Transcripts For CSPAN2 Trump Administration And Federal Deregulation 20180202

Rao. She is the administrator of that Regulatory Affairs for everybody in this room and in this town commonly known. That is a lingo. This is reminding me of one of the first events i ever did here at bookings. I hosted eight years ago. It was then the administrator. For one of the first events. There was a group of protesters out front one of him was wearing a full on costume with the trashcan assigned and face sign. I think it was him. They were singing a very creatively written a song. That was a play on oscars famous song. I will say it was effective because without that i would never have remembered the disposal rule. There you go. I will say thankfully that this is nothing so exciting happening outside of the room today. It does highlight a serious point which is that the job of the administrator is already controversial and its frequently contentious. They oversee the regulatory process for the executive agencies. Its responsible for vetting the agencys tallies and the cost of federal regulation. An office within the federal government. Theyre gonna giving again giving you a sense of the power of the position in today given the Current Administration and their emphasis on the regulation perhaps the administrator is more influential than ever. Thankfully she is wellqualified for the job. She was an associate professor of law at the Anthony Scalia law school. She founded the center for the Administrative State. She served as all three branches of government. Under senator orrin hatch. For clarence thomas. And she served as associate counsel and special assistant to president george w. Bush. Im decided delighted to have her here. The plan is that she will speak for approximately 20 minutes then i will join her on stage. For some question and answer. And we will turn to all of you for further questions and answers as well. Thank you so much to ted and to brookings for hosting this event. Every time i have a public appearance i asked my staff for jokes. I have to say no one ever comes up with any. And i try to joke about the fact that we dont have any jokes. In my chief of staff says youre the administrator of the officer information and Regulatory Affairs. I have no jokes for you again today. We will see if you can do better next time. My remarks today i wanted to discuss the Regulatory Reform act and to focus on three main points. I wanted to speak a little bit about what weve done in this past year and what we plan to do in the upcoming year and then to give you some other reason and principle why we believe so strongly in our Regulatory Reform efforts. A little bit about what weve done. From my perspective it directed agencies to and to impose zero regulatory cost in fiscal year 2017. And when those executive orders came out there was a lot of skepticism when you look back on the past year i think what we see is that those executive orders focused attention on a very big problem of cumulative regulation. And it did not go after the problem with little scissors but really with something much more like the big beautiful gold scissors. Thats what they been doing. And some of the ways we have done this we had tried to really redirect the regulatory inertia and is part of our effort to change the culture around regulation those are rules that are currently in process and rules that we are thinking about. It demonstrates that magnitude of what has been halted or postponed. I think it also shows that what the administration is doing we are reconsidering the direction and of the into the scope of many proposed regulations. A ratio that far exceeds the twoforone that the president called for and we have kept the total cost of executive Agency Regulations to below zero for the first time. In fact, according to the conservative calculations weve have it total net savings of over 8 million. And to provide some context about what this kind of reduction means historically over time regulatory costs have increased in administrations of both parties. And the Previous Administration for the last eight months they impose they had been reducing regulated cost even further by more than 10 million. These are some really significant reforms. Never quite small staff. And they are really accident. Really excellent. One thing to just highlight about what we had been doing is trying to be transparent in how we have calculated twoforone and the cost savings. We really focused on developing a system that would meet meet the president s goal. And we wanted to incentivize agencies and why we were doing this we also wanted to maintain the marriott high standards that we expect from agencies. We provided advanced guidance of how we would be implemented at these executive orders. And weve shown the final work on a website. If you take a look there you will see the numbers demonstrate a kind of fundamental orientation of the regulatory system. We have eliminated many costly regulatory actions which includes rules and documents and information collection. We had pushed agencies to be very open in their actions. Two guidance or other sub regulatory forms of action. Woke up about our system because were continuing to implement that. And informing the public. So why we had been working through the requirements of the executive orders weve also thought to continue longstanding Good Government regulatory practices. On the theme of transparency im sure many of you know they published annually a unified agenda of regulatory