US president asks for comprehensive review of agencies and rules after accusations White House is anti-business
Barack Obama ordered a broad review of environmental, health and safety regulations today to try to pre-empt Republican charges that he is leading an anti-business administration.
In an executive order, the US president instructed government agencies to ensure all regulations are cost-effective, science-based and transparent, as well as promoting economic growth, innovation and job creation.
The move was seen on both sides of the political divide as an attempt to counter accusations from the main business lobby, the Chamber of Commerce, that Obama has unleashed a "regulatory tsunami" on business, and to head off a campaign by conservative Tea Party Republicans to strip the Environmental Protection Agency of its authority to act on climate change.
"It's a review that will help bring order to regulations that have become a patchwork of overlapping rules, the result of tinkering by administrations and legislators of both parties, and the influence of special interests in Washington," Obama wrote in today's Wall Street Journal.
Many of the Tea Party conservatives taking their seats in the new Congress were elected on a promise to shrink government. Several incoming Republicans ? as well as Democrats from coal states ? have specifically pledged to block EPA's actions on climate change, which they call a "job killer".
Darrell Issa, the powerful new head of the house energy and commerce committee, earlier this month sent letters to 150 business leaders asking what government regulations they found too onerous.
Administration officials said the review would apply to EPA regulations on greenhouse gas emissions, which began coming into force in 2011. However in his Journal piece, Obama held up the administration's new fuel economy standards as an example of the "commonsense" regulations he said were needed.
"The EPA and the Department of Transportation worked with automakers, labour unions, states like California, and environmental advocates this past spring to turn a tangle of rules into one aggressive new standard." he said.
"It was a victory for car companies that wanted regulatory certainty; for consumers who will pay less at the pump; for our security, as we save 1.8bn barrels of oil; and for the environment as we reduce pollution."
Even so, a number of liberal groups said Obama had gone overboard in assuaging Republican concerns about government over-reach. "The president swallows the GOPS' frame for the debate hook, line and sinker," Rena Steinzor of the Centre for Progressive Reform said in a statement.
Obama insisted that he did not intend to neutralise the EPA and other regulatory agencies, such as the Food and Drug Administration, and that necessary safety provisions would stay in place. "But we are also making it our mission to root out regulations that conflict, that are not worth the cost, or that are just plain dumb," he said.
The Chamber of Commerce, while claiming to welcome the order, said Obama should extend the review to the recently enacted financial reforms and healthcare law. It also encouraged Congress to continue its challenge of the administration's regulatory authority.
"Congress should reclaim some of the authority it has delegated to the agencies and implement effective checks and balances on agency power," the chamber said in a statement.
Republicans meanwhile argued Obama had not gone far enough. "Today's executive order from President Obama shows that he heard the same message I did in the last election ? that Americans are sick and tired of Washington's excessive over-reach and overspending," the house majority leader, Eric Cantor said. "We must go further."
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/jan/18/barack-obama-review-epa-agencies
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