Looking Back on the Presidents' Policy Wonks

[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Cindy Skrzycki]
Inside the Office of Management and Budget is the 25-year old the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs which oversees the federal rulemaking bureaucracy. Next Monday, the AEI-Brookings Joint Center for Regulatory Studies will gather four OIRA administrators and others in the regulatory nexus to examine how various presidents have used that oversight function to achieve political and policy goals. Most of the nine office administrators have left a stamp on OIRA's operation that reflects the regulatory philosophy of the administration in power. Some were public in their positions, while others were wizard-like, hiding behind an impenetrable curtain. All had power to shape regulatory policy that would affect business, public interest groups and, in many cases, every American. They are the Supreme Policy Wonks. The office reviews about 600 of the 4,000 or so rules that the federal government issues each year, those with an impact of at least $100 million on the economy. It has authority to set procedures for agencies' scientific and economic assessment of rules and to change or kill proposals that don't jibe with an administration's political agenda. The administrator is the only staff member subject to Senate approval. Gary Bass , founder and executive director of OMB Watch , a public-interest group created in 1983 in part to monitor OIRA, said the office was "the Marine Corps of agencies" in its early years. "They would come in and run right over you. They overrode the agencies. They threatened budget cuts." "It used to be a sledgehammer approach; now it's an ice pick. It's more sculpted and surgical," said Bass, comparing the treatment of rules in earlier Republican administrations with this one's.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/31/AR2005103101736.html
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