and deep regulatory actions. We released for the first time a list of inactive items didnt want to be on the agenda. In the deep regulatory action agencies it is all on her website. We are working with agencies to remove steel items from the agenda. I understand that there are some items and agencies that are left over from the george w. Bush administration. Were really pushing to make sure that our agenda reflects real priorities and so the public can have a much better sense of what is coming. A number of technical changes. Its now searchable by regulatory and deregulatory actions. And working on making some of the changes consistent with the federal register. There is also a lot of continuity and what were doing. We are continuing to follow the longstanding principle. That you can find in the executive order. We are continuing with the same costbenefit standards that have been in the circular a form. The regulatory reports are more than just the numbers do you see. We are trying to crack down on bad regulatory practices. And make sure the agencies are proceeding in a manner that is consistent with law. Even when they have Legal Authority to proceed we want to make sure that they are working to solve an actual problem. There is some reason for the government to act. Too often in the Previous Administration the benefits were exaggerated and the cost downplayed. We would like to have a fair amount of accounting with both of those. And then even even when we are satisfied. That they work to regulate in a manner that is getting fairness to the public with the white house counsels office. To ensure the agencies are not proposing new regulatory requirements through guidance. Or faqs on the website. We are striving to change the culture so that when an Agency Issues guidance it is truly a guidance about existing requirements and not a backdoor to opposing that is necessary for a legitimate system. At some of what we had been up to for the past year. What is next. For the president s regulatory agenda. Let me just say a little bit about that. We are in part focusing on continuing with the method that we built up. In the second year we want to work closely with agencies to identify some very serious areas for reform. And if you look at the fall unified agenda. They are proposing some 448 deregulatory actions than a hundred and 31 regulatory actions. As we understand significant deregulation takes time. We are continuing to look at bigger rules. Its new analysis. And of course the full rulemaking process with the notice and comment. And its one of the ways we can assist with that. To offer regulatory regimes. It is a area where they can add value. Another thing that we are doing and we had been doing is to look closely at some of the staff authorities that they head for promoting Regulatory Reform. They are extremely costly. Dont forget about the paperwork version. And there is a lots of savings to be have streamlining or eliminating paperwork burdens. They have authority under the congressional review act. They were used multiple times this past year just drag down regulations in the cra requires that all agencies including the independent agencies submit the rules for a major determination under the act. That means basically that when there is a is major under the meaning of the cra. And of course failure to comply at the cra can threaten the validity of roles and we know that Congress Takes this very seriously think also following the cra can promote. Whether their rule is above or below the 100 million threshold. Another thing that we are considering and the speech is someways part of this. We are not dismantling Important Health and safety regulations. In a way that is careful. We are applying the same costbenefit standards. I sometimes hear from critics the regulatory burdens are put in place by powerful interest groups. It can raise costs with ordinary goods and services can blunt and stifle innovation. And so what we are really focused on is lifting regulatory requirements that are no longer working for the american people. I also wanted to just say about why we care so much about Regulatory Reform. And here i think there are reasons that are both practical and principled. It can really stimulate the economy. In the past few months there has been a lot of reporting about this. Many economists and in the slowdown in regulatory activity. Even in the new york times. Dryness connection. They can help create jobs. I think just leaving the individuals more freight gives them the opportunity to work hard into do great things. One of the most important practical effects of this has been to change the environment around us. I think businesses frequently say to me. And they have said they are no longer fearing arbitrary new burdens being opposed by guidance documents. Recently Mick Mulvaney said in the wall street journal i think what he said there applies to other agencies as well. This administration is no longer pushing the envelope with regulations. So what are the principles and from my perspective may be as maybe as a former law professor. It is part of a larger effort. And thereby to enhance individual liberty. I think the Reform Efforts help to promote efforts. There is an important kind of democratic accountability when you have more president ial accountability. In Regulatory Reform is quite clearly a key component in the present has set a very ambitious regulatory policy across the government. And through a centralized review process we can work with agencies to