Editor’s Note: The following is presented as part of CRE’s ongoing research and reporting on regulatory analysis around the world. For information on the UK’s centralized regulatory review system, see here.
From: OECD
From: The Hill | Congress Blog
By Sofie Miller
There’s an old adage that says, “You can’t know where you’re going unless you know where you’ve been.” Everyone from teachers to businesses routinely evaluate the results of their efforts to see if they’re paying off, so it seems natural that we would expect the federal government to do the same for its regulations. However, that’s rarely the case: While recent efforts have drawn more attention to “retrospective review” of rules, new research shows agencies still have a long way to go.
Editor’s Note: This is a poster child article that demonstrates the need for an OIRA Teaching Module to be available for use in the nation’s leading law schools. OIRA does not have a nationwide constituency capable of defending the important role it plays in the governance of the regulatory state. Informed millennials in schools of law, public policy, public administration, political science and economics could form the basis for such a constituency. It is far more effective to educate students in their formative years as opposed to attempting to re-educate them after they have formed definitive conclusions—particularly when they become employed by both an influential Congressional Committee and as a law clerk for a Senior US District Court Judge.
From: RegBlog | Penn Program on Regulation
Over the last five years, politicians have increasingly called for a major overhaul of the regulatory state as a potential solution for jump-starting the economy by freeing up the private sector to create new jobs. A research memorandum released recently by the Administrative Conference of the United States documents how members of Congress have, over the last several sessions, introduced dozens of reform bills, most of which would either strip power away from agencies or impose additional procedural strictures on the rulemaking process.
Editor’s Note: The concept of Regulatory Budgeting was pioneered at OMB, see here. Centralized regulation in the U.K. is discussed here.
From: American Action Forum
By Sam Batkins
The American Action Forum (AAF) has spent considerable time outlining the efficacy, potential benefits, and international perspectives behind a budget for federal regulation. Now, Senator Dan Sullivan (R-AK) has sponsored the “RED Tape Act of 2015” (S. 1944), which aims to install a British-style “one-in, one-out” method for regulatory accounting.
From: RegBlog | Penn Program on Regulation
What does it mean to be an “excellent” regulator? What qualities does regulatory excellence require? How is such excellence measured? And how can a regulator achieve the goal of regulatory excellence?
A new report, issued today by Penn Law professor Cary Coglianese for the Penn Program on Regulation’s Best-in-Class Regulator Initiative, answers these questions. The report culminates the Initiative’s efforts to define “regulatory excellence.” The project, commissioned by the Alberta Energy Regulator and led by Coglianese, incorporated papers from a wide range of scholars and multiple dialogues held both in Alberta and Philadelphia.
The publication of the Carter Regulatory Budget resulted in a number of subsequent actions by one or more Presidents.
Bush (1)
Jeff Rosen states:
C. George H.W. Bush Administration Regulatory Budgeting Proposals
Editor’s Note: See CRE’s 2002 Blueprint for OMB Review of Independent Agency Regulations here.
From: Truth on the Market
Last June, in Michigan v. EPA, the Supreme Court commendably recognized cost-benefit analysis as critical to any reasoned evaluation of regulatory proposals by federal agencies. (For more on the merits and limitations of this holding, see my June 29 blog.) The White House (Office of Management and Budget) office that evaluates proposed federal regulations, the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), does not, however, currently assess independent agencies’ regulations (the Heritage Foundation has argued that independent agencies should be subjected to Executive Branch regulatory review). This is most unfortunate, because the economic impact of independent agencies’ regulations (such as those promulgated by the Federal Communications Commission, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, among many other “independent” entities) is enormous.
From: Northwestern Law Review
Introduction
Cass Sunstein is the leading advocate of “nudges”—small policy interventions that yield major impacts because of behavioral quirks in the way that people process information. Such interventions form the core of Sunstein’s philosophy of “libertarian paternalism,” which seeks to improve on individuals’ decisions while preserving their freedom to choose. In Why Nudge?, Sunstein forcefully defends libertarian paternalism against John Stuart Mill’s famous Harm Principle, which holds that government should only coerce a person when it is acting to prevent harm to others. Sunstein urges that, unlike more coercive measures, nudges respect subjects’ goals, even as they reshape their choices. Using an analogy to voting paradoxes, this Review shows that reconciling multiple, inconsistent goals is a fundamentally challenging problem that leaves even deliberative individuals vulnerable to manipulation through nudges. The fact of inconsistent goals means that government regulators who deploy nudges select and impose their own objectives, instead of merely advancing the goals of the regulated. The analogy also highlights that multimember legislative bodies are subject to many of the same quirks as individuals, raising questions about the government’s ability to improve on individuals’ choices.
I strongly support the idea of a regulatory budget, but it needs to be carefully designed and implemented. As I will explain later in my testimony, we already have the functional equivalent of a regulatory budget in the form of Executive Orders issued by Presidents of both parties that are implemented by the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) within the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). That regulatory budget is well-designed and well-implemented.