Obama delayed regulations until after the election, but that’s just a symptom of the problem

[xchrom]

http://grist.org/politics/obama-delayed-regulations-until-after-the-election-but-thats-just-a-symptom-of-the-problem/

***SNIP

But experts on environmental regulation also say that a close reading of the ACUS report, and their observations from recent years, show that the problems with our regulatory state run much deeper than Obama’s White House. Many elements conspire to make honest, evidence-based rule-making impossible: lobbyists, astroturf industry front groups, never-ending lawsuits, political action committees that spend millions of dollars on advertisements, and think tanks that churn out bogus reports to serve the interests of their wealthy benefactors. Even Obama’s cowardice can be partially ascribed to the financial and political firepower of anti-regulatory interests.

“There really are systemic problems here that go beyond a specific administration,” says Celia Wexler, senior Washington representative for the Union of Concerned Scientists. “The problem of political interference in rule-making is way bigger than 2012 and 2013. We have a system where the regulatory process is pretty much broken. It’s impossible for agencies to make good regulations based on science and get them through.”

Rich, powerful industry groups have invested so heavily in recent decades in working the referees that the whole system now revolves around their concerns. “There is a very long comment process in which we are always outgunned by the resources and lawyers of corporate interests,” explains Wexler. “Agencies are really afraid of being sued over rules, and that happens quite frequently. So rules get stuck for years and years.” For example, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration has spent years mulling proposed rules to limit silica particles that would save an estimated 700 lives per year. That’s just one of eight major rules facing excessive delays, according to a June report by the Coalition for Sensible Safeguards. And eagerly awaited rules on carbon emissions from new power plants were delayed for months beyond an April 2013 deadline so the EPA could make them more resistant to inevitable industry lawsuits.

Polluting industries and their conservative allies in politics have succeeded in changing the framework of environmental regulation: Now it’s about economic cost-benefit analysis. Even a Democratic administration such as Obama’s is obsessed with cost-benefit analysis. How many dollars is a worker’s life worth, and is it more or less than the dollars that will be lost to a rule limiting silica dust? Thus the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs within the Office of Management and Budget has become a bottleneck.

[djean111]

1. How many dollars is a worker’s life worth, and is it more or less than the dollars that will be lost

to a rule limiting silica dust?
That is our country in a nutshell. And the TPP and other treaties amended to mirror the TPP will double down on that.

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2. +1

[underpants]

3. "Limited government" only helps polluters and racists