The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released new guidelines for assessing cancer risk March 29 after years of deliberation. These guidelines officially recognize for the first time that children are particularly vulnerable to certain cancer-causing chemicals. However, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), while reviewing the guidelines, inserted two requirements, including that any EPA cancer evaluation meet the standards of the Data Quality Act (DQA), which will have the effect of putting more children at risk.

Just three months after touting an interim rule controlling Listeria in ready-to-eat meats as a "regulatory reform accomplishment," the White House added that same rule to a list of regulations to be weakened or eliminated. Corporate special interests nominated the Listeria rule for rollbacks in response to a call from the White House's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, which used its annual draft report on the costs and benefits of regulations last February to request industry's nominations for regulatory protections to be weakened or eliminated.

A federal appeals court has ruled that the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA), an open government statute designed to guarantee that committees advising federal agencies are not biased, does not create a private right of action.

The Annenberg Public Policy Center has published new research examining legislative issue ads, focusing on the Washington, DC, area during the 108th Congress. They found "Corporate interests outspent citizen/cause interests by more than five to one," and that advertising on many issues was one-sided. Not surprisingly, the side that spent more was more likely to have a favorable outcome.