Following Tim Dickinson’s Rolling Stone article about what Lisa Jackson is accomplishing at EPA, John B. Judis publishes a piece in the New Republic about the Obama “revolution” going on as Obama appointees at multiple federal agencies enthusiastically enforce laws intended to keep our air, food, drus, and workplaces safe. Judis contrasts previous Republican agency heads to Obama appointees as EPA, OSHA, FDA, and FEMA, and rattles off the budget increases that will allow several agencies to step up enforcement activities.
I’m not as optimistic as Judis that Cass Sunstein’s appointment to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs signals a complete about-face from the previous administration’s roadblock-to-regulation approach. (Rena Steinzor and her colleagues at the Center for Progressive Reform have voiced concerns about Sunstein; see here and here, for instance.) Judis is right, though, to highlight OIRA as a key determinant in the face of federal agencies’ regulatory activities, and he provides an interesting summary of the use of cost-benefit analysis over the past few decades.
An otherwise optimistic article ends with a note of warning. Judis cautions:
In 1993, Clinton, too, attempted to revive the regulatory agencies by appointing well-qualified personnel and increasing funding. But, after Republicans took control of Congress in 1994, they managed to cut Clinton’s budget proposals and delay or block the implementation of regulations. If Democrats lose Congress this November, the same thing could happen again. In that case, what has been Obama’s most significant achievement to date would come to naught–and liberals would have yet another reason to despair.
Even if history does repeat itself this way, there are still several months in which newly energized federal agencies can do a lot of good.
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February 5, 2010 at 3:27 pm
Larry Furman
In “The Republican War On Science,” Chris Mooney’s discusses how people traded the scientific method for various acting methods to subjugate research to the cause of partisan politics or big business, such as climate change skeptics paid by oil, gas, and coal companies to deny the science on global warming.
It is a gripping companion to “Freefall; America, Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy,” Joseph Stiglitz discussion of how the lack of regulation in banking and finance led to this “Great Recession” in which we find ourselves.
Obama is telling regulators to regulate and Prosecutors to prosecute alleged criminals not target members of the opposition party. In 1986 the Department of Justice forced the divestiture of the Telephone Company into AT&T and the RBOCs. Today we have computer and electronics companies like Apple, Google, Motorola, Nokia, RIM and Samsung making cellphones. If banks are too big to fail, then they are too big to manage. We need more than vapor walls between brokerage, investment banking, and commercial banking; we need separate companies. The President also must re-establish Glass Steagall.