Recent Projects

Policy Integrity submitted comments to the Department of Energy (DOE) on its plan for periodic retrospective review pursuant to Executive Order 13563, which asks agencies to consider how best to promote retrospective analyses of existing rules. We found that the DOE’s plan could do a better job of updating and expanding regulations to enhance net benefits rather than just minimization of compliance burdens and administrative cost cutting, which the plan largely focuses on.

Policy Integrity submitted comments to ACUS (Administrative Conference of the United States) regarding various proposed recommendations to be considered at its 56th Plenary Session. As an independent federal agency that works to improve federal agency procedures, ACUS held its biannual assembly to discuss and vote on recommendations around issues such as regulatory analysis requirements, midnight rules, and coordination of multi-agency responsibilities.

Today, we sent a letter to the White House’s Office of Management and Budget suggesting ways that that federal agencies can use data to work more closely and maximize their efforts on behalf of the American public.

Today we submitted comments in response to OIRA’s annual report to Congress. Among the several specific suggestions is that the employment impacts of regulations be integrated into cost-benefit analysis in a balanced, transparent way. We recommend that OIRA should be careful to avoid any language that reinforces the mistaken belief that regulations inevitably lead to unemployment and that any analysis should do its best to model net employment impact, not just one region or sector.

Policy Integrity is conducting an empirical analysis of power plant emissions in New York City to evaluate the potential efficacy of various policy tools that can reduce or shift electricity demand. The complete project will quantify the health impacts of reducing pollution from specific local sources, and will try to connect the range of legal options available to shift demand with those pollution-reduction and health-improvement outcomes. Today we are posting information on the data and the STATA code that we will use to conduct the analysis. In the coming months, we will publish the results of our analysis as it becomes available.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) released a final rule to prevent, detect and respond to sexual abuse in prison facilities, in accordance with the Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003 (PREA). The rule marks the government’s first ever effort to set standards to protect inmates in facilities at the federal, state and local levels.

Policy Integrity submitted a letter to OIRA Administrator Cass Sunstein today with recommendations for how OIRA can improve interagency coordination. The letter focuses on two key areas: (1) concerns about regulatory conflict, and (2) potential for harmonization of cost-benefit analysis methodology.

President Obama signed off today on a new Executive Order aimed at identifying and reducing regulatory burdens. It calls upon agencies to evaluate the effectives of old rules and issue reports on their progress.

Today, Policy Integrity submitted public comments to the Administrative Conference of the United States regarding their Committee on Regulation’s proposed recommendations for review of regulatory analysis requirements.

Today, EPA was supposed to propose rules to curb stormwater run-off—the murky, polluted water that gushes into rivers and oceans after heavy rains. They now say the proposal will come in May.