Republicans in the House have spent much of the fall trying to blame regulation for the nation’s slow economic recovery. The fact that there is no reasonable evidence to back up this claim is apparently not a concern for the regulatory opponents. Moreover, regulatory opponents skip entirely over the impacts of the failure to regulate, pretending that while regulation imposes costs on the economy, the failure to regulate does not.
Now, there is even more evidence of that regulation cannot be blamed for our current economic woes. The head of the Congressional Budget Office has testified that regulation is not a drag on the economy. And we have learned from a terrific AP report that the same business firms that have told Congress that proposed environmental regulations are a serious problem have told the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)—the federal regulatory body that regulates the stock market and protects investors from corporate abuses—that the impact is unknown or will not be significant.
The campaign against regulation is built on pillars of sand. Regulatory critics claim that regulation has a price tag of more than a trillion dollars, but the study used to back up this claim has been thoroughly discredited by the Congressional Research Service, among others. They also call regulation a job-killer, but existing studies (see pp. 15-17) find regulation has either no overall impact on jobs, or, in some cases, it actually increases employment. Regulatory opponents also claim regulatory uncertainty is holding back the economy, preventing the United States from emerging from the current recession, but the Treasury Department, among others, has rebutted this claim.
Full textIf you were an industry lobbyist working to block new health and safety protections, what would make your job easier? How about if the law said that you could flood an agency with alternate regulatory proposals, and the agency wouldn’t just need to consider each one, but in fact conduct a full cost-benefit analysis on them all? That would probably be an effective way to tie up the agency quite nicely, and block it from getting its work of protecting the public done.
And that’s exactly what one of the provisions in the “Regulatory Accountability Act,” the subject of a hearing at the House Judiciary Committee this morning, would do. The bill would require an agency to do a cost-benefit study for “any reasonable alternatives for a new rule or other response identified by the agency or interested persons.” That’s just the tip of the iceberg. Point is, if you want to bog agencies down, this one’s for you.
CPR Member Scholar Sidney Shapiro will be testifying at the hearing. Among the points in his testimony:
This bill is no regulatory accountability program.
Full textIn perhaps the most profoundly embarrassing development yet for the U.S. government’s star-crossed efforts to police offshore drilling, the Interior Department’s Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement announced last week that it was asking BP, Transocean, and Halliburton to pay a total of up to $45.7 million in fines for 15 violations arising out of the catastrophic failure of the Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico. That’s million, not billion, by the way, and a total for all three companies, not each. The $15 million or so that they might each pay is so small in comparison to their annual profits that they might just go ahead and put the sum on an expense account. Meanwhile, as if their humiliation was not enough, the Department of Justice remains strangely silent on its criminal investigation of BP, more than a year after the companies managed somehow to close the benighted well that had spewed oil into the Gulf of Mexico for two solid months in 2010.
The whole point of fining companies for violations of environmental laws is to deter future violations. Despite pledging to pay $20 billion in Gulf Coast relief, as well as cleanup costs and natural resources damages of an as-yet undetermined several billion more, BP reported second quarter profits of $5.6 billion—that’s billion, not million—this year. The company has already demonstrated itself immune to the publicity surrounding the typical penalties assessed for regulatory violations, amassing such a dreadful track record of environmental and occupational safety violations at its Texas City refinery and land-based drilling sites on Alaska’s North Slope that it should have been notorious long before the Gulf Spill. The company pled guilty to criminal violations and kept right on doing business as usual.
Only dramatically more damaging punishment will ever succeed in inspiring the creation of the safety culture needed to ensure that BP workers don’t continue to die on the job (11 died in the Gulf and 15 died at Texas City). One solution would be to prosecute individual BP executives criminally, rather than letting the corporate shield protect them from accountability no matter what they do. A second would be to bar BP from lucrative U.S. government contracts and offshore leasing agreements until it corrects its company-wide disdain for safety and routine maintenance.
Full textThis post was co-authored by CPR President Rena Steinzor and CPR Policy Analyst Aimee Simpson.
In what at first glance seemed to be a startlingly uncharacteristic move, the American Chemistry Council (ACC) has petitioned the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to update and strengthen its food additive regulation that sets out the approved uses for polycarbonate resins. For those who don’t speak plastic, “polycarbonate resin” refers to plastic that contains bisphenol-A or “BPA”—an endocrine-disrupting chemical with significant health risks, especially for babies. Polycarbonate resin is found in everything from reusable food and beverage containers, to tin can linings and thermal receipt paper.
While usually a staunch defender of unbridled BPA use in all things plastic, the ACC actually asked the FDA to remove approval for the use of BPA in “infant feeding bottles and certain spill-proof cups.” If this request has you scratching you head, you are not alone. Could it be that the ACC has finally surrendered to the mounting scientific evidence concerning BPA’s low-dose endocrine-disrupting effects and accepted that, at the very least, BPA should not be permitted in beverage vessels meant for children? Has the chemical industry beaten its swords into plowshares and made a small but progressive gesture toward better BPA regulation? Unfortunately, a look at the petition and its potential implications shows that the answer to these questions is “no.”
