The Federal Financial Forum

The third year of law school is what a student wants it to be; why not award a Diploma in Administrative Law to those who wish  to  undertake an in-depth study of the APA, the ACUS policy directives and the economic papers published by the Society for Benefit-Cost Analysis? The CRE Archives would augment the ACUS policy directives when addressing centralized regulatory review.

If you are interested in employees who are going to participate in the judicial review of federal rules, then it best you contact the law school of your choice.  However, recognizing that only a minuscule number of attorneys ever enter the aforementioned practice area, as witnessed by the fact that Administrative Law is not on the bar exam, we recommend that you broaden your search. More specifically the super majority of attorneys working on regulatory issues never visit a courtroom; instead they advise on compliance and related reporting and recordkeeping requirements.

 Editor’s Note: Conducting Benefit-Cost Analyses of federal programs traces its vintage to the passage of the Flood Control Act of 1936. It is possible that the current debate might be one of the few times that  a prolonged attention is being given to addressing income distribution in the exercise of benefit-cost analyses by either the President or the Congress since such  actions were championed by leading members of Congress during the Johnson Administration. The Administration has indicated that it is going to address income distribution in the rulemaking process. Stakeholders can either wait and comment on the Administration’s position or in the alternative  take a proactive position by making a recommendation; the purpose of this note is to lay the foundation for the latter option by soliciting the views of experts on the alternatives presented herein.

Two days after the election CRE published a paper titled: “Questions to Nominees for the Administrator of OIRA” which was distributed widely to affected parties.

Option #2 received considerable attention in that it deals with OIRA assuming a proactive role in addressing existential threats.

Option #3 at least until now, received considerably less attention. The thrust of this option is the need for OIRA to develop a multi-year, multi-agency regulatory program which is reviewed by the public, the Congress and stakeholders.

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