In the News

When human health and safety are at risk Americans expect their government to protect them. We assume we are guarded against risks like lead in children’s toys or poisons in our drinking water. And for the most part, these protections deliver benefits well beyond what they cost. A proposal on Capitol Hill would require Congress to vote on every large regulation put forward. The measure (PDF), given the acronym “REINS,” and introduced by Jim DeMint in the Senate and Geoff Davis in the House, has as its goal slowing down what they call “costly anti-free market regulations that are destroying jobs.” But its real effect will be to grind action by administrative agencies nearly to a halt.

A recent review of state regulatory review procedures by the Institute for Policy Integrity noted that “Florida’s entire regulatory review process needs to focus more on maximizing social benefits, not just on minimizing compliance costs.”

That’s why a new report from New York University’s Institute for Policy Integrity couldn’t arrive at a better time. The report analyzes and compares regulatory review systems in all 50 states, and even gives them grades. Not surprisingly, no state earned an “A.” The average grade, however, was a miserable “D+,” which was the grade conferred on New York’s supposedly top-of-the-heap review system.

With no hope for a national comprehensive climate package in the near term, the focus is shifting to the states and their existing emissions policies. Can the states create the United States’ climate policy? During today’s OnPoint, Michael Livermore, executive director of the Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University School of Law, discusses the emerging policy strategy in the states and explains how U.S. EPA’s pending regulation of emissions will affect existing state greenhouse gas programs.

The Institute for Policy Integrity last week issued a report on regulatory systems of individual states, and New York received a grade of D-plus. The underlying problem for the state’s poor grade was not the regulatory system’s size or the costs it adds to employers, taxpayers and others. Those are true problems, for sure, but this report focused much of its analysis on the effectiveness of the regulations.

New York gets a D-plus grade for its regulation of industries that affect air and water quality, job growth and other essentials, according to a report by a think tank. “It’s not a problem of too much regulation,” said Richard Revesz, faculty director of the Institute for Policy Integrity, which conducted the study. “It’s a question of crafting the right kind of regulation.”

New York gets a D-plus grade for its regulation of industries that effect air and water quality, job growth and other essentials, according to a report by an independent think tank.

New York gets a D-plus grade for its regulation of industries that affect air and water quality, job growth and other essentials, according to a report by an independent think tank.

New York gets a D-plus grade for its regulation of industries that effect air and water quality, job growth and other essentials, according to a report by an independent think tank.

New York gets a D-plus grade for its regulation of industries that effect air and water quality, job growth and other essentials, according to a report by an independent think tank. But unlike the long-running argument between businesses that say the state is over-regulated and environmentalists and other advocates who seek more protections from monied interests, the independent report questions the whole decision-making process in New York’s penchant for regulation. “This is not a problem of too much regulation,” said Richard Revesz, dean of the New York University Law School. “It’s a question of crafting the right kind of regulation.”