PRESS RELEASE
-For Immediate Release-
March 15, 2007

Contact: Brian Gumm, (202) 234-8494, bgumm@ombwatch.org

New Report Shows Downfalls of Recent Changes to Federal Regulatory Process
Bush Executive Order Further Concentrates Power in the White House

WASHINGTON, March 15, 2007—OMB Watch today issued a new report on President George W. Bush's changes to the federal regulatory process. The report, A Failure to Govern, starkly illustrates how these changes could further reduce agency discretion, undermine the role of Congress in setting regulatory direction, and lead to dangerous delays in issuing important public protections.

Executive Order 13422, issued by Bush on Jan. 18, amends the current language of Executive Order 12866, and the Final Bulletin for Agency Good Guidance Practices, issued by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) on the same day, describes OMB's process for reviewing agencies' guidance documents for the first time. These documents mark the first significant changes to the regulatory process since Executive Order 12866 was written in 1993.

"These changes will lead to significant delays in issuing regulations that protect public health, work place safety, and the environment," Rick Melberth, Director of Regulatory Policy at OMB Watch, predicted. "This is another significant administration attack on regulations. Industry representatives oversee agencies, science is being manipulated, and now regulations will be strangled at the source with political appointees sitting in the agencies."

A Failure to Govern highlights the major changes to the regulatory system, which include:

• Regulatory Policy Officer — The regulatory policy officer in each agency will now be a political appointee, with the responsibility for initiating regulations and shepherding the process through the agency. This means regulations cannot be initiated by the experts within the agencies but will be controlled by someone whose job depends on the will of the White House.
• Market Failure Analysis — Adding a market failure criterion shifts the priority for promulgating regulations from the identification of a problem like health and safety hazards to narrow economic concerns. This adds another layer of analysis agencies must perform and may lead to further delays in issuing regulations.
• New Powers Over Guidance Documents — Guidance documents — the broad range of documents agencies use to provide advice to their employees and the regulated community — will now be reviewed and approved by OMB before they can be issued. This formal review process will likely lead to further delays in disseminating important, helpful information.
• Aggregating Costs and Benefits — Agencies are required to provide totals of the costs and benefits of their proposed regulations each year "to assist with the identification of priorities." This apples-to-oranges comparison provides no useful information to policymakers and is likely to be used to further attack regulations.

As the report notes, the regulatory process changes become effective in late July. OMB Watch encourages Congress to keep a close eye on the implementation directives OMB issues and on the impacts these changes have for public health and safety.

The full text of A Failure to Govern is available at /files/regs/PDFs/FailuretoGovern.pdf.

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