Yesterday President Obama directed the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), Peter Orszag, to review Executive Order 12866. This is one of those actions that will escape media coverage but could affect a wide range of policy areas
Yesterday President Obama directed the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), Peter Orszag, to review Executive Order 12866. This is one of those actions that will escape media coverage but could affect a wide range of policy areas.
E.O. 12866 has two primary purposes. It gives the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), a subunit of OMB the authority to review agency regulations on behalf of the President. It also requires agencies to conduct regulatory impact analyses on a subset of their regulations (those with economic effects more than $100 million/year).
12866 replaced E.O. 12291 which was issued by President Reagan and was hugely controversial. During the Reagan years, OIRA was seen as a place where regulations went to die. President Clinton issued 12866 in 1993 cementing OIRA's role in the regulatory process but softening a number of the most controversial provisions. Clinton realized that executive oversight of agencies had advantages that he was not willing to forsake.
Nor do I think that the revision that will come out of this memo will strip OIRA of its review powers. President Obama's appointment of Cass Sunstein to head OIRA signals a commitment to the office and a continuing role for it in the regulatory process.
However, the review of the E.O. could result in many other changes. Increasing the analysis of distributional effects in analyses is a likely one. Removing the Bush (43) changes to the E.O. is also likely. The changes will also probably clarify OIRA's role in analyzing and critiquing agency scientific studies.
This affects environmental regulations, homeland security, food safety, labor, and a host of other issues. Pay attention.