New Liberal Study: Obama Admin. Changes More Federal Rules Than Bush
- Posted on November 28, 2011 at 6:52pm by
Christopher Santarelli
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A new report from the liberal Center for Progressive Reform (CPR) says that the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) under the Obama Administration has made more changes to federal regulations– including EPA rules– than their Bush Administration predecessors. The CPR blog writes:
“The results were shocking even to us, long-time and admittedly jaded observers of OIRA’s one-way ratchet toward weakening public health and other protections.
Obama’s OIRA changes more rules than Bush’s did. The Obama Administration has further entrenched a regulatory system in which White House officials trump agency expertise with decisions based on raw politics. While the Bush Administration changed 64 percent of regulations under this process, the Obama Administration has changed 76 percent.”
The CPR study tracked a decade’s worth of meetings between outside parties and the OIRA, the White House office that oversees federal agency rule making. NPR describes the OIRA as “the last hurdle that every proposed regulation must surmount before seeing the light of day” and “an office that most people have never heard of” that affects millions of Americans’ lives.
The study delivers a harsh criticism of President Obama for meeting with industry representatives far more often than with public safety advocates.
“Despite his selection of experienced and well-respected appointees to lead health and safety agencies—most notably, Lisa Jackson at the EPA, Margaret Hamburg at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and David Michaels at the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)—President Obama has not made lasting commitments to substantially increase their budgets, has not supported them when they are politically attacked, and done next to nothing to press for updating the outmoded laws that hamper their efforts to police corporate misconduct,” writes CPR President Rena Steinzor. “Worst of all, he has continued the Reagan and Bush tradition of enthroning OIRA as the final arbiter of whether public health and environmental protections see the light of day.”
Michael Fitzpatrick, who has worked in the OIRA for the past three years, told NPR that his office is improving regulations, not gutting them.
“When you are dealing with the most complex questions of policy, it’s to be expected that there are going to be questions raised and insights gleaned that cause an agency to say, ‘You know what? We should make a change here or there. We can do this in an even better way.’”
John Graham, a Bush Administration official who ran the regulatory oversight office, told NPR that the finding’s results could have to do with what he has noticed in his own experience, where Republican presidents tend to put people in charge of agencies who don’t like new rules. These agencies in turn don’t send a lot of regulations to the White House for review.
What makes things even more interesting is who has been running Obama’s OIRA for the last two years, Cass Sunstein. Sunstein is an Obama University of Chicago faculty lounge bud who has said the conservative view of the constitution requires a “time machine,” animals should have the right to sue humans, and has advocated a policy under which the government would “presume” someone has consented to having his or her organs removed for transplantation into someone else when they die unless that person has explicitly indicated that his or her organs should not be taken.
Sunstein is also author of the book “Nudge” and husband to Samantha Power. Power is the aid to the President and former journalist who wrote “A Problem From Hell: American and the Age of Genocide,” once referred to Hillary Clinton as “a monster,” has had a growing role in Obama’s foreign policy circle, and is a leading proponent of the interventionist doctrine called “responsibility to protect.”
The CPR believes the study on the OIRA “cements its reputation as an aggressive one-way ratchet. “
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LibsFIB
Posted on November 30, 2011 at 12:12amEnd the FED and Earmarks. RON PAUL 2012 Libs FIB
Report Post »MUDFLAPS
Posted on November 29, 2011 at 11:40pmcommunist
Report Post »team1blazer
Posted on November 28, 2011 at 11:46pmNot only Obama and his minions, but also all RINOs (Boehner, McCain, Snow…..) Time to clean house in 2012 (if we’re not living in a marshal law nightmare…if we are, it will be time to “eliminate” them.)
Report Post »Thatsitivehadenough
Posted on November 29, 2011 at 3:08amWhatever we’re in for, I think it’s already upon us.
Report Post »JRook
Posted on November 29, 2011 at 10:39amGeez this is Rush on steroids. The report actually said that Obama has weakened and limited federal regulations more than his Republican counterparts. This report is exactly why this site is going to be short lived and only visited by close minded ideologues.
Report Post »chicago76
Posted on November 28, 2011 at 11:39pmHow about a constitutional amendment that takes away all rule making powers of agencies. Only the congress can make laws. That is the way it should be, and that is the only way there can be accountability.
Report Post »pamela kay
Posted on November 29, 2011 at 1:43amCHICAGO76, I like that . Sounds like a great idea.
Report Post »TheFederalist
Posted on November 29, 2011 at 9:03amWe don`t need another amendment. It`s already in the Constitution. The President and these unconstitutional agencies need to just stop with the illegal regulations.
Report Post »The states can nullify these unconstitutional regulations because they are null, void, and unconstitutional. You must get your state to push back and say no to the Feds.
