Jan. 11:  After Public Citizen coordinated academics and activists in 2006 to oppose a draft White House bulletin imposing a one-size-fits-all straightjacket on risk assessments (evaluations that are important to many science-based regulations), the National Research Council releases a peer review of the bulletin excoriating it.  The White House announces it will withdraw the bulletin — but adds that it will consider alternative approaches.

Jan. 18:  Bush signs an executive order giving the White House’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) power over not just regulation but also “guidance.”  

Public Citizen analysis exposes the executive order as a back-door means to impose many of the same unnecessary procedural burdens on risk assessments that were features of the bulletin rejected by the National Research Council.

Jan. 30:  Even though the nomination of anti-regulatory extremist Susan Dudley to serve as OIRA administrator could not be brought to the floor in 2006, thanks to a major campaign against her led by Public Citizen, Dudley unofficially assumes that job as a “senior adviser.”

April 4: White House announces that Dudley has received a recess appointment as OIRA administrator.

June 21: The Senate passes a version of the energy bill with fuel economy language that it claims raises fuel economy for the combined car and truck fleets to 35 mpg by 2020 -- but empowers the administration to set a lower increase, or no increase at all, provided only that it produce a cost-benefit analysis "justifying" the outcome.  Public Citizen stands alone in criticizing the bill for this built-in regulatory deform, which comes perilously close to passing.

Sept. 19: Dudley releases a memo confirming that the January executive order governs many important risk assessments — thus imposing many of the procedural burdens that the NRC condemned.

Sept. 28: The Small Business Administration’s Office of Advocacy launches “r3: Regulatory Review and Reform Initiative” that invites businesses to compile a new hit list of regulatory protections to be weakened or eliminated.

Nov. 9: In keeping with Public Citizen’s predictions based on an ongoing investigation, OMB and the European Commission release a joint report on considering international trade impacts when analyzing proposed rules, in which the U.S. section proposes further biasing cost-benefit analyses — and further stacking the decks against regulation — by adding trade impacts to the cost side of the analysis.  Public Citizen initiates a continuing response by consumer groups on both sides of the Atlantic.

Nov. 14: Bush signs an executive order codifying a controversial performance assessment process that, among other things, penalizes agencies for following the law instead of following the administration’s own priorities (such as giving failing grades to the Consumer Product Safety Commission and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration because these agencies did not do a cost-benefit analysis of regulations even though such an analysis was prohibited by law).

Dec. 6: After activists send thousands of letters to the Hill and a court decision changes the landscape of fuel economy debates, the House passes its own version of the energy bill without the cost-benefit loophole. This approach to fuel economy later clears the Senate and is signed into law.

Dec. 13:  Despite clear opposition from the public interest community, including Public Citizen, the Democratically controlled House Small Business Committee reports out a bill that would extend regulatory process burdens first imposed by the Contract With America Advancement Act.  To justify this anti-regulatory bill, which would make it more difficult for government agencies to protect the public, committee chair Nydia Velazquez (D-NY) uses talking points right out of the playbook of Newt Gingrich and the Chamber of Commerce.

Late December: When Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO) tries to insert an anti-regulatory amendment into the farm bill, Public Citizen and Natural Resources Defense Council coordinate broad opposition that defeats it.