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Wednesday, September 28, 2005

OMB Watch Testifies on Sunset/Reorganization
OMB Watch testified yesterday before a subcommittee of the House Government Reform Committee against House bills that would implement the White House's proposal for mandatory program sunsets and powers to reorganize government at will.

>Read the press release

>Download the testimony

Posted by Robert Shull, 12:40:49 PM

Tuesday, September 13, 2005

Resolution to Reject Mercury Rule: Rejected
The Senate voted 47-51 to reject the CRA resolution of disapproval of the mercury rule.

Look for a mercury hot spot in a poor community near you.

Posted by Robert Shull, 03:18:48 PM

Resolution to Reject Mercury Rule Proceeds
The Senate voted 92-0 yesterday to allow a floor vote for S. J. Res. 20, a joint resolution under the Congressional Review Act to reject EPA's mercury rule. A White House Statement of Administration Policy threatens a veto, but Congress Daily is reporting that the White House will probably not need to brandish its veto pen because the Senate is ultimately expected to defeat the CRA resolution when it finally comes to the floor today.

The challenged rule would violate the Clean Air Act by failing to require the maximum achievable control technology. The White House pulled out all the stops, even doctoring the science to justify a policy Sen. Leahy has described as follows: "If we ever wondered what a mercury pollution rule would look like if it were written by the polluters, now we know. This is pretty much it."

More information on the mercury rule

Posted by Robert Shull, 12:16:11 PM

Monday, September 12, 2005

Sunset Over New Orleans
A subcommittee of the House Government Reform Committee is holding a hearing Sep. 21 on the House version of a White House proposal to give itself fast-track, take-it-or-leave-it authority to reorganize government and to force programs to plead for their lives every 10 years. Read more about that proposal here.

With New Orleans and the Gulf Coast in mind, imagine how that would play out:

FEMA could be forced to stop every 10 years and divert scarce resources into explaining to the Sunset Commission why it must be allowed to continue to exist.

The White House proposal calls for automatic death of programs, regardless of the Sunset Commission's decision, if Congress fails to act in time to save the program. A provision in the White House proposal would exempt programs "related to enforcing" health, safety, civil rights, or environmental regulations from the automatic expiration provision. Assuming that all of FEMA's programs are "related to enforcing" safety regulations (which is not immediately obvious) -- FEMA would still be forced to divert resources into justifying its continued existence before the Sunset Commission, which would also be empowered to demand the production of information for that review and potentially drown the agency in paperwork.

Meanwhile, no exemption exists from the work of the Results Commission -- the White House's name for the vehicle that would grant it almost unchecked power to reorganize government. The Results Commission pieces of the proposal could empower the White House to shatter apart all the different programs in FEMA and send them to many separate agencies, or bury FEMA -- once an independent agency, now a sub-unit of the Department of Homeland Security -- so deep into the bowels of government that it would be rendered even more ineffective than some recent news reports suggest FEMA has been.

Posted by Robert Shull, 07:57:41 PM

Thursday, September 08, 2005

Americans Demand Focus on Domestic Policy
USA Today is reporting the results of the latest Pew poll, in which a majority expresses its desire for a renewed focus on domestic policy:

More than half of Americans now say it is more important for the president to focus on domestic policy — the first time since Sept. 11, 2001 that domestic matters have been viewed as a higher priority than the war on terrorism in polling by the Pew Research Center.
Two-thirds said the president could have done more to get relief efforts going quickly, according to the survey.
The slow-moving response to the hurricane appears to have shaken American confidence in the government's ability to deal with a major disaster. Four in 10 said the response to the hurricane has made them less confident about the government's ability to handle a major terrorist attack.
Almost six in 10 in the Pew poll, 58%, say they have felt depressed because of what's happened along the Gulf Coast. Pew polling indicates that at no point during the Iraq war has that high a percentage of people said they were depressed because of the war.

The findings should not be all that surprising: majorities consistently report that they believe the government has an important role in protecting public health and safety. Meanwhile, those same majorities have been witnessing, with horror, the results of government's failure to fulfill that role.

Posted by Robert Shull, 05:31:59 PM

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