Thanks to consumer pressure and state and municipal legislative bans, major manufacturers of BPA no longer sell their products to the manufacturers of baby bottles and sippy cups. The ACC bases the petition on a portion of the FDA regulation that invites people to point out when manufacturers have abandoned old uses. But the ACC emphatically denies that BPA in baby products raises health concerns.
Instead, the ACC follows the by-now familiar route of blaming the victim—a.k.a. the consumer—for BPA’s removal. Under this rationale, manufacturers did not make these decisions on the basis of “scientific evidence or safety,” but rather were forced to remove the chemical because consumers are consumed by mass hysteria and forced the poor, beleaguered companies to do it. If it is able to rewrite the record in this way, the FDA will make a decision long desired by public health experts for all the wrong reasons, and the ACC will be able to claim that voluntary-abandonment-in-a-hostage-situation is the only real reason for the agency’s action.
Full textA few weeks ago, Rena Steinzor used this space to highlight some questionable activity happening at EPA’s IRIS office and wonder, “ Is IRIS Next on the Hit List?” The good news last week was that EPA released a number of documents, including the controversial and long-awaited assessment of TCE, giving some reassurance that IRIS staff are still plugging away at their important work (see Jennifer Sass and Daniel Rosenberg over at Switchboard for more on the TCE news).
A new report from Inside EPA, available here, sheds more light on the state of IRIS, by which we now see that the chemical industry’s lobbying arm, the American Chemistry Council, has its cross-hairs trained directly on the IRIS program.
Maria Hegstad reports that ACC recently met with Cass Sunstein, Administrator of OIRA, and David Lane, assistant to President Obama and counselor to the President’s Chief of Staff, Bill Daley, to argue for elimination of several government programs designed to assess the risks posed by toxic chemicals. The programs that ACC has targeted include EPA’s IRIS program, the National Toxicology Program (NTP) housed at NIH, the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), and HHS’s Report on Carcinogens (ROC) program.
Full textGuest blogger Peter T. Jenkins is a lawyer and consultant working with the National Environmental Coalition on Invasive Species (NECIS), committed to preventing further harm from invasive, non-native plants and animals. He is Executive Director of the Center for Invasive Species Prevention (CISP).
If the federal government cannot regulate huge constrictor snakes that have already invaded twice in Florida, are preying on Endangered Species Act-listed species, can readily invade in other States and have killed more than a dozen people in recent decades, then what can it regulate? This all came to a head in Congress last week.
On Tuesday of last week, the National Environmental Coalition on Invasive Species learned from a friendly Capitol Hill source that the following day the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, under Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA), was going to highlight this issue of regulating invasive snakes as part of his running assault against federal rulemaking. (The September 14th hearing promised an exploration of "How a Broken Process Leads to Flawed Regulations".) The late notice Majority staff gave to Minority staff and the public on the substance of the hearing and the witness list speaks for itself.
Representative Issa’s staff had invited a snake breeder, David Barker, to testify against a long-standing proposal by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to list nine species of large constrictor snakes - boas, pythons, and anacondas - as prohibited “injurious species” under the Lacey Act (Issa also dedicated four pages to criticizing the listings in a report released that day). The injurious species section of the Act (18 USC § 42) is 111 years old and it is widely criticized as too slow and ponderous to be effective, but the Service does occasionally list dangerous non-native species under the Act. After five years of study, preparation and analysis, the agency is finally on the verge of prohibiting these snakes from private importation and interstate commerce. There are some upset constrictor snake breeders out there who appear blind to the public interest, focused on preserving their apparently lucrative businesses.
Full textIn May 2010, EPA sent a draft “Chemicals of Concern” list, including bisphenol A (BPA) and five other chemicals, to the White House’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) for review. The proposed list would be the first time EPA has used its authority under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) to publish such a list of chemicals that “may present an unreasonable risk of injury to health or the environment.” Today marks one year since OIRA exceeded the 120-day deadline for completing its review of EPA’s proposed chemicals of concern list.
The proposed list has met with fierce industry resistance, even though being added to the list only requires some minor additional reporting requirements. Between Jun. 2010 and Jan. 2011, OIRA hosted eight meetings to discuss the proposed list. Of those meetings, seven were with industry groups and trade associations including ExxonMobil, Dow Chemical, the American Chemistry Council, and the Society of the Plastics Industry. One meeting was with public health and environmental advocacy groups including the American Association of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, and the Natural Resources Defense Council. Listing carries no regulatory action. Manufacturers are required to comply with some additional reporting requirements, but only if EPA conducts additional rulemaking.
Industry groups object to chemicals being listed because they say the substances might obtain a stigma. But considering the chemicals on the list – BPA, phthalates, and flame retardant polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) – many of these already have a stigma because they have for years been linked with harmful health effects. Ultimately, stigma is not a strong argument, and attaching stigma to these chemicals is at least part of the point. EPA has a responsibility to protect human health and the environment from hazardous chemicals, but its legal authority to regulate and reduce exposures to chemicals is weak under TSCA. The next best thing the agency can do is inform the public, and encourage companies to seek less dangerous alternatives.
