Lawmakers press regs office to clean up act

[Geee]

The Hill:

A perceived veil of secrecy at the White House’s powerful regulations office may be lifting as the administration works to clear a backlog of agency rules that have languished, sometimes for years, with little explanation.

 

Critics and proponents of federal regulation have for years chided the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) for failing to provide details about its near-constant delays of new rules.

 

The criticism reached fever pitch in recent days with the release of a new federal report that linked the delays to politics.

The report commissioned by the Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS), an independent agency that monitors federal rule-making, partly attributed delays in 2011 and 2012 to concerns about causing a controversy ahead of President Obama’s reelection.

But the report also revealed a shift toward shorter review periods for regulations over the past few months as watchdogs and congressional Democrats have ratcheted up their demands for long-promised public health and safety protections.

Between March and mid-September, the number of agency rules under review for more than a year was nearly cut in half, and reviews lasting more than six months fell by 55 percent between January and September, the report found.