By Jean Chemnick
White House regulatory chief Richard Revesz said in a statement that the update was needed to ensure regulations are based on sound analysis, “which, in turn, means lower costs for consumers; cleaner food, air, and water; less fraud and exploitation; increased workplace safety; more innovation; and a stronger economy.”
Newell of RFF, an energy economist, said OMB’s painstaking process could make the document legally durable and hard for a subsequent administration to discard.
“We don’t want this kind of guidance to change across administrations,” Newell said. “We don’t want it to be viewed as being biased by anybody in the scientific or the economics community. I think it has taken longer than was expected, but I think it is a very solid outcome that’ll stand the test of time.”
Gernot Wagner, a climate economist at Columbia Business School, called the lengthy and heavily footnoted document “good economics.” But he said OMB missed an opportunity to establish a regular update schedule.
“I don’t understand why we are not setting up a process that basically updates this thing automatically,” he said.
Quality rulemaking, he said, shouldn’t depend on the willingness of a large cohort of Ph.D. economists to file into White House policy offices and “basically revamp something that is literally 20 years old and has defined regulatory policy for a generation.”
Quoted in: “White House overhaul paves way for stricter regulations” by Jean Chemnick, ClimateWire/Politico Pro (10 November 2023).