XavierD
Posted on November 29, 2011 at 9:35pm@TheFederalist
Report Post »I find some irony in your name when you say the states need to push back. The states are afraid of losing the Federal funds.
chicago76
Posted on November 28, 2011 at 11:37pmHow can anyone know what is a violation of the law when every president changes the laws. No one can do business in such a corrupt lawless environment. Time to get rid of the rule making powers of agencies that in effect are laws.
Report Post »Wakeup Maggie
Posted on November 28, 2011 at 9:40pm…and all this while continuing campaigning in all “57 states”
Report Post »Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra
Posted on November 28, 2011 at 9:00pmHey Buddy, do you want to buy a bridge?
Really, I am a Nigerian King and just need a place to park my millions.
Really baby, I won’t get you pregnant and I will love you forever.
America, Hope and Change.
What did you expect out of a conman and hustler?
Report Post »tobywil2
Posted on November 28, 2011 at 8:18pmThe Bureaucracy, don’t start your revolution without it. http://commonsense21c.com/tobys_fable.html
The destruction of the Republic requires an economic crisis.
The tyrant’s “change you can believe in” uses the bureaucracy as an inevitable part of the plan to create an economic crisis.
The Bureaucracy to reward his political cronies, punish his political enemies and create the economic crisis that will allow him to assume dictatorial powers. Understand the Bureaucracy, read a “Toby’s Fable”. A 10 minute fun read with 17 illustrations – no cost, obligation or sign in. Click on http://commonsense21c.com/tobys_fable.html
Report Post »dirthawg
Posted on November 28, 2011 at 8:16pmObama will get the same as Bush and Blair, all war criminals http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZxa0-IXl_U
Report Post »Eleutheria
Posted on November 28, 2011 at 8:11pmI’ll be shocked if this information ever sees the light of day on any television news outlet.
Report Post »CatB
Posted on November 28, 2011 at 7:56pmThat I have to say to the liberals who conducted the “study” NO SH *T! These people are control freak bullies .. transforming the GREATEST COUNTRY ON THE PLANET into a Third World TOILET!
TEA!
Report Post »scout n ambush
Posted on November 28, 2011 at 7:32pmObama said he would do anything he could to help Europe out too I swear he almost said bailout but he couldn’t say that without drawing attention but get ready for it that is exactly what the EU wants and needs global wealth redistrubution.
Report Post »Detroit paperboy
Posted on November 28, 2011 at 8:01pmOur founding fathers would tell us to cut the federal monster government by 75 %.. it is ruining us…. Period
Report Post »lukerw
Posted on November 28, 2011 at 8:52pmOur Founding Fathers… would be ashamed of us!!!
Report Post »progressiveslayer
Posted on November 28, 2011 at 7:31pmThe Marxist in chief has simply accelerated the process of the end of capitalism that started a century ago,progressives are patient vile creatures and believe they will fundamentally transform this country into a communist utopia.
Be advised heathen progressives,your plans for the end of capitalism will fail beginning with firing the Marxist in chief and purging congress of all progressives.
Report Post »TRONINTHEMORNING
Posted on November 28, 2011 at 7:21pmThough it takes effort, time, and patience…Good always beats evil. So let’s beat this little jerk and his worm-ridden minions in 2012. Get the folks out to vote!
Report Post »Banter
Posted on November 28, 2011 at 7:14pmWhen we talk about watching the other hand, this is what the other hand is doing. This is where the real damage is done/being done to this country.
Report Post »GetOffofMyBack
Posted on November 28, 2011 at 7:13pm“One of the methods used by statists to destroy capitalism consists in establishing controls that tie a given industry hand and foot, making it unable to solve its problems, then declaring that freedom has failed and stronger controls are necessary.”
~Ayn Rand
Report Post »1casawizard
Posted on November 28, 2011 at 7:08pmOne jackass just tried to outdo another, that’s all. Bush thought he was doing the right thing. BamBam’s trying to put U.S. back a few notches.
Report Post »Snowleopard {gallery of cat folks}
Posted on November 28, 2011 at 7:05pmFundamental transformation of the United States of America…almost complete now under Obama.
Report Post »1casawizard
Posted on November 28, 2011 at 7:16pmBamBam has sure got a good start on that fundamental transvestite thing, but we’ve been throwing a few rocks under his wheels, just not enough big ones. TaxedEnoughAmericans.
Report Post »KickinBack
Posted on November 28, 2011 at 7:05pmThis is scary stuff, especially with Sunstein pulling strings. November 6th seems like a looong ways away…
Report Post »thepatriotdave
Posted on November 28, 2011 at 7:04pmBush did his in 8 years and Obama has only been at it for 3.
Report Post »Obama MUST GO IN 2012!