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Sunday, August 15, 2004

Law - More on Bush administration regulatory policy

The Washington Post today begins a three-part series analyzing the Bush administration's regulatory policy. Today's story is headlined "Bush Forces a Shift In Regulatory Thrust: OSHA Made More Business-Friendly." As detailed within today's story, which focuses on OSHA:

The changes within OSHA since George W. Bush took office illustrate the way that this administration has used the regulatory process to redirect the course of government.

To examine this process, The Washington Post explored the Bush administration's approach to regulation from three perspectives. This article about OSHA traces the impact on one regulatory agency. Tomorrow's story will look at a lobbyist's 32-line, last-minute addition to a bill that created a tool for attacking the science used to support new regulations. Tuesday's article will document a one-word change in a regulation that allowed coal companies to accelerate efforts to strip away the tops of thousands of Appalachian mountains.

The Post also analyzed a database from the Office of Management and Budget containing the 38,000 regulatory actions considered by agencies over the past two decades.

The analysis, combined with the more detailed look at specific regulatory decisions, shows how an administration can employ this subtle aspect of presidential power to implement far-reaching policy changes. Most of the decisions are made without the public attention that accompanies congressional debate. Under Bush, these decisions have spanned logging in national forests, patients' rights in government health insurance programs, tests for tainted packaged meats, Indian land transactions and grants to religious charities.

Three entries down you will find a NY Times story, also on this topic.

[Update 8/16/04] Today's (Monday's) story is titled "'Data Quality' Law Is Nemesis Of Regulation.". A Quote:

The Data Quality Act -- written by an industry lobbyist and slipped into a giant appropriations bill in 2000 without congressional discussion or debate -- is just two sentences directing the OMB to ensure that all information disseminated by the federal government is reliable. But the Bush administration's interpretation of those two sentences could tip the balance in regulatory disputes that weigh the interests of consumers and businesses.

John D. Graham, administrator of the OMB Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), who has directed implementation of the Data Quality Act, said the law will keep the federal government hewing to "sound science." He said the act, which allows people and companies to challenge government information they believe is inaccurate, is equally accessible to "a wide diversity of interests, both in the business community and in the consumer, environmental and conservation communities."

But many consumers, conservationists and worker advocates say the act is inherently biased in favor of industry. By demanding that government use only data that have achieved a rare level of certainty, these critics maintain, the act dismisses scientific information that in the past would have triggered tighter regulation.

A Washington Post analysis of government records indicates that in the first 20 months since the act was fully implemented, it has been used predominantly by industry. Setting aside the many Data Quality Act petitions filed to correct narrow typographical or factual errors in government publications or Web sites, the analysis found 39 petitions with potentially broad economic, policy or regulatory impact. Of those, 32 were filed by regulated industries, business or trade organizations or their lobbyists. Seven were filed by environmental or citizen groups. Some environmental groups are boycotting the act, adding to the imbalance in its use.

Tuesday's story, the last in this three-part series, will be headlined "A Word Accelerates Mountaintop Mining." Check back here for the link. A preview:
By changing the word "waste" to "fill" in a regulation covering coal mining, Bush appointees have allowed an increase in the destruction of mountaintops in Appalachia.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on August 15, 2004 01:53 PM
Posted to Administrative Law & Decisions | General Law Related