OIRA@2050

From: SBA/Office of Advocacy

“I’ll let you write the substance…you let me write the procedure, and I’ll screw you every time.”

—Representative John Dingell (Hearing on H.R. 2327, Regulatory Reform Act, before the Subcomm. on Admin. Law and Governmental Regulations of the House Comm. on the Judiciary, 98th Cong. 312 [1983])

Representative Dingell’s window into the world of lawmaking is legendary in the legal profession.  And it is a truism that extends beyond just the chambers of Congress.  Most federal law is made within the federal agencies, and the rules of procedure that govern the writing and enforcement of agency-made law are part of what lawyers call “administrative law.”  It shouldn’t be a surprise that the attorneys in the Office of Advocacy’s Office of Interagency Affairs are active in this field.

From: CircleID

“EPA’s deployment of a SIEM tool did not comply with Agency requirements for deploying IT investments.”

“EPA does not have a computer security log management policy that complies with federal requirements.”

“EPA did not follow up with staff to confirm that corrective actions were taken to address known information security weaknesses. … Office of Management and Budget Circular A-123, ‘Management Accountability and Control,’ states managers are responsible for taking timely and effective actions to correct identified deficiencies.”

— EPA, Office of Inspector General, “Improvements Needed in EPA’s Network Security Monitoring Program,” Report No. 12-P-0899, September 27, 2012

From: Bloomberg/Business Week

By  Jim Snyder

Mitt Romney urged voters to reject President Barack Obama and his “job-killing” regulations. Obama’s victory last week shows many Americans aren’t as reflexively anti-Washington as Romney expected.

In fact, presidents through history who aggressively used the tools of government at their disposal have won favor, and re-election.

“The idea that there simply was a deference to private property and individual rights is one of these American myths,” said William Novak, a University of Michigan law professor who has written on regulatory history.

From: Bloomberg Opinion

By Jonathan Alter

U.S. presidents’ second terms often turn out to be failures in domestic policy, largely because lame ducks are almost by definition political figures of the past. Yet President Barack Obama’s winning coalition is aligned with the future of the country, giving him a fresh chance to lead.

To do so, he must repair his badly damaged relationship with the business community, which overwhelmingly supported Mitt Romney. It’s doable. From avoiding the so-called fiscal cliff, to an overhaul of immigration laws, to tax reform, there’s much more common ground than the combatants could acknowledge during the campaign.

From: Bloomberg View

By Cass R. Sunstein

In his interview with the Des Moines Register in Iowa, outlining his priorities for his second term, President Barack Obama made some brief remarks that received too little attention:

“I’ve expressed a deep desire and taken executive action to weed out regulations that aren’t contributing to the health and public safety of our people. And we’ve made a commitment to look back and see if there are regulations out there that aren’t working, then let’s get rid of them and see if we can clear out some of the underbrush on that. Again, that’s something that should be non-ideological.”

Editor’s Note:  The letter from the North American Securities Administrators Association (NASAA) to Sen. Lieberman and Sen. Collins is attached here.  The letter states that by requiring independent agencies “to submit proposed rules to the White House Office of Management and Budget’s Office of Information & Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) for review prior to their being finalized” the legislation “could have profound, chilling affects on the ability of independent regulatory agencies to adopt rules that effectively protect the investing public.”

From: Economic Policy Institute Blog

Daniel Costa

The impact of each presidential election on the makeup of the Supreme Court receives plenty of media attention and is analyzed extensively by experts and court watchers—and deservedly so. During the vice presidential debate, Vice President Biden predicted that the next president is likely to appoint “one or two” justices to the nation’s highest court. Although this prediction may have spooked a few of the Supreme Court justices, given that they would either have to die or retire to open a seat on the court, the election’s impact on the judiciary is a crucial consideration. Lifetime appointments for Supreme Court nominees mean they are sometimes the most enduring legacy of a president’s administration. Given that the Supreme Court is currently comprised of five conservative and four moderately progressive justices, the next administration could realistically tip the ideological balance of the court.

Editor’s Note:  The following article highlights the importance of independent agency adherence to the “good government” laws that regulate the regulators.  Ensuring such adherence is well within OMB’s authority without additional statutory authority.

From:  RegBlog

Cary Coglianese

As the size and scope of government has expanded over the last century, so too has the web of administrative law that constrains the actions of government agencies. Yet a story in last Thursday’s Wall Street Journal has raised a provocative question about the limits of administrative law: Is it possible for a federal agency to escape from the normal rules governing agency action?

From: FederalNewsRadio.com 1500AM

By Jack Moore

The chairmen of the House Oversight and Judiciary committees have writtento the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) demanding to know why the public release of a report on upcoming federal regulations is behind schedule.

OIRA publishes the Unified Agenda of Regulatory and Deregulatory Actionstwice a year — in the spring and the fall. The report provides a snapshot of regulations that agencies are considering acting upon in the next year.

But the most recent reportthe agency has published is for fall 2011.