Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., has introduced a bill which would freeze the “midnight rulemaking” that takes place at the end of an administration. The bill, H.R. 7296, would impact any regulation adopted in the final 90 days of a presidency. It would prevent those rules from taking effect until 90 days after the new president appoints a new agency head. So if the incoming president doesn’t like a new rule at, say, the Interior Department, his new Interior secretary could cancel the rule within 90 days of taking office. It’s an interesting idea, though it seems to us a bit…
Browsing: Regulation
12:27 PM: Obama pledged more “transparency and accountability” for the government’s rescue efforts under his administration. 12:18 PM: Obama called on the next Congress to put together an economic stimulus plan in January; he also promised to unveil proposals from his economic team in the next few weeks. Obama also acknowledged that any government stimulus plan could require cuts to other government programs: We’ll have to scour our federal budget, line by line, and make meaningful cuts and sacrifices. 12:10 PM: Not that it was much of a secret, but now it’s official. The president-elect just finished his speech at…
We reported earlier this month on the expected wave of “midnight regulation” at the end of the Bush administration. Agencies were supposed to issue all final regulations by Nov. 1, according to OMB, except in “extraordinary circumstances.” But experts predicted dozens of new rules would miss the deadline and slip out the door before Jan. 20 (as happens during every transition). Sure enough, there are more than a dozen new rules in today’s Federal Register, including at least two proposed rules (which agencies were supposed to stop creating by July 1). A few examples: A final rule from the EPA…
Existing agencies and departments could be called on to help implement new energy legislation, said Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., this morning. Speaking this morning at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee said agencies may be playing bigger roles in energy reduction, should energy legislation be passed. That could include administering programs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and carbon cap and trades. “A significant time and opportunity cost is associated with starting a new institution from scratch. We need to make good use of the existing institutions we have,” he…
We’ve written before, on this blog and in the newspaper, about the problems at Interior’s Minerals Management Service, which collects royalties from oil and gas exploration projects on federal lands. The most recent problems affect the “royalty-in-kind” program, which collects royalties in the form of oil and gas instead of cash; MMS sells the products for a profit. MMS says it’s more lucrative than a cash royalty program; good-government groups and many experts disagree. Apparently, so does the Government Accountability Office (pdf): MMS’s annual reports to the Congress do not fully describe the performance of the royalty-in-kind program and, in…
It’s Halloween on Friday and as if on cue the Defense Department has released a new acquisition regulation about the use of humans in research contracts. Maybe it’s just me, but government and human testing sounds like the makings of a horror flick or thriller. OK, so the rule is probably not that scary. In fact, the rule is aimed at enhancing protections for human guinea pigs by ensuring contracts contain a clause mandating researchers to follow a stringent set of human research rules, such as obtaining informed consent from participants and receiving approval from a review board. For the curious…
FDIC chairwoman Sheila Bair just told the Senate Banking committee that her agency is studying ways to insure (potentially) hundreds of thousands of mortgages. It’s an unprecedented proposal for the agency. Bair said the new authority comes from the “bailout bill” approved by Congress earlier this month. Banks would have to renegotiate troubled mortgages, perhaps lowering the interest rate or extending the repayment period. In return, the FDIC would guarantee the mortgages, much the way it guarantees bank deposits. But the guarantee program would also expose the FDIC to even more financial risk. Bair didn’t offer many details on the…
… but legislators had another group to criticize today for our financial crisis: the credit rating agencies. As Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., put it during a hearing before the House Oversight and Government Reform committee: The story of the credit rating agencies is a story of colossal failure. The credit rating agencies occupy a special place in our financial markets. Millions of investors rely on them for independent, objective assessments. The rating agencies broke this bond of trust, and federal regulators ignored the warning signs and did nothing to protect the public. The result is that our entire financial system…
The Interior Department announced today that more than 190 million acres of federal land are now open for geothermal energy projects. Last month, you’ll remember, Congress declined to renew the ban on oil shale development before it adjourned. And the lapsed ban on offshore drilling means a huge swath of land is now open for leasing. All this adds up to a massive expansion of responsibilities at a few federal agencies — including one that doesn’t have a stellar track record: the Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service, lambasted by the department’s IG last month for a “pervasive culture of exclusivity”…
The Washington Post reported today that three federal agencies — the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and the New York branch of the Fed — are “vying for control” of the $53 trillion market in “credit-default swaps,” contracts that insure financial institutions who make risky investments. It’s an interesting look inside the infighting that plagues financial regulators. A horde of agencies oversees the financial world: the SEC, CFTC, two agencies to regulate banks, the Fed, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, the Treasury Department… In the era of deregulation (now ending), that was fine. But our fragmented regulators…