April 23, 2013

Agencies don’t report cross-agency GPRA goals, but OMB doesn’t explicitly require them, GAO report says

From: FierceGovernment

By Ryan McDermott

Agencies don’t report how they work together to achieve shared goals, or  goals that could use resources from other agencies, as required by the  Government Performance and Results Modernization Act, because Office of  Management and Budget rules for reporting don’t make that requirement clear, an  April 19 Government Accountability Office report (.pdf)  says.

That lack of information could hinder efforts to eliminate duplication and  overlap.

April 19, 2013

Lessons From France

From: The Washington Post

Overload of Regulatory do’s and don’ts stifiling France’s growth, critics say

By Edward Cody

ALBARET-SAINTE-MARIE, FRANCE — Although he is rich with 25 years of experience as mayor of this little town in the wooded hills of central France, Michel Therond gets advice from the bureaucrats in Paris almost every time he opens the mail.

One day’s delivery brings a directive stipulating that the sidewalks must be widened to permit two wheelchairs to cross paths without bumping. Another says the school cafeteria must be made accessible by elevator. Trees must be trimmed of branches six feet up their trunks, the orders go, and only government-certified technicians can change a light bulb on city property.

April 18, 2013

President Obama’s Budget Sets Regulatory Priorities Too

From: RegBlog

Sam Batkins

The long-awaited release of President Obama’s budget will once again ignite debate in Washington, D.C. over the nation’s spending priorities.  But the budget is more than a roadmap for federal spending; it also emphasizes the administration’s regulatory priorities.

In the budget, the administration touts its lodestar Executive Order 13,356 on regulatory reform, arguing that “the Administration carefully weighs the costs and benefits of rules – not by reducing difficult questions to problems of arithmetic, but by carefully weighing economic effects and also by taking into account qualitative factors, including fairness and human dignity.”

SEC Guidance on Social Media and Business Disclosures Stirs Controversy

From: RegBlog

Could social media sites such as Facebook or Twitter soon become a tool for tracking investment news?  Possibly, according to the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC), which announced last week that corporations may use social media sites to make business announcements without violating disclosure rules.

The recent SEC guidance states that making business announcements via social media sites does not violate the Regulation Fair Disclosure rule, also known as RegFD, provided corporations give shareholdersprior notice concerning which specific social media sites they will use to make disclosures.

April 16, 2013

White House finalizes national ocean policy

Editor’s Note: The National Ocean Council’s National Ocean Policy Implementation Plan is attached here.  The Appendix to the Implementation Plan is attached here.  The White House’s Press Release “Plan to Promote Ocean Economy and Resilience” is available here.

From: The Washington Post

Posted by Juliet Eilperin

The White House on Tuesday issued its final plan for managing the world’s oceans, outlining a strategy that aims to coordinate the work of more than two dozen agencies and reconcile competing interests including fishing, offshore energy exploration and recreational activities.

The CFPB’s Consumer Complaint Database and the Data Quality Act

Editor’s Note:  How does the CFPB perform it’s pre-dissemination review, mandated by OMB in its government-wide Information Quality Guidelines, to verify the quality of the third-party information it is disseminating?

From: RegBlog

CFPB Debuts an Expanded Consumer Complaint Database

Lauren-Kelly Devine

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has announced the addition of over 90,000 consumer financial complaints to its online database.

The agency recently unveiled the expanded database, citing the need to provide consumers with more information about products and services before making important financial decisions.  However, representatives from the banking industry have heavily criticized the public availability of the data.  They fear unwarranted reputational damage, noting that complaints are not fully verified by the agency before being released.

April 12, 2013

Regulations.Gov Should Be Controlled by the Federal Register and it Should Include the Administrative Record

Editor’s Note: For a perspective on Regulations.gov and the Federal Register from a Public Member of the Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS), please see here and here.  With respect to the Sunlight Foundation’s observation that exclusion of independent agencies from the regulatory review Executive Order harms transparency, the NGO is correct.  For more information on the President’s unquestionable authority to require OMB review of independent agecnies, please see here.

From: Sunlight Foundation

Regulations.gov Continues to Improve, but Still Has Potential for Growth

by Andrew Pendleton

April 11, 2013

The Federal Reserve’s Expanding Regulatory Umbrella

From: Mercatus Center/George Mason University

Hester Peirce, Robert Greene

The Federal Reserve’s performance as a regulator in the years leading up to the 2007–08 crisis earned it widespread criticism. In the wake of the crisis, its fate as a regulator was uncertain as Congress considered regulatory reforms. Some reform proposals would have substantially diminished the Federal Reserve’s regulatory role, but the financial reform ultimately signed into law in July 2010—Dodd- Frank—instead increased the Federal Reserve’s regulatory power.

April 9, 2013

Rule implementing U.S. sugar purchases under OMB review

From: Agri-Pulse

USDA appears to be readying itself to implement the Flexible Feedstocks Program (FFP) to sell surplus domestic sugar supplies to ethanol producers.

A rule to implement the FFP has been submitted by USDA to the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, which has 90 days to review the measure.

The program was authorized by the 2008 Farm Bill to help avoid forfeitures to the Commodity Credit Corporation. Never before used, the program authorizes USDA to purchase as much U.S.-produced sugar as necessary to maintain market prices above support levels, and then sell the excess sugar to bioenergy producers for processing into ethanol.

April 4, 2013

OMB makes cuts to FSMA regulatory package

From: Shook Hardy & Bacon LLP

Mark Anstoetter and Madeleine McDonough

According to news sources, the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) removed some provisions from the regulatory implementation package that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) proposed under the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA). Analysis of documents submitted to the rulemaking docket apparently reveals that the following requirements were removed from the draft rules submitted for OMB review: (i) company programs to monitor the environment for pathogens, (ii) finished product testing for pathogens, (iii) the assumption that pathogens found on food contact materials are also in the food, (iv) a supplier approval and verification program, (v) company review of consumer safety complaints, and (vi) FDA authority to copy company records. See Food Politics and Law360, March 25, 2013.