Law Commons^™

Evaluating Rules And How We Measure Their Effects, Rena I. Steinzor, Michael Patoka

Faculty Scholarship

The Center for Progres­sive Reform undertook an empirical study of the Office of Information of Regulatory Affairs, the White House office that reviews every significant regulation issue by Executive Branch agencies. The study assembled an unprecedented portrait of its behav­ior during the decade from October 16, 2001, when notices of meetings with outside parties were first available on the Internet, until June 1, 2011. OIRA conducted 6,194 separate reviews of regulatory submissions, holding 1,080 meetings that involved 5,759 ap­pearances by outside par­ticipants. Both the final report and the database we assembled are available on the CPR website, at pro­gressivereform.org.

OIRA …

Corrective Lenses For Iris: Additional Reforms To Improve Epa's Integrated Risk Information System, Rena I. Steinzor, Wendy E. Wagner, Lena Pons, Matthew Shudtz

Faculty Scholarship

The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) is the most important toxicological database in the world. Not only is it the single most comprehensive database of human health information about toxic substances, it also serves as a gateway to regulation, as well as to a range of public and private sector efforts to protect against toxic substances. IRIS “profiles” of individual substances include a number of scientific assessments of the substance’s toxicity to humans by various means of exposure – by inhalation, contact with the skin, and so on. Federal regulators rely on the assessments to do …

Massachusetts V Epa: Escaping The Common Law's Growing Shadow, Robert V. Percival

Faculty Scholarship

In its first full Term with its newest member, the U.S. Supreme Court marched decidedly to the right with decisions narrowing abortion rights, striking down affirmative action programs, invalidating campaign finance regulations, and making it more difficult for victims of employment discrimination to seek redress. In the face of this rightward shift the most surprising decision of the Term was the Court’s embrace of claims that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had acted unlawfully by refusing to use the Clean Air Act to combat climate change. In Massachusetts v EPA, the Court held that EPA had the authority to …

The Legacy Of John Graham: Strait-Jacketing Risk Assessment, Rena I. Steinzor

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

A Perfect Storm: Mercury And The Bush Administration, Part Ii, Rena I. Steinzor, Lisa Heinzerling

Faculty Scholarship

The Environmental Protection Agency's recent proposal to regulate mercury emissions from power plants, and its final rule on mercury emissions from chlor-alkali facilities, suffer from serious scientific, legal, economic, and distributional flaws. The first installment in this series examined the strong scientific basis for regulating mercury emissions and critiqued the agency's decisions from a legal perspective. This second (and final) installment finds that EPA's decisions also fail from the perspectives of economics and environmental justice. EPA and the Office of Management and Budget's economic analysis of the proposal to regulate mercury from power plants was shoddy and one-sided. EPA and …

A Perfect Storm: Mercury And The Bush Administration, Rena I. Steinzor, Lisa Heinzerling

Faculty Scholarship

In December 2003, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed a rule for mercury emissions from power plants and issued a final rule for mercury emissions from chlor-alkali facilities. Regarding power plants, EPA had previously found that mercury posed the most serious threat among the hazardous air pollutants emitted by power plants, and also that regulation of mercury from power plants was appropriate and necessary under section 112 of the Clean Air Act, which requires stringent technology-based regulation for hazardous air pollutants. Despite section 112's clear rejection of emissions trading as a compliance option, EPA has proposed to allow commercial trading …

Bad Science, Linda Greer, Rena I. Steinzor

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Myths Of The Reinvented State, Rena I. Steinzor

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Reinventing Environmental Regulation Through The Government Performance And Results Act: Are The States Ready For The Devolution?, Rena I. Steinzor

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Reinventing Environmental Regulation Via The Government Performance And Results Act: Where's The Money?, Rena I. Steinzor, William F. Piermattei

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Regulatory Reinvention And Project Xl: Does The Emperor Have Any Clothes?, Rena I. Steinzor

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.