OMB Watch’s new report, “The Obama Approach To Public Protection: Rulemaking,” is a thorough piece of research compiled to support the expansion of the regulatory state and its control of economic activity. As is typical, the advocacy group questions the motives of those who disagree with it. 

From page 3:

This report was written in a climate in which conservatives and business leaders are criticizing the Obama administration for rapidly expanding the regulatory state, but painting the administration with such broad strokes misleads the public. The criticism is tactical, led by those who simply oppose any regulations, particularly those targeting businesses, and it obscures a more complex record.

The criticism is tactical? No, that’s not right.

Much of the critique of the growth of federal regulations is philosophical: A larger, more costly federal government wielding greater regulatory power means less freedom. 

Company owners object on the basis of straight-forward economic self-interest: These new regulations will cost my business thousands (millions, tens of millions) of dollars, and I can’t afford that. That’s not tactical, that’s rational. 

Trade associations criticize new regulations on economic and competitive grounds: These rules will add unnecessary costs that will make this industry sectory less successful and damage its ability to compete in the global economy. 

People who have industry experience or practical, technical knowledge may raise these legitimate points: This won’t work! It’s like you don’t know anything about the real world. 

Examples of each of these criticisms will be different. Business leaders may object to one new regulatory proposal more strenously than another because the first one is MUCH, MUCH WORSE than the second. If you want to characterize that as tactical, well, convicted. 

As for OMB Watch’s claim about the “climate in which conservatives and business leaders are criticizing the Obama administration for rapidly expanding the regulatory state,” here’s a letter signed by 106 House members in August to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, strenuously objecting to the EPA’s proposed rule to further limit emissions from industrial boilers (known as the Boiler MACT rule). Of those signers, 45 were Democrats, 61 were Republicans. These are not “conservatives and business leaders,” they are the elected representatives of the U.S. citizenry, and they span a broad ideological range. 

The critique offered by these U.S. Representatives:

As our nation struggles to recover from the current recession, we are deeply concerned that the potential impact of pending Clean Air Act regulations could be unsustainable for U.S. manufacturing and the high-paying jobs it provides. As the national unemployment rate hovers around 10 percent, and federal, state, and municipal finances are in dire straits, hundreds of thousands of manufacturing workers have lost their jobs in the past year alone. The flow of capital for new investment and hiring is still seriously restricted, and could make or break the viability of continued operations. Both small and large businesses are vulnerable to extremely costly regulatory burdens, as well as municipalities, universities, federal facilities, and commercial entities. While we support efforts to address serious health threats from air emissions, we also believe that regulations can be crafted in a balanced way that sustains both the environment and jobs.

To make the case for a bigger, more intrusive, costly and powerful federal regulatory leviathan, OMB Watch turns to a straw man argument, i.e., “Our critics are just conservatives and business leaders making tactical arguments.” But the criticism of specific regulations and the Obama Administration’s aggressive expansion of the regulatory state in general is substantive, detailed, multifaceted and fully aware of what the activists would obscure as a “complex record.”

The House Homeland Security Committee continues its markup at 5:30 p.m. of H.R. 2868, the Chemical Facility Antiterrorism Act, a seemingly well-intentioned piece of legislation that will make U.S. production and storage of chemicals more expensive and burdensome with no appreciable benefit to public safety and national security. Extension of the current 2006 regulations would allow the increased safety measures known as the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards, or CFATS, to be implemented fully in a logical, effective way. The Obama Administration supports such an extension.

We posted on the bill here and here, and have also noted the writing of E.F. Glynn, blogging at KansasMeadowlark, concerned about the impact of yet more government regulation on farmers and the ag economy. In a new post, “Homeland Security may impose new regulations on agriculture,” Glynn includes videos from last week’s committee meeting and expresses astonishment that the debate seems to be driven by a left-leaning think tank: “A Center for American Progress study that shows no economists or engineers on the project team, nor any economic or engineering analysis, is enough for Congress to decide national chemical security policy?”

Well, count up the usual suspects. The believers in regulations first and always at OMB Watch say, “Chemical Security Bill Withstanding Industry Assault“: “With luck and the continued hard work of the ‘Blue Green Coalition’ of labor, environmental, and public interest groups, the bill hopefully will emerge from this committee mostly unscathed.” See, obviously this coalition formed because of their mutual interest in fighting terrorism.

There’s also the U.S. PIRG news release, “U.S. PIRG Urges Passage of Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Act of 2009.”

Both groups support the “citizen suits” provisions which create a second regulatory system, that imposed by environmentalist lawsuits. Blogger P.J. Coyle also wonders about the impetus behind the newly added “citizen suits” provision at his blog, “Chemical Facility Security News.”