make sure that they are promoting president ial priorities to eliminate costly and unnecessary burdens. Another way we produce that. As my highlighting and by highlighting and promoting due process. My cracking down on sub Regulatory Guidance or sometimes regulatory dark matter. We are ensuring that they will follow administrative procedures. Ive always found it interesting one of the way that they defend the constitutionality of a very expensive Administrative State they say they can promote constitutional values. Or that they follow Something Like an administrative constitution. Be that as it made. I may. I think it is too often the case that they have failed to offer this. And so at least by requiring agencies to follow administer the administrative procedures we can ensure notice Public Participation and recent decisionmaking. Its also very important to us in our Reform Efforts to make sure that we in the executive branch respect the roles of the other departments of government. We work with agencies to interpret statutes to mean what they say. And we work not to expand the authority of the executive branch beyond what the law allows. It is often open ended. But agencies should not act as though they have a blank check from congress to make law. We also work hard to respect the role of the courts and are mindful of precedents and process. Perhaps most importantly lifting that regulatory burdens results in greater liberty. The government regulation cant be vital. We already live in highly regulated society. But even against that backdrop it should still serve a purpose and should not be a solution in search of a problem. There are many regulations on our books that are outdated or ineffective and regulations have simply piled on top of regulations also resulting in a system the system that nobody would have designed on a clean slate. Eliminating access in order to restore more freedom. When government acts it should do so in service of the people. And really those are the principles that motivate us. I regulatory policy that works the jobs in the prosperity that a company greater freeze up. Thank you so much for your attention i look forward to the conversation with ted and questions from the audience. Thank you again for being here im going to start off with the questions on the executive order that led the beginning of the trumpet administration that you lead with in your speech. An executive order and a lot of guidance there is a lot of focus on costs. The premise being with too many regulations. There is a risk if we focus on too much. There are regulations out there that might be costly but enormously beneficial. Its also mentioning benefits. But the concern as i see it is that you might be forgoing very beneficial regulations that are totally consistent with the statute the cost of a budget essentially focused strictly on the cost side. Can you see actually playing out. One of the things that is important to keep in mind is that we do think about benefits as well as costs. The benefits are of course important to us. With the ordinary wire process which requires that for a date regulatory action has to be more beneficial than costly. I think that is an important first step. You can see they are continuing to move forward. Or that they think our necessary to meet certain goals i dont think there is anything in our system that is really stopping that from happening. It seems to highlight essentially a fundamental disagreement on what the role of net benefits are and whether or not we are seeing positive input previous to this for it. They do release essentially a list of the costs and benefits of the regulations that they have overseen and i think every year the net benefit positive. Should i be looking at those more skeptically is that what you are saying. Even though the staff is there. These are positive net benefits that are wrong. I think its important to look more closely at some of those numbers it is often very easy to overstate benefits. On the requirements themselves the twoforone requirement which is now at three for what requirement for the next year. I dont know if it is a requirement or not. In a regulatory budget. It will be negative in the coming year. These seems to be process changes designed to constrained agencies from what you perceive as a regulatory impulse. I can see how they would work if you look at the cabinet members if you look at the success of the first year as you laid out on achieving the deregulation. Where these binding or maybe more so because of the political appointees to have these agencies and just being pre dispose order these actually which is actually driving this more. I think its both. I think its all in some ways part of a broader view of the administration. This is important and ministration priority. We want to make sure that we are meeting the president s priorities and some of them have an easier time with that than others. We do have an Important Role in the accountability. The Regulatory Reform idea has really come up through the agencies. We asked them to impose their own cost cap. They did each had a known net increase regulatory budget for the first year. The executive order set for 2017 there should be zero. New regulatory costs. They are more their own substantially like that. How much do you find these mechanisms and the role that your plane. To be assisting them along the way. When you kind of show the same philosophy. As cited in the executive order of the reason why. We try to make it as cooperative as