OIRA@2050

From: Bloomberg

By Lisa Lerer

When President Barack Obama delivers his State of the Union address on Tuesday night, the biggest question he’ll face will be how to get an ambitious second-term agenda through a divided Congress.

The answer: Go around it.

On climate change, gun control, gay rights, and even immigration, the White House has signaled a willingness to circumvent lawmakers through the use of presidential power. Already, plans are being laid to unleash new executive orders, regulations, signing statements and memorandums designed to push Obama’s programs forward and cement his legacy, according to administration aides and allies.

From: Jurist/Sidebar Brief

Joseph Marren, President and Chief Executive Officer of KStone Partners LLC, in a continuance of a previous piece, reviews the history of financial reporting by the federal government.

From: Routledge/Taylor & Francis

By Michelle C. Pautz, Sara R. Rinfret

When we think about environmental policy and regulation in the U.S., our attention invariably falls on the federal level and, more specifically, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.  Although such a focus is understandable, it neglects the actors most responsible for the implementation and maintenance of the nation’s environmental laws – the states.  Recognition of the importance of the states still ignores an even smaller subsection of actors, inspectors.  These front-line actors in state environmental agencies are the individuals responsible for writing environmental rules and ensuring compliance with those rules.  They play an important role in the environmental regulatory state.

From: Politico

By: Darren Goode

Who will help President Barack Obama meet his ambitious promises to tackle climate change?

Eco-celebrities and tree-climbing protesters need not apply. This is a job for wonks.

The president’s top climate appointees and the outside advisers best positioned to shape his agenda are a team replete with heavy hitters — including green-minded business leaders, buttoned-down environmental lobbyists and bureaucrats who have spent years wrestling with the minutiae of regulations.

At the outset, the group might be light in executives from the industries that would be most affected. Some of the CEOs the administration drew support from during Obama’s first term are leaving the business or moving on to other things.

From: Deseret News

By Matthew Sanders

How valuable is your time? Can you afford to lose some of it?

Throughout history we’ve observed markets emerge that help match up buyers and sellers. The New York Stock Exchange for shares of businesses, Chicago Board of Trade for commodities like food, metals and energy, and more recently eBay and Groupon for spot deals on consumer goods help make market matchmaking much more efficient and buyers and sellers happier.

Editor’s Note:  Chief Counsel for Advocacy Dr. Winslow Sargeant and his staff of skilled professionals deserve the gratitude of small businesses for their hard work in serving as “an independent voice for small business within the federal government… and [as] the watchdog for the Regulatory Flexibility Act (RFA).”  The Office of Advocacy plays an important role in making the regulatory system work better for all Americans. 

From: Government Executive

By Charles S. Clark

An independent office within the Small Business Administration has worked to block health, safety and environmental regulations on behalf of small and large businesses without appropriate technical expertise, two new studies have charged.

From: OpenMarket.org/CEI

by Wayne Crews

Regulations notwithstanding, the off-budget costs of tax compliance for individuals and businesses are said to account for most of the federal paperwork burden, although there might increasingly be cause to question that assumption given growing paperwork-heavy regulation in health care and finance.

In any event, for present purposes, government paperwork costs associated with regulation are presumably (but in actual fact perhaps not likely) accounted for in the Regulatory Impact Analyses for particular executive agency rules, and thus already reflected captured in OMB Costs and Benefits reports; however, again, here only major or economically significant rules and those cited as having a notable impact on small business get counted. So the paperwork associated with the bulk of rules may not be well tabulated.

Editor’s Note:  As is true for all other government polices, regulations needs to be driven by metrics and quality data.

From: The Wall Street Journal

Bill Gates

From the fight against polio to fixing education, what’s missing is often good measurement and a commitment to follow the data. We can do better. We have the tools at hand.

We can learn a lot about improving the 21st-century world from an icon of the industrial era: the steam engine.

Editor’s Note:  The author’s conclusion is, in essence, that the government can no longer afford the time and resources to assess the consequences of its actions before acting.  A more prudent view is that climate change should not be the next Iraq — the most significant recent example of the government failing to apply independent cost-benefit analysis before making a major policy decision.

From: RegBlog

David M. Driesen

From: U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works

Agencies are required by law to inform the public and Congress of anticipated regulations, EPA missing deadlines by long shot

U.S. Sen. David Vitter (R-La.), Ranking Member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, today called out the Obama Administration for not meeting obligations of informing the public and Congress of its regulatory agenda. Specifically, Vitter wants answers from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) who failed to release their mandated regulatory flexibility agenda for an unprecedented eight months.