Obama “Regulatory Czar” Steps Down

Ding Dong the Witch is Dead

The fact that critical life and death decisions and the health of the planet can be determined based on flawed economics in corporate dominated back room deals should outrage all Americans.

Let’s hope Sunstein’s departure can shed some light on and engage dialogue on those issues.

Cass Sunstein, President Obama’s head of the powerful but virtually invisible Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), is stepping down (see the Washington Post and New York Times and Huffington Post for excellent coverage).

OIRA review and approval is required before any major federal regulation can be approved. Sunstein leveraged that role – with direct access to his close friend and former University if Chicago colleague, President Obama – to wield enormous power in a destructive way.

Sunstein was an advocate of cost benefit analysis – and other flawed pro-industry tools used to promote a corporate agenda.

He used those tools not only to block, weaken, and delay regulations, but also to provide an unprecedented level of corporate access and influence on regulatory policy.

According to a report by the Center for Progressive Reform: Behind Closed Doors at the White House: How Politics Trumps Protection of Public Health, Worker Safety, and the Environment,  astonishingly, Sunstein’s Office  intervened to change over 80% of EPA regulations to benefit industry at the expense of the environment.

I criticized Sunstein’s role in killing a few major EPA regulations, including the ozone standard and toxic coal ash regulations (see:

• Obama Withdraws EPA’s Proposed Ozone Standard – Lisa Jackson Bends Over and Says Thank You
• Obama’s Cave on EPA Ozone Standard Was Not Unexpected
• A Smog of Euphemism and Spin
• Obama WH Over-Ruled EPA Scientists on Coal Ash Regulations
• EPA Caves on Coal Ash Regulation

I also have written briefly about the technical and ethical flaws in cost benefit analysis as a policy tool, where, among other things, it was used to kill NJ DEP drinking water standards, see:

• The Role of Economics at DEP
• Bob Martin Comes Out
• The Price of Life in Martinville – Where Life Is Cheap
• Christie DEP Says Your Life is Worth $404,103

The same flawed and destructive cost-benefit analysis policy was a core principle of NJ Governor Christie’s “regulatory relief” policy under Executive Order #2. That policy and Executive Order have virtually frozen all progress on the regulatory front.

It also has been used to provide a rhetorical rationale to rollback 30 years of history in NJ environmental leadership and to support Republican political attacks on “job killing regulations” and “red tape”.

Just what the Chamber of Commerce ordered!

NJ Governor Christie’s “Regulatory Czar” Lt. Gov. Guadagno was Sunstein’s counter-part in NJ (see: Christie Regulatory Czar Given The Power and Tools to Rollback Environmental and Public Health Protections

Cost benefit principles also were injected in the Christie Energy Master Plan to stymie progress and rollback energy conservation and renewable energy goals, funding, and programs.

Obama’s Executive Order on regulatory review shared many of the same flaws and much of the same pro-corporate policy agenda as Governor Christie’ Executive Orders # 2 and #3 and Red Tape Review Commission.

With respect to regulations and the economy, President Obama drank the same Chamber of Commerce Kool-Aid as Governor Christie.

That commonality between a so-called “liberal” Democrat and a conservative Republican reveals how dominant corporate interests are over the public interest. 

The fact that critical life and death decisions and the health of the planet can be determined based on flawed economics in corporate dominated back room deals should outrage all Americans.

Let’s hope Sunstein’s departure can shed some light on and engage dialogue on those issues.