possible. We do work closely with agencies. Sometimes they want to move more aggressively. They did not had their clinical appointees and place. Its a very slow confirmation process. Its actually made it harder. Weve a lot of expertise so weve worked with the agencies to generate ideas and help them with their analysis i think thats been very constructive. And there are areas where we can also give them a little push to be more about the deRegulatory Reforms. It is moving us towards the administrative faith. The constitutional values. There was a suit that was being brought by public citizens. Citing as unconstitutional. I think specifically. The president s executive order is twoforone in the regulatory cost cap. Many times they have to be executed consistently. And all executive orders must be consistent. You can see in the past year that they move forward with some very costly rules that were required. The department of energy. Very costly rule. It caused them not to meet the regulatory cost cap. We were working with them to try to offset that in the coming year. The important statutory requirement. We will work with them to be as consistent as possible. Im not overly concerned with that. The way that we are doing this is to be very mindful of the legal requirements. Given the legal challenge to it. And then looping back to whatever we referred to before about requesting about how binding these are. Is this something that you actually think this being the offset requirement it seems to me that the likelihood of it existing and future administration where clearly on the democratic side if that is representative of the democratic side they are highly critical of it. And also even on the republic side. Nobody has ever tried this before at least in the United States. Is this something that they had designed for the ages. Its always hard to predict what will happen. Although there had been challenges and concerns about the process generally. I would just say that we hope that Something Like this can process. It should be a bipartisan issue they are regularly looking at existing burdens. And so the twoforone in some way its just gives more to that. And i think that is something that democrats and republicans can support because its just a Good Government idea. As i give you an introduction. The commonly known role one of you. Just example. They administration by the Obama Administration. Their proposal was strictly based on the legal argument. Is that that purview of that. That you have to actually sit down to see if they are legal reasoning. Are you there to do such a proposal. It is absolutely part of the role. It is a longstanding part of the role. If you look at executive order 12866 part of the reviewed process is determining that it is consistent is not the determination. We put regulations for process. They go to the department of justice. And they look at the legality of rules from other agencies. We work with the rest of the so it is looking at regulation. As part of the review process. There is a check to make sure that they are acting if you think of part of the president s role to make sure that they are executed. This is what i had worked in years past. Do you have a staff aside from yourself of lawyers and legal experts to evaluate the legality of the claim or is that something you rely on other agencies. I think its both. The other up political appointees are actually all lawyers in this administration. It also go to parts of the justice. We really had quite a broad bench for legal expertise. In one of the things that the Obama Administration did was set up a working group to be used in the regulatory proposal on the social costs of carbon. What is the benefits. The trumpet administration rescinded all of this. What is the view now. It is going to be reviewing. It has some impact on climate policy. Can the arrive at different benefits. Or is there some uniformity that youre trying to prescribe on how they approach this. I think they just said that they issued an executive order directly. One of the things that the executive order. It needs to be focused domestically. And that agencies should be using a discount rate is more consistent. Across the number of different areas. To make sure that they are all applying those existing i think in some ways it varies from context to context. Let us know. It is true the lingo as you can get here. Those are the guidelines. Under the administrator. It will call for the browser administration. Strikes me as something worth considering. Do those guidelines that were issued however many years ago still apply or should they be augmented. I just want to segue a little bit. I think if im getting you correctly. It didnt meet the budget requirements. It might be if they are there. What are the sticks that you can bring if the agency is proposing a regulation that is not in your mind being offset appropriately or in the twoforone or a three for one depending on where it goes from here. What are the consequences from the agency. I think the consequences are they are not meeting the president s priorities. They had spoken frequency about deregulation and regulatory actions. I think they are motivated by that. At the end of the fiscal year do you want you want your agency to be last i think there is some peer pressure. I think that has been good. With the competition between the agencies to be the best at Regulatory Reform. We recognize that it has to be a little bit flexible. In terms of that. Because of the whole statutory