Full textHouse Republicans have promised this week that upon their return to Washington after the recess they will attempt to stop 10 important proposed regulations because they are “job-destroying.” Adhering to the belief that “if you say it often enough, people will believe its true,” the party continues to insist that regulations cost jobs. But, as I discussed in a recent post, the evidence shows that regulation is not a drag on employment because it stimulates the creation of as many new jobs as are lost, and because job gains from regulation can offset job losses, leading to a net gain in employment.
But there is another problem with the Republican agenda: it ignores the benefits of regulation. A new CPR white paper on regulatory benefits indicates why the Republican deregulatory agenda won’t help with jobs and is a bad deal for Americans.
Government regulation has greatly benefited the American public, while the failure to regulate has cost us dearly. This reality is easily missed because no single, easily digested statistic perfectly proves the point. But, when my coauthors and I assembled the available evidence, we found that regulation has produced substantial and important benefits for the public without sacrificing jobs at the same time. There is simply no reason to suppose the regulations on the Republicans’ hit list will produce any different result.
This CPR white paper, Saving Lives, Preserving the Environment, Growing the Economy: The Truth About Regulation is the first of its kind to assemble the available evidence concerning the benefits of regulation. And the evidence is impressive. For example, according to OMB’s annual report on regulation to Congress, regulatory benefits exceed regulatory costs by 7 to 1 for significant regulations. Even these estimates don’t capture the full advantages of regulations; some benefits, such as reducing toxic mercury pollution, are difficult to monetize, and aren’t even counted. The advance estimates of benefits from agencies have historically proven lower than the benefits in reality. The payoff for environmental regulations is even greater. EPA estimates the regulatory benefit of the Clean Air Act exceeds its costs by a ratio of 25 to 1. Similarly, a study of EPA rules issued during the Obama Administration found that their regulatory benefits exceeded costs by a ratio as high as 22 to 1. Nevertheless, 8 of the 10 regulations House Minority Leader Eric Cantor put on his hit list are proposed EPA regulations.
Full textThe final agency regulatory “look-back” plans, released by the White House this morning, don’t appear to satisfy anyone. They fall far short of their obvious goal: to placate greedy and intemperate industry demands that major rules be cancelled. And they distress public interest advocates, who fear they will preoccupy agencies with make-work at the expense of crucial life-saving initiatives.
The plans themselves, at first look, are largely well-intentioned given the assignment the agencies were given. The EPA plan discusses, for instance, how the internet could be better used to facilitate on-line reporting by polluting plants. In some instances, though, the changes, if done as planned, would have real-life negative consequences: the planned axing of “clearance testing” under EPA’s renovation, repair and painting rule will save money, yes, but run the risk of leaving lead dust behind to poison children when they move back into renovated buildings. The EPA’s final plan dutifully calculates the cost savings of its regulatory changes, but it all but ignores foregone regulatory benefits, such as these.
The plans won’t placate big business or Republicans in Congress. Eric Cantor reliably called them “underwhelming,” while the Chamber of Commerce complained that the administration has made a “ a worthy effort at making technical changes to the regulatory process, but the results of this lookback will not have a material impact on the real regulatory burdens facing businesses today.”
Give a few inches, and you don’t get anything in return. So what is the White House doing, then?
Full textCross-posted from The Pump Handle.
Tyler Zander, 17 and Bryce Gannon, 17 were working together on Thursday, August 4 at the Zaloudek Grain Co. in Kremlin, Oklahoma. They were operating a large floor grain aguer when something went terribly wrong. Oklahoma's News9.com reports that Bryce Gannon's legs became trapped in the auger, Tyler Zander went to his friend's aid and his legs also were pulled into the heavy machinery. Emergency rescue personnel had to cut apart the 12-inch metal auger in order to free the young men. They were flown 100 miles to Oklahoma City for surgery and they remain hospitalized.
The fatality rate for young workers performing hazardous tasks----like working with a grain auger-----is two times the fatality rate for all U.S. workers. The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), administered by the U.S. Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division (W&H) stipulates dozens of work activities that are too dangerous for workers of certain ages. Individuals under age 18, for example, are prohibited from working most jobs in coal mines, from forest-fire fighting, and from operating meat slicers and cardboard balers in grocery stores. However, the safety rules governing young workers employed in agricultural jobs have not been updated for 40 years.
Labor Secretary Hilda Solis said in December 2010:
"Protecting children and vulnerable workers abroad is a part of our overall efforts here at the Department of Labor."
In fact, just a few weeks earlier, the Labor Department's Wage and Hour division sent a draft proposed rule to the White House's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) for review. [Why they sent an economically non-significant proposed rule to OIRA is another matter, and one I've written about previously.] The draft rule proposes modifications to Subpart E-1 of 29 CFR 570, entitled "Occupations in Agriculture Particularly Hazardous for the Employment of Children Below the Age of 16." The proposed changes are based in part on evidence assembled several years ago by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) on injuries and deaths among young workers employed in agricultural jobs.
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