion to or even be a rebuttal of the principles advanced by Cheney’s defense of his energy policy review meetings.
Also present in the memo is a rather broad understanding of what constitutes a “regulatory tool[],” including “warnings, disclosure requirements, public education, and economic incentives.” This broad understanding, it seems to me, allows for a more robust review of how the federal government could work with state regulators to tailor policies in a more effective, regional manner while remaining dedicated to an overall federal mission for regulation in an industry.
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Chris Geidner is the senior political writer at D.C.'s Metro Weekly and has written for The Atlantic Online, Advocate.com, Salon and other publications, as well as at his blog, Law Dork. Prior to moving to D.C. in 2009, he served as an attorney on the senior staff at the Ohio Attorney General's Office and had earlier worked for a leading Columbus law firm. An extended biography can be found