|
This report for the Administrative Conference of the United States examines the legal, practical, and technical issues associated with processing and responding to mass, fraudulent, and computer-generated comments, and concludes with a set of recommendations for agencies to address the challenges and opportunities associated with new technologies that bear on the rulemaking process.
|
|
|
President Biden’s sweeping new executive order aimed at promoting competition includes some promising actions but also many that will likely inhibit competition, not promote it.
|
|
Recent Research, Events, and Media Appearances
|
|
|
TOMORROW! Register for this event with the GW Trachtenberg School featuring Susan Dudley, Bridget Dooling, and Steven Balla.
|
|
- Regulatory policy can create economic and social benefits, but poorly designed or excessive regulation may generate substantial adverse effects on the economy.
|
|
- Do Republican and Democratic presidents use regulatory suspensions at different rates?
|
|
|
- Stigler’s theory of economic regulation opened our eyes to the rent-seeking that undermines the public interest. Yet many in positions to influence policy today do not appreciate the beneficial innovation and increased consumer choice that economic deregulation and competition brought.
|
|
- President Biden has used executive orders aggressively in his first six months, and his most recent order on competition stands out in terms of its length, its prescriptiveness, and its application to independent regulatory agencies.
|
|
- President Biden is right to demand more rigorous analysis of how regulatory benefits and costs are distributed. This commentary offers some principles for undertaking such analysis in a transparent way.
|
|
- OMB should be commended for its initiative to seek public comments on the issues presented in the Equity RFI. This comment offers two specific suggestions in response to issues that OMB sought comment on: Barrier & Burden Reduction and Stakeholder & Community Engagement.
|
|
|
- The Drug Enforcement Administration released a final rule that lifts a ban on new methadone vans. The rule is expected to increase access to methadone, an effective treatment for opioid use disorder, in rural and underserved urban areas.
|
|
- Three bills targeting Trump administration regulations for elimination are headed to President Biden’s desk. If signed into law, it will mark the first time that the fast-track oversight tool is successfully used by Democrats to eliminate regulatory agency actions.
|
- The bottom line is clear. DOJ and FTC will find it a challenge to persuade skeptical courts to react favorably to their efforts to implement President Biden’s ambitious antitrust agenda.
|
|
- The Agenda’s contents suggest that the administration’s priorities to date include withdrawing numerous proposed rules that were never finalized by the Trump administration and shifting regulatory policy approaches for higher education, immigration, labor, health, and the environment.
|
|
- The Department of Health and Human Services recently released guidelines that make it easier to prescribe buprenorphine to patients with opioid use disorder. HHS withdrew an earlier version of the policy to fix legal vulnerabilities and procedural issues.
|
|
- To implement President Biden’s Executive Order 13992, agencies have begun to rescind the 32 regulations promulgated in response to President Trump’s Executive Order 13891 on agency guidance documents. The fast withdrawal rate suggests that soon all guidance regulations will be reversed.
|
|
|
- When an agency fails to send a rule to Congress—as required by the Congressional Review Act—can private parties sue? The Act has a special provision that bars review by the courts. The Supreme Court is considering whether to take a case that would clarify the scope of this bar on judicial review.
|
|
- It would be a shame if the FTC went through the lengthy and resource-intensive notice and comment process only to have the Supreme Court reject its work product on procedural grounds.
|
|
|
- DHS took a positive step towards increasing innovation and job creation. However, rather than defaulting to the Obama-era framework, evidence suggests that making it easier to qualify for the International Entrepreneur program would produce additional benefits to the U.S. economy.
|
|
People and organizations interested in influencing public policy often focus on Congress, but most policy details are actually developed in the executive branch by specialist agencies.
|
|
|
Bridget C.E. Dooling and Dr. Rachel A. Potter (Assistant Professor of Politics at the University of Virginia) have been selected to serve as consultants to the Administrative Conference of the United States. They will study the use of contractors in the rulemaking process.
|
|
“I think it’s a trade-off that the politicians are having to think through,” Daniel Pérez said.”
|
|
"You have lots of different tools that you can use to shift regulatory policy. This tool comes with some interesting sort of expedited procedures,” said Daniel Pérez.
|
|
Daniel Pérez, a senior policy analyst at George Washington University’s Regulatory Studies Center, said the CRA is “an all-or-nothing tool...” Ultimately, he said, in the world of policymaking, “it’s a sledgehammer, not a scalpel”.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|