Read on Twitter
1. This report on the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA)wonky has largely gone unnoticed, because it sounds technical and is from a center-left think tank. But I have to highlight it because it contains a dangerous policy suggestion. Why is that? What is OIRA? https://twitter.com/rooseveltinst/status/1248609362500702211
2. OIRA is the most powerful agency you've never heard of. It is part of the White House budget office and it is staffed by economists who get to veto regulations on health, labor, environment, etc. Like all bad neoliberal policy, it was created by Carter and expanded by Reagan.
3. Congress gives regulators power to enforce the law in ways that protect people, small businesses, the environment, etc. OIRA is how presidents to control and cabin that discretion. Examples: OIRA blocked rules to deal with coal ash or flavored vaping. https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/did-economists-stop-congress-from
4. The trick OIRA uses is to offer 'cost/benefit analysis' (CBA), and force regulators to show that their rules offer benefits that are higher than the cost. But of course all the modeling for cost/benefit analysis is fake, and organized by neoliberal economists and lobbyists.
5. OIRA has been used to block or delay rules on exhaust, toxic chemicals and sex discrimination. And OIRA acts badly under Democratic and Republican Presidents. Under Obama, it "delayed stricter health standards for ozone and silica dust." https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/made-by-history/wp/2017/09/28/the-federal-agency-that-few-americans-have-heard-of-and-which-we-all-need-to-know/
6. When out of power, Democrats fall into the technocratic trap of 'improving' OIRA. This report, rather than simply suggesting abolishing it, says OIRA's powers should be “enhanced and expanded," only for sustainability, equity, aka done by progressive technocrats. Uh, no.
7. Here are some of the problems. First, OIRA is a black box. Agencies go through the rulemaking process where the public participates. THEN a rule goes to OIRA, which meets separately and secretly with corporations who help reshape proposed rules.
8. All of this industry engagement is supposed to be reported, but OIRA of course ignores that requirement. Simply requiring more disclosure, as Senator Warren for example has proposed, won’t do enough to fix a process that is fundamentally designed to subvert public input.
9. Second, agencies are required to complete a cost-benefit analysis. OIRA review this analysis to minimize costs for industry. Thus, even when “qualitative” benefits like human lives are considered, the process pushes agencies to make weaker rules.
10. All modern presidents—Democratic and Republican alike—have used CBA to this purpose. They’ve also tried to encourage sustainability and equity but these efforts always fail, and will fail again. Why?
11. Because the whole point of OIRA is to slow down, water down, or kill rules that help a lot of people. (And to coordinate between agencies – but there are other ways to do that that don’t involve gutting a bunch of good regulations while promulgating a bunch of bad ones.)
12. Progressive thinker @toddntucker sees OIRA as a potential way to centralize power in the hands of the Presidency. He also says that OIRA can help give more economic data to judges so they can review regulations for cost/benefit analysis. Both are the opposite of what we need.
13. It is destructive to undermine regulators at agencies, nearly all of which have economists and take costs into account already, by putting yet another secretive veto point in the process for economists and corporate lobbyists.
14. It is dangerous to suggest that we need to preserve or expand a process so that judges can better decide whether rules should live or die. Judges should decide whether rules are legal based on the law—not on based how much economists like a rule or not.
15. Fortunately, there's a simple fix. Congress didn’t create OIRA to do what it does. OIRA was given an outsized role in our government by Executive Order, and its authority can be taken away by Executive Order. It would take just three sentences:
