The Bush administration has advanced very few significant health, safety and environmental protections over the last two years -- much fewer than the two previous administrations -- and is quietly scuttling work on a host of protective standards in the regulatory pipeline, according to data compiled by OMB Watch. Specifically, the administration has:

• Finalized few significant health, safety and environmental protections;
• Proposed few significant protective actions;
• Been far less active than the two previous administrations;
• Generally acted only when it’s compelled to by a statutory or judicial order;
• Watered down protective standards where they have been issued;
• Removed a slew of protective actions from agency regulatory agendas;
• Allowed scores of rulemakings to stagnate; and
• Initiated few new health, safety or environmental rulemakings.

The Bush administration has finalized few significant regulations to protect public health, safety, and the environment. The most meaningful and important regulations are invariably deemed “economically significant,” meaning they have an estimated total impact of at least $100 million per year, including benefits. These are the regulations that have broad application, such as EPA’s much-publicized standard on arsenic in drinking water, or OSHA’s now-repealed ergonomics standard. In fact, almost all of the many Clinton-era rules that the Bush administration repealed or weakened were economically significant. Over President Bush’s first two years, OSHA and EPA, the two prime targets of industry lobbyists, have finalized just three economically significant standards combined. OSHA’s single action was actually deregulatory, and EPA’s two rules were both weakened in response to industry objections. The Dept. of the Interior (DOI) has produced just two obligatory annual standards on migratory bird hunting, and Health and Human Services (HHS) hasn’t produced any significant health or safety protections. Most of HHS’s significant final rules (11 of 19) modified the different payments plans under Medicare and Medicaid, imposing virtually no burdens on private business. In fact, one actually weakened a Clinton-era standard on medical privacy. Of health and safety agencies, the Dept. of Transportation (DOT) has been the busiest, issuing a number of rules in response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Regulatory output is a somewhat crude measure of an administration’s commitment to health, safety and environment. What ultimately matters is the administration’s ability to achieve real-world improvements. For instance, the Bush administration has initiated “voluntary compliance” programs in place of regulation to address global warming and ergonomics hazards. The effectiveness of such measures must be evaluated. And of course, there are other important issues that deserve examination, particularly enforcement of existing protections, as well as the content of regulations that are developed. However, the paltry number of significant Bush actions, particularly at EPA, strongly suggests an unwillingness to update and strengthen existing standards, address regulatory gaps, and take on new emerging problems. The administration has proposed few significant regulatory actions. Before a regulation can be finalized and implemented, it first must be “proposed” to the public for comment, then perhaps altered in response, and subjected to further analysis -- a process that can often take years. In the case of the Bush administration, EPA has issued just nine significant regulatory proposals, while the Dept. of Labor (DOL), which includes OSHA and the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA), has produced two. This means few final significant regulations in the future, and in the case of OSHA and MSHA in particular, possibly none. Where rules are both proposed and finalized within the same administration, they appear twice in the output data -- once as a proposed rule and once as a final rule. For the Bush administration, HHS both proposed and finalized 10 rules, DOI 2, DOT 2, DOL 1, and EPA 1. The Bush administration has been far less active than the two previous administrations. Generally, you might expect less regulatory output at the beginning of an administration, as new agency officials reshuffle priorities. Accordingly, OMB Watch looked at the first two years of both the Clinton administration and the previous Bush administration by way of comparison. In both cases, the output of significant health and environmental regulations was substantially higher than the current administration’s. At EPA, the Bush I administration finalized 14 significant rules over its first two years and the Clinton administration finalized 23, compared to two by the current administration. EPA proposed 12 significant regulatory actions over the first two years of the Bush I administration and 28 during the first two years of the Clinton administration, compared to nine under the current administration. Likewise, while OSHA has finalized just one significant regulation -- a deregulatory action -- and proposed none under the current administration, it finalized five and proposed seven over the first two years of the Bush I administration, and finalized two and proposed two during the Clinton administration’s first two years. The Bush administration generally acts only when it’s compelled to by a statutory or judicial deadline. Both EPA’s significant final rules over the last two years were required by court order, while statutory or judicial deadlines demanded all but two of its proposals. The administration has initiated few standards to protect health, safety or the environment on its own. When not facing deadlines, its focus has generally been on relaxing such standards. EPA’s most recent regulatory proposal, for instance, is not required by court or judicial order. But it is deregulatory in nature, relaxing emissions standards for old coal-fired power plants under EPA’s New Source Review program. The other significant proposal not required by a deadline responded to a court remand of EPA’s 1997 clean air standards for ozone, which instructed consideration of ozone’s potential benefits in blocking the sun’s harmful UV rays. After its evaluation, EPA proposed moving forward with the 1997 standards. Where the administration completed regulations, they were generally weak and supported by industry. The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) reviews final and proposed regulations before agencies publish them in the Federal Register. Using this review authority, OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) has weakened a host of health, safety and environmental rules. For instance, OIRA forced the National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to adopt a less protective standard -- favored by automobile manufacturers -- for warning drivers of under-inflated tires, which are linked to thousands of injuries and more than a hundred deaths a year. Likewise, OIRA forced EPA to weaken its final rule on snowmobile emissions, which was proposed earlier in the Bush administration, along with the remaining six of its significant proposals that represented new protective action (excluding its deregulatory action on New Source Review and its reaffirmation of 1997 clean air standards). This included proposals to reduce air pollution, prevent construction runoff, and protect trillions of fish that are sucked up and killed each year by power plants. Industry supported all of these efforts. Most recently, EPA also issued a weak final rule to limit runoff from livestock waste, which waters down a previous Clinton-era proposal. The administration has removed a slew of protective actions from agency regulatory agendas. Twice a year, each federal agency publishes an agenda that describes pending regulatory actions, along with a status update. Over the past two years, the Bush administration has removed a host of pending actions from agency agendas. Specifically, EPA has abandoned 48 rulemakings, the FDA 51, and OSHA 21, including nine economically significant rules. For example, OSHA’s withdrawals include a significant standard on indoor air quality, published as a proposed rule on April 5, 1994, and a rule to address occupational exposure to perchloroethylene, a potential carcinogen. EPA withdrew one economically significant rule, and FDA none. The administration is allowing scores of rules to stagnate. Of the rulemakings that remain on agency agendas, most have not moved forward. For example, an OSHA rule protecting workers from exposure to crystalline silica -- linked to thousands of deaths a year -- has stalled at the proposed stage, even though it first appeared on the agency's agenda several years ago. Likewise, two EPA rules targeted at reducing carcinogens and pathogens in drinking water appear as proposed rules on the agency's most recent agenda -- exactly where they were two years ago. In fact, of EPA’s 20 economically significant rules left over from the Clinton administration, more than half have not moved forward during the last two years. The administration is initiating few new health, safety or environmental protections. While a number of rules have been added to agency agendas under the Bush administration, by and large these have been minor actions. In the past two years, only three economically significant rules have been added to EPA’s agenda -- one of which was required by a court order -- and none to OSHA’s agenda. Similarly, five economically significant rules have been added to the FDA agenda. Of these, three were mandated by the Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act of 2002, one deals with patent information, and one would make it easier for pharmaceutical companies to classify products as over-the-counter drugs. The Bush administration inherited the majority of economically significant rules left on agency agendas from the Clinton administration, including 20 economically significant rules on EPA’s most recent agenda.