As committee members debate this legislation that will add costs to a major employer during a serious recession, we would remind them of these facts, courtesy the American Chemistry Council:

That’s 5.66 million jobs.

From OMB Watch, supporters of the expansive regulatory state, an interesting report on the EPA’s handling of proposed Bush Administration regulations (pulled back) and pending proposals for review by the White House, “Climate Change Rules Among Obama’s First.” The conclusion:

Taken along with the decision to reconsider California’s request to regulate vehicle emissions, the Obama EPA is getting off to a fast start on climate change.

Oh boy.

UPDATE (5 p.m.): From Forbes, “No Stimulus for Science,” a plea for rational risk and cost-benefit analysis in regulations by Henry I. Miller, a physician and molecular biologist and a fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution:

Federal agencies are required by presidential executive order to prepare a regulatory impact assessment in support of any economically significant regulatory action, an important component of which is a benefit-cost analysis. Nevertheless, because politics and special interests (which include regulators themselves) often prevail, all regulations are not created equal. Some serve society–and taxpayers–well, while others are so wrongheaded and costly that they are actually harmful.

Office of Management and Budget (OMB) analyses of major regulations often show wide disparities between benefits and costs. For example, nutrition labeling of meat and poultry yields benefits of $1.75 billion against costs of $245 million, while wind standards for manufactured housing have benefits of $79 million but cost $511 million, and standards for double-hull boats yield benefits of $15 million but cost $641 million.

The Environmental Protection Agency fares badly in OMB analyses. Of the 30 least cost-effective regulations throughout the government, the EPA had imposed no fewer than 17. For example, the agency’s restrictions on the disposal of land that contains certain wastes prevent 0.59 cancer cases per year–about three cases every five years–and avoid $20 million in property damage, at an annual cost of $194 to $219 million.

From a political standpoint, i.e., achieving the environmentalist agenda, regulations addressing global warming are useful tools because the possible effects of increased greenhouse gas emissions are purely speculative and based on computer models. If we don’t do X, billions will die. So we have to do X, no matter the cost.

There’s been much huffing on the activist left about “Midnight Regulations” being issued by the Bush Administration, that is, the supposedly last-minute surprises that the White House and agencies are springing on the public without adequate notice.

Groups like the American Association for Justice (trial lawyers), the Sierra Club (environmentalists), and ProPublica (activist, anti-business journalism) have all pounded the table against this circumvention of the regulatory and oversight process. But in most cases, these regulations have been in the works for many months if not years and have indeed followed standard practice, in line with OMB’s instructions to avoid the shortcuts and gaming that undermines the implementation of these rules.

What’s really going on here is an effort to delegitimatize the substance of the regulations, especially those that attempt to encourage energy production while maintaining public health and safety. These groups have all lost their arguments during the drafting and public comment period on the rules, so now they try a process attack against the outcome.

Why else haven’t we seen an outcry against President Bush’s announcement this week that is he is using his executive branch authority to declare national monuments in three areas of the Pacific Ocean – in total, the largest fully protected area in the world, 195,274 square miles worth? It’s an astonishingly far-reaching expansion of government control over vast regions, done not after a full policy debate in Congress but instead with a stroke of the president’s pen. Are any of the groups aggrieved over “midnight regulations” upset with this display of executive branch authority?

To its credit, at least OMB Watch acknowledges the President’s actions, trying to distinguish it from “midnight regulations” in a blog post, “Last-Minute Ocean Conservation from Bush“:

Bush’s conservation move comes not by agency regulations, but by powers granted to presidents under the Antiquities Act of 1906, according to the Post. Though the regulatory machine is shutting down, Bush has other ways of advancing his policies. Executive orders, proclamations, and the like — though easier for future presidents to undo — remain an option for Bush until his final minutes in office.

Well, then, shouldn’t OMB Watch and its allies among the anti-Bush-regulation crowd be as exercised about the new Marine Monuments as they are about the “midnight regs?”

Sure they should be, but they’re not, which tells us it’s not the midnight that offends them, it’s Bush keeping the clock.

The anti-jobs activist group, OMB Watch, has recorded great success in pitching the claim that the Bush Administration is rushing through a batch of “midnight regulations”  meant to circumvent the normal regulatory process. As we’ve posted, the Washington Post led its paper with the story last week and ABC-TV News accepted the thesis, as well.

Now comes a CBS Evening News story, in which reporter Jim Axelrod actually presents both sides of the issue, that of OMB Watch and the White House, effectively refuting the charges of regulatory expedience.

Of course, in doing so, CBS defaults to the activists’ issue-defining terminology, the claim that the White House wants to “roll back regulations controlling air pollution, weakening the requirement to upgrade costly emission controls.”