system. We have to reflect. Most people most agencies have a lot of cost savings. We can work with them to help identify more savings. And encourage them to do that. Not to discourage them from taking the regulatory action. To push them to be more aggressive in finding other things they can cut back on. To my mind has a greater chance of being longlasting. Is they created the Regulatory Reform officers and test someone in each agency who is charged with actually keeping track of compliance. That might warrant deregulation. How is that mechanism working. Are they working in concert with your team heavily or are they there to the actual process of figuring out the deep regulatory opportunities. Have they been stacked up. Where is that process right now. We work with the regulatory officers. We dont keep tabs on the specific makeup and the work of the task force except for ordinary chickens with the Regulatory Reform officers. I think it buries barrys varies across agencies. I think it is very interesting how they had approached the process. And how we work with all of them in the i want to shift a little bit on the regulatory review process. The congressional review act. I think what you said that the independent agencies submit to a determination about whether or not they are a major regulation. It applies to all agencies. It does not require that those independent agencies submit their regulations for the standard review by your office. Is that something you think should happen i know you had written about this in your past academic life. What you think should be the requirements. In the monetary policy. What should be the proper role with the executive office. This question should they be subject to a review process. The one has been around since president reagan when they did the initial regulatory review. It would because additional. I think each subsequent information has thought about doing this. Even president obama suggesting very strongly that they should participate. At least voluntarily. This has been something that has been an ongoing thing. As i had written in my academic work. There is no constitutional reason to treat independent agencies from other agencies but to the extent that they are regulated. There is no constitutional region reason to treat them differently. There is some important reasons. The American Bar Association has supported this since the mid 90s. I think they supported for all of the reasons why that they we can make sure that the regulations are consistent with law. And those are Good Government practices irrespective of where they are. The concern i have is you are focusing on regulation understandably if we go to that argument. More executive office of non regulatory actions of independent agencies. The Federal Reserve act was established because the determination was in the setting of monetary policy. We need some sort of protection. I think what i hear you say. It cannot preclude and create an office. Where does that fit in. If it should be white house review. Certain conventions. Those are some pragmatic reasons for some of these. I am humbly recognizing. They have a need for insulation. What falls on what side of it. From this kind of oversight. The center at that monetary policy. That you oversee. There is some discussion about that recently. I kind of come back to what the challenges are. Should that be under the purview of your office. And i think its an issue that we had been receiving the president so issued an executive order. That was issued in april. It has received a lot of attention. In congress. There was recently an article in the wall street journal about it. They are working it closely. In terms of some of the challenges. They never reviewed particular matters. That is not what we do for any agencies. In the irs context. They are generally applicable rules. The our perspective. Im not sure that theres any challenge there. You would need a much bigger staff if you are looking at a lot of these rules. It is a little bit different. The goal of the tax is to raise a million dollars. As a transfer. It gets spent somewhere. You can argue about whether it is spent while. That is a Public Finance literature. It is contained. The broader point is that it does create some challenges in the even a4 has a way of accounting for transfer rules. As a totally different from rules that we might see in other contexts. We have always ways also to account for that. Im get a turn to the crowd in a few minutes but i wanted to call on a few more questions about transparencies. I think they Just Launched an investigation on the prevalence of fake comments on proposed rules. Finding that there are a number of fake comments that are flooding the notice and comment process. Is this something that surprised you. Is it something that you had encountered. You are on alert for. How are you responding to this. We are not aware of the problem previously. You need to be aware of the problem. We take extremely seriously. And my staff works very closely with rulemaking we are already working very hard to try to implement procedures that can cut back and eliminate these problems. It something we take very seriously. And we really tried to get on top of. Its like a good news story when i read that story. I was always skeptical of the role of Public Comment i think its a very important comment. That the public gets a chance to comment. If you ask my brother or cousin or mother they have no idea that such a thing exists. And i wasnt quite sure how serious