The Administrative State Has Run Amok

Jun 26

From: The Regulatory Review | A Publication of the Penn Program on Regulation

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In my original essay, I encouraged the use of four regulatory best practices that, among others, could improve the regulatory work product from CPSC and agencies across the federal government. These included:

  1. Requiring honesty from agencies in their regulatory agendas, so that those who are not Washington insiders are not forced to comb through obscure agency documents to know how their tax dollars are being spent.
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Regulatory Analysis Requirements Reduce Political Influence

Jun 22

From: Regulation and Governance

Regulatory Analysis Procedures and Political Influence on Bureaucratic Policymaking

Neal D. Woods

Abstract

Well-known theories suggest that administrative procedures may be used as mechanisms of political control of the bureaucracy. This study investigates whether three common regulatory analysis procedures—cost-benefit analysis, risk assessment, and economic impact analysis—lead to greater influence by political officials on bureaucratic policymaking. Multivariate analyses of data from a unique survey of state administrators indicate that regulatory analysis requirements are associated with decreases in the perceived influence of elected political officials on the content of administrative rules. This association is particularly evident in cases where proposed rules are subjected to a cost–benefit test. These findings contradict prominent theories of administrative procedures, but are consistent with recent research on the political power of administrative agencies.

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Sticky Regulations

Jun 15

From: SSRN

University of Chicago Law Review, Forthcoming

BYU Law Research Paper No. 17-11

53 Pages Posted: 13 Apr 2017

Aaron Nielson

Brigham Young University – J. Reuben Clark Law School

Abstract

Administrative law is often said to present a dilemma. On one hand, all three branches of the federal government have crafted procedures to facilitate public participation in the regulatory process and to ensure that the benefits of regulations outweigh their costs. But on the other hand, such procedures have a price — they delay administrative action and sometimes thwart it altogether. In fact, marching under the banner of “ossification,” an entire literature has formed around the idea that there are too many procedures and that administrative law should be transformed to speed up the regulatory process.

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The OIRA Hall of Fame Library: Introductions By Political Scientists, Historians, Economists and Sociologists

Jun 08

  

 Three Controlling Disciplines  

 

                                                                          June 2017

This publication is the first time in the nearly half century of centralized regulatory review that the treatises, Archives, Reference Library, Histories and continuous updates thereto (OIRA Hall of Fame Library) that lead its creation have been  made available in one location. These work products are being made available to researchers at no cost in order to provide a platform for their informing the American public of the impact that centralized regulator review has on their daily activities. Hopefully current visitors to this website including Congressional and judicial staff, members of the press, federal regulators and a wide range of academic scholars will continue to benefit from the material presented herein.  Researchers are invited to visit the OIRA Reference Library which contains thousands of pages of source material on OIRA which is updated daily by CRE staff.

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