Office of Management and Budget

Unanswered Questions About Cost-Benefit Analysis

We have only fragmentary evidnece about how CBA actually functions in government decision-making.

Considering that people have been debating cost-benefit analysis at least since Reagan mandated its use in 1981, you would think we would have the answers to some basic questions about how it works.  Yet we have very fragmentary information, generally based on the perspevtives of people at the agencies or in the White House Office …

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No (or at least little) net loss of jobs from regulation

We keep hearing the phrase “job-killing regulations” from the Republican side of the aisle, with environmental regulations generally at the top of their lists. Yet there has never been much evidence for the claim that government regulation is systematically bad for employment or the economy. To the contrary, scholars, this blog, think tanks (notably the …

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“Smoking gun” OMB memo on EPA climate change rulemaking is not what it seems

As Dan has mentioned, there has been a bit of a dust-up over a document in EPA’s rulemaking docket relating to EPA’s recent finding that greenhouse gases pose an endangerment to public health and welfare.  As Dan notes, the memo, apparently originating at the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), is harshly critical …

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Endangerment finding reportedly in the works

The New York Times and Washington Post are reporting that EPA has sent a finding that greenhouse gas emissions endanger public health and welfare to the Office of Management and Budget for review. If OMB approves, EPA administrator Lisa Jackson can sign and officially issue the finding. That would be the first step toward regulating …

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