Just Another Secretive Agency That Apparently Answers To Nobody
From LIBERTY BLITZKRIEG:"Let’s start off with a little background. OIRA was created in 1980, and shortly thereafter the Reagan administration greatly expanded its powers by signing an executive order that gave the office the authority to review all federal rules. Ever since then, it has been used to rewrite or entirely block regulations from almost every regulatory body imaginable. While the initial idea of a government body to review newly proposed regulations and gather additional feedback before implementation is a noble one, in practice it has amounted to nothing more than the censorship of science in the name of protecting large corporate interests. Most importantly, all of this happens in total darkness.
For example, ProPublica notes that OIRA is disturbingly exempt from most requests under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). For example, the public cannot even find out the qualifications of the people who make drastic changes to proposed environmental regulations. In one specific case regarding a proposed EPA rule, we see an economist and a lawyer completely overruling peer-reviewed science.
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Significantly, OIRA doesn’t just interfere every once in a while. As ProPublic notes: “84% of the EPA’s proposed rules from 2001 to 2011 featured changes suggested by OIRA.” As mentioned earlier, the American public has no idea what was changed, why, or the qualifications of the people who made the changes. All of that is intentionally kept completely secret. Surely, in order to protect us from terrorists or something.
Even more worrisome, OIRA power is not only wielded for corporate profit protection purposes, but for political purposes as well. For example, according to OIRA’s governing executive order, it is supposed to complete its review within 90 days of receiving a proposed regulation. Nevertheless, “delays reached an all-time peak under President Obama between 2011 and 2013.”
High level EPA officials believe this was due to the 2012 election and not wanting to review any potentially controversial environmental regulations ahead of it. Quite often an OIRA strategy is to simply never review a proposed regulation until the regulatory body gives up and pulls it.
The anti-democratic, secretive and feudal power vested in the OIRA is an issue with which I was entirely unaware, but it is extremely important nonetheless. Here are some excerpts from ProPublica’s very important article:.
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