A new executive order, "Identifying and Reducing Regulatory Burdens," was issued yesterday, focusing exclusively on reducing the costs of regulations to businesses. This is the latest in a series of "aggressive efforts" to reform the regulatory system by cutting these costs.

On Jan. 18, 2011, President Obama issued Executive Order 13563, "Improving Regulation and Regulatory Review," instructing federal agencies to develop plans to review existing regulations to identify rules that are "outmoded, ineffective, insufficient, or excessively burdensome, and to modify, streamline, expand, or repeal them." Twenty-six agencies released final plans to review rules under E.O. 13563.

After the release of the retrospective review plans, Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) Administrator Cass Sunstein issued an Oct. 26, 2011, memorandum on the "Implementation of Retrospective Review Plans," directing agencies to "give high priority to those reforms that will promote economic growth, innovation, competitiveness, and/or job creation . . . [including] those with the greatest potential to produce significant quantifiable cost savings and significant quantifiable reductions in paperwork burdens." The memo made no mention of improving standards or the enforcement of safeguards that benefit the public, which is, after all, the mission of our federal regulatory agencies. Another Sunstein memo, issued in March, directed agencies "to take account of the cumulative effects of new and existing rules" with a goal of ensuring "against unjustified, redundant, or excessive requirements."

Yesterday's order requires agencies to give priority to changing rules to reduce the material costs to business. The potential costs to health and safety are not mentioned. The E.O. also requires agencies to ask for public suggestions about which rules to review and modify and to regularly report the status of their review efforts to OIRA. This will be an invitation to industry lobbyists and trade associations to submit new requests to have health and workplace standards watered down.

Our analysis of the agencies' look-back plans revealed that a majority of the public comments were from industry representatives urging agencies to eliminate or significantly weaken many public health and safety rules that are unpopular with special interests.

Although the first executive order (E.O. 13563) instructed agencies to review rules to determine if they should be "modified, streamlined, expanded, or repealed" (emphasis added), the administration seems to have left out the possibility that a rule could be expanded to benefit public health and safety. In a blog post that Cass Sunstein also released yesterday, the administrator focused solely on streamlining and eliminating rules with no mention of using the look-back process to enhance or strengthen protective standards or safeguards.

Environmental, public health, and worker safety groups had high hopes for the Obama administration after eight years of the business-biased rulemaking that occurred under the Bush administration. This new E.O. and OIRA's recent actions seem eerily reminiscent of that period.

A May 1 Executive Order on international regulatory cooperation has raised questions about how regulatory agencies set their priorities. Regulatory cooperation is neither a particularly new idea, nor an inherently bad one – but if not handled carefully, it could undercut the public protections on which Americans depend.

It shouldn't shock anyone to hear that we are living in an increasingly interdependent world. Consider only the FDA: in 2009, it was responsible for overseeing imports from more than 300,000 drug facilities, totaling $2 trillion worth of products from 150 countries. And, between 2002 and 2010, imports of food, drugs, and medical devices all more than doubled. Because of these changes, the agency says that "FDA’s success in protecting the U.S. public depends increasingly on its ability to reach beyond U.S. borders."

International regulatory cooperation sometimes makes sense: for example, the Department of Labor has recently adopted the Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labeling of Chemicals (GHS). The GHS was the result of an international negotiation involving governments, industry, and labor unions. OSHA estimates it will save American companies $475 million each year (because they can use the same label in different countries) and keep workers safer (because the warning system will be more consistent).

But too often, international regulatory cooperation becomes a race to the bottom, elevating corporate trade concerns over public protections. On May 1, the Administration announced an Executive Order on "Promoting International Regulatory Cooperation." That afternoon, the Administrative Conference of the United States and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce co-hosted a conference on international regulatory cooperation.

Increased emphasis on international regulatory cooperation could be a good thing – if its priority is to improve and maintain regulatory protections across borders. But, too often international cooperation is an excuse to water down protections to the lowest level – a move that typically hurts American workers, consumers, and environment. Our goal should be to have American safeguards represent the “gold standard” worldwide.

Nor should international regulatory harmonization be used as an excuse to limit public participation in the regulatory process. Unfortunately, treaty negotiations controlled by the U.S. Trade Representative typically exclude most public interest groups and consumer organizations, while ensuring maximum corporate involvement and influence. In a disturbing example, "stakeholder presentations" - the only opportunity for public input - were recently eliminated from the meetings surrounding the negotiation of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), but corporations and industry representatives are still being invited to participate in the TPP talks. In fact, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce – which vigorously supports legislation to undercut public protections – boasts that its recommendations formed the basis for the U.S. negotiating positions.