Bunk.

CBS’s co-marketing of the OMB pitch is a reference to “New Source Review,” an issue the Wall Street Journal addresses in its lead editorial today, “New Source Rescue“:

When environmentalists oppose regulations that yield environmental benefits, something is afoot. So it is with the gathering furor over a possible Bush Administration upgrade of U.S. clean-air regulations.

Senate Democrats Barbara Boxer and Tom Carper wrote to the Environmental Protection Agency last month expressing their “grave concern” about “this dangerous proposal.” House Oversight Chairman Henry Waxman is “gravely concerned” too, about the EPA’s “reckless disregard of legal constraints on its rulemaking authority.” The trio and the green lobby are already shouting about “midnight regulations,” the last-minute ritual at the end of every Presidency.

But this rule was first proposed in 2005, and the Administration may — or may not — get around to issuing a final verdict this week. The proposal would usefully reform a permitting test called New Source Review, or NSR, which requires power plants to install state-of-the-art pollution controls when they expand their generation capacity, thus increasing smog- or soot-forming emissions.

 And…

Mr. Waxman gives the game away when he claims that the new rule would increase carbon dioxide emission by 74 million tons annually, even though CO2 is not (yet) regulated under clear-air laws. What he really means is that without this rule change the EPA will soon force the decommissioning of a large portion of the U.S. coal-fired power portfolio under New Source Review. Some 71% of the national’s coal capacity is between 27- and 57-years-old, and environmentalists want to measure any emissions change as an “increase” so that these plants are shut down.

The latest regulatory proposal for NSR is from 2005, but the Administration — and the NAM — has been working on the issue since 2001. Hard to see how seven years of labor is a rushed-through midnight regulation.

In the CBS news story, OMB Watch’s Matt Madia is honest to admit the real objection is to the substance of the regulations: “It’s environmental issues, it’s workplace safety, it’s traffic safety.” OMB Watch also objects to the “common theme for a lot of these rules, is that they’re going to be for the benefit of industry.” And since industry is by definition bad, all the rules are bad.

In the case of New Source Review, the specific goal is to prevent the continued operation of coal-fired power plants, whether they’re cleaner or not. So the protests and shouting and crying about “midnight regulations” is nothing more a sexy angle to get the media to write a story. As a media strategy, it’s a clear success. As an honest contribution to the public debate, it’s a shameful failure.

The Washington Post publishes today as its lead, page one story, “A Last Push to Deregulate” with a subhed, “White House to Ease Many Rules.”

The White House is working to enact a wide array of federal regulations, many of which would weaken government rules aimed at protecting consumers and the environment, before President Bush leaves office in January.

The new rules would be among the most controversial deregulatory steps of the Bush era and could be difficult for his successor to undo. Some would ease or lift constraints on private industry, including power plants, mines and farms.

Given the placement and the headline’s tone, we anticipated another bit of agenda journalism, especially since the first source cited is one of the regulatory zealots at the group, OMB Watch.

OMB Watch leads its website with activist huffing and puffing about “midnight regulations,” the nefarious practice of enacting last-minute regulations. ABC News has already bought OMB Watch’s spiel doing a segment yesterday, “The Bush Administration’s Midnight Regulations,” referring to the lead OMB spokesman and activist on the issue as an “expert.” Right. Disinterested expert.

But, kudos, the Post story is pretty balanced. It gives the Administration a place to state its case up high in the story, noting the deadlines that OMB set to allow a full examination of regulations before they’re promulgated. The reporter, R. Jeffrey Smith, describes the Clinton Administration’s undisciplined, partisan rush of last-minute regs, as well, providing some grounds for comparison: “While it remains unclear how much the administration will be able to accomplish in the coming weeks, the last-minute rush appears to involve fewer regulations than Bush’s predecessor, Bill Clinton, approved at the end of his tenure.” Including some enacted even AFTER the Clinton Administration left office.

So good job, Washington Post. Hope all the other media outlets that get lobbied into a story by OMB Watch strive for as much accuracy, balance and context. We did laugh when we encountered this paragraph, though:

As many as 90 new regulations are in the works, and at least nine of them are considered “economically significant” because they impose costs or promote societal benefits that exceed $100 million annually. They include new rules governing employees who take family- and medical-related leaves, new standards for preventing or containing oil spills, and a simplified process for settling real estate transactions.

Surely no one is going to be audacious enough to claim proposed Family and Medical Leave Act regulations are last-minute, perfidious “midnight regulations.” The Department of Labor’s Employment Standards Administration issued a request for information on the FMLA on December 1, 2006.

Working on a regulation for nearly two years really doesn’t qualify as a midnight regulation.