…the same energy and skills which have produced quantitative gains in our economy must be used to improve the environment and to enhance the quality of life.
— President Richard M. Nixon; April 9, 1970
 
We can and must design a regulatory system that rewards enterprise and ensures that the American quality of life is guaranteed for future generations.
— Coalition for Sensible Safeguards; June 2013

The crucial difference between the former and later statements is that President Nixon, through OMB Director George Shultz, established the detailed management and analytic procedures to necessary to reward enterprise and ensure “that the American quality of life is guaranteed for future generations.”

The Coalition for Sensible Safeguards, a group of unions and NGOs, by contrast, offers similar goals as President Nixon but without providing comparable substance.  Instead, CSS has issued a report which favors diminishing the opportunities for public involvement in the administrative and judicial processes for reviewing regulations and in the analyses of regulatory consequences, i.e., determining what a proposed regulation would mean for Americans’ quality of life.

Fortunately, consistent with the regulatory objectives and centralized review processes of all seven of his immediate predecessors, President Obama has demanded a regulatory system that protects “public health, welfare, safety, and our environment while promoting economic growth, innovation, competitiveness, and job creation.”

The CSS report, Down the Regulatory Rabbit Hole, is available here.