Alarmingly, previous trade agreements have been interpreted to undermine a nation's ability to regulate within its own borders. For example, the U.S. had prohibited the sale of clove cigarettes on public health grounds. That regulation was recently struck down on grounds that it violated World Trade Organization agreements. Even more egregiously, the North American Free Trade Agreement allows corporations to challenge foreign regulations – and recently, a Canadian trade association raised a challenge to a rule authorized by the Dodd-Frank financial reform law.

As the American economy globalizes, the American regulatory system will have to as well. International regulatory cooperation can be a force for good, if it means that regulators from different nations are working together to enact common-sense standards that are clearer and more consistent and protect citizens no matter where they live. But if corporate special interests are being prioritized over essential public protections, no one should cooperate with that.

On April 25, several OMB Watch colleagues and I attended the 2012 Ridenhour Awards, which recognize Americans who engage in "acts of truth-telling to protect the public interest, promote social justice or illuminate a more just vision of society." These individuals, speaking out against large and powerful forces, to expose the truth and protect Americans and social justice, changed history.

I was particularly struck by Master Sgt. Jerry Ensminger's fight to expose water contamination at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune in North Carolina that may have caused his daughter’s death from cancer. Filmmakers Rachel Libert and Tony Hardmon were awarded the Ridenhour Documentary Film Prize for Semper Fi: Always Faithful, a film about his struggle exposing the largest water contamination case in U.S. history.

Two nominees were given the Ridenhour Prize for Truth-Telling, often referred to as the whitstleblower award. Awardee Eileen Foster exposed the systemic fraud (of which led to the 2008 economic crash) at the nation’s largest mortgage provider, Countrywide Financial, when she worked as a fraud investigator at the organization. She gave up economic remuneration to bring the activities to light. Active duty serviceperson Lt. Col. Daniel Davis corrected the distortions of about the war in Afghanistan perpetrated by senior military leadership, at risk of his career.

Ali H. Soufan, a leading counterterrorism investigator, was awarded the 2012 Ridenhour Book Prize for The Black Banners: The Inside Story of 9/11 and the War Against Al-Qaeda. The book documents the torture (enhanced interrogation techniques) that was U.S. policy for years after 9/11. Soufan argues that torture is not only antithetical to American values, but is ineffective, leading to false information, and counter-productive in our efforts to reduce terrorism.

Rep. John Lewis (D-GA), a hero of the Civil Rights movement, received the Ridenhour Courage Prize for dedicating his life to protecting human rights and securing civil liberties, often at risk of his own life.

Sponsored by the Fertel Foundation and The Nation Institute, the awards are held in honor of the late Ron Ridenhour, who exposed the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War and later became an award-winning investigative journalist. OMB Watch was proud to contribute to this year's awards.

The courage and sacrifice of the awardees is an example for us all. The words of Lt. Col. Daniel Davis capture the spirit of the awards: the truth is not negotiable.

Today, the House passed the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act, or DATA Act (H.R. 2146), by a voice vote with strong bipartisan support. The bill to strengthen the transparency of federal government spending was sponsored by Oversight and Government Reform committee chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) and ranking member Elijah Cummings (D-MD) and 13 other representatives.

OMB Watch released a statement applauding the DATA Act's passage. Katherine McFate, President of OMB Watch, praised the bipartisan congressional commitment to new levels of government openness. The Sunlight Foundation and the Project On Government Oversight (POGO) also released statements celebrating the bills's passage.

By requiring public agencies to release more detailed and accurate information on how federal funds are being spent, the DATA Act serves as a critical first step toward ensuring that every citizen has the information he or she needs to understand the choices our officials make while investing public resources.

McFate also added:

In the coming years, our nation will be facing tough choices about how we spend precious public dollars. The DATA Act is a critical first step toward ensuring that every citizen has the information he or she needs to understand the choices our public officials make while investing public resources. By making these choices more transparent, the Act will make government more accountable to the needs and priorities of the American people.

The DATA Act now heads to the Senate, where a companion measure S. 1222, sponsored by Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), awaits action in the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.