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Presidents And Process: A Comparison Of The Regulatory Process Under The Clinton And Bush (43) Administrations, Stuart Shapiro

Stuart Shapiro

Do procedural controls placed on the regulatory process allow politicians to control bureaucratic decisionmaking? I use data on the regulatory process under the Clinton and Bush Administrations to assess the differences between these presidents with distinct ideological regulatory agendas. I find that the number of comments received, the changes made between proposal and finalization of rules, the frequency with which agencies bypass notice and comment, the frequency of use of different regulatory analyses, and the time to complete a rulemaking did not vary substantially between the two presidencies. This raises questions about the role of procedural controls on agency decisionmaking.