This Article presents original results from a large-scale study of environmental violations. I use the universe of civil Clean Air Act environmental violations by stationary emitters of pollution to test the effectiveness of EPA enforcement. Using conservative assumptions, I find that in 36% of cases, it is profitable for firms to violate the Clean Air […]
*This post is part of a symposium on Modernizing Regulatory Review. For other posts in the series, click here. For the most part, Executive Order 14,094 (“the Order”) closely follows in the footsteps of President Biden’s January 2021 memorandum on “Modernizing Regulatory Review” (“the Memorandum”). For instance, it is no surprise that the Order features both updated methodology for cost-benefit […]
*This post is part of a symposium on Modernizing Regulatory Review. For other posts in the series, click here. Analytic transparency offers enormous potential. Through the tools of economics and science, a good benefit-cost analysis enables regulators to identify the regulatory alternative among the options studied that leaves society best off. And disclosing that analysis enables outside […]
*This post is part of a symposium on Modernizing Regulatory Review. For other posts in the series, click here. Cost-benefit analysis is a critical part of rulemaking because it helps the government efficiently allocate its resources. Sometimes efficiency must be sacrificed to ensure that regulations are equitable. Policymakers must balance efficiency and equity in a judicious […]
Previously arcane arguments over the constitutionality of the public debt limit now make headlines.[1] At the same time, debate swirls around whether the President of the United States has the constitutional authority, resting on Section Four of the 14th Amendment, to ignore the debt limit. If the debt ceiling is unconstitutional, does it automatically default […]
*This post is part of a symposium on Modernizing Regulatory Review. For other posts in the series, click here. “The perfect is the enemy of the good,” a wise old saying cautions. That aphorism captures the fundamental human predicament of limited cognitive capacity, an often overlooked point for which my favorite polymath, Herbert Simon, won the Nobel prize […]
*This post is part of a symposium on Modernizing Regulatory Review. For other posts in the series, click here. The Biden administration’s recent proposed revisions to Circular A-4 — the official instruction manual for agencies on how to perform cost-benefit analysis for their new rules — represent a fundamental rethinking of not only the methodologies and techniques for […]
*This post is part of a symposium on Modernizing Regulatory Review. For other posts in the series, click here. President Joe Biden’s recent Executive Order on Modernizing Regulatory Review makes explicit mention of the potential for artificial intelligence (AI) to impact the public comment process in agency notice-and-comment rulemaking. But the Biden Administration needs to be careful how […]
*This post is part of a symposium on Modernizing Regulatory Review. For other posts in the series, click here. As others have discussed throughout this symposium, Executive Order 14094 makes several significant changes to the regulatory process. In addition to reforming the process by which the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) reviews agency rules, the EO […]
*This post is part of a symposium on Modernizing Regulatory Review. For other posts in the series, click here. President Biden’s Modernizing Regulatory Review Executive Order (Modernizing E.O) changes the way agencies must think about—and engage in—notice-and-comment rulemaking. The Administrative Procedure Act (APA) imposes no duty on agencies to facilitate participation in rulemaking beyond providing notice of the […]
*This post is part of a symposium on Modernizing Regulatory Review. For other posts in the series, click here. This symposium is focused largely on President Biden’s EO 14094 on “Modernizing Regulatory Review” and one of its subjects: OIRA’s contemporaneous redraft of Circular A-4, open for comments till June 6. That’s appropriate. But a concurrent docket is also open for […]
*This post is part of a symposium on Modernizing Regulatory Review. For other posts in the series, click here. The Office of Management and Budget, and in particular the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) must be praised for undertaking a long, long overdue update of Circular A-4. Given the progress in techniques and changes […]
*This post is part of a symposium on Modernizing Regulatory Review. For other posts in the series, click here. Circular A-4 should be revised to recognize the essentially stochastic nature of cost-benefit analysis. This is not just a theoretical concern, but one that has far-reaching policy implications. Agencies often must regulate in the face of deep […]
*This post is part of a symposium on Modernizing Regulatory Review. For other posts in the series, click here. One of the most contentious aspects of using cost-benefit analysis in the regulatory process involves discounting the value of future harms. Based on updated data from U.S. Treasury notes and Inflation-Protected Securities, the Biden Administration’s new Circular A-4 guidance will […]
*This post is part of a symposium on Modernizing Regulatory Review. For other posts in the series, click here. For almost 30 years, federal regulatory agencies have conducted analysis pursuant to President Clinton’s Executive Order 12866, which each successive president has endorsed and supplemented. Last month, President Biden continued that practice in issuing E.O. 14094, which reaffirms E.O. […]