OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) is instructing federal agencies to evaluate hundreds of regulatory recommendations submitted by outside parties as part of its new annual report on the costs and benefits of regulation. These recommendations, the majority of which come from industry or trade associations, heavily target health, safety and environmental protections. Together, the Department of Transportation, Department of Labor, and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) received 155 recommendations, including suggested reforms of guidance documents. Of the 267 total regulatory recommendations, 52.8 percent advise changes to relax regulation, or in OIRA’s words “increase flexibility,” and 7.8 percent recommend repealing regulation, while roughly a quarter argue for stronger regulation. OMB Watch will put out a more detailed analysis of specific recommendations in the coming weeks. Last year -- the first time OIRA asked for recommendations on specific rules -- OIRA ranked the 71 recommendations it received in terms of “high priority,” “medium priority,” and “low priority.” This year, with the dramatic increase in recommendations, OIRA gives no rankings, but says it will consult with agencies during the evaluation period to determine what recommendations merit action. On the surface, this may seem relatively benign: OIRA is just passing along a few recommendations. Yet these recommendations are being used as a primary tool for ranking regulatory priorities. OIRA is serving as a conduit for a mostly industry wish list, and demanding that agencies evaluate it -- with OIRA’s guidance, of course. In addition, the Small Business Administration’s Office of Advocacy will be closely involved in evaluating each proposal and choosing priorities, according to OIRA’s report, which is not encouraging given its long track record of opposing strong health, safety and environmental protection. Because of the report’s wide-open nature, OIRA generally received just one set of comments for each regulation, expressing one set of views (as predicted in OMB Watch’s comments on OIRA’s draft report). This is hardly a sound foundation for priority setting. Outside parties have no way of knowing whether a rule they are interested in might be submitted to OIRA, and subjected to examination. Presumably if OIRA put out a request for comment on a specific regulation -- as opposed to its general request -- there would be a greater volume of comments, presenting a fuller picture of the issues involved. As it is, agencies are being asked to potentially reshuffle priorities based on who happened to respond to OIRA. Not surprisingly, given their vast resources and scope, industry groups are disproportionately represented. Of course, some of the recommendations -- including those submitted by OMB Watch -- support stronger health, safety, and environmental regulation. It will be interesting to see if any of these receive priority, as the administration will ultimately be judged on the outcome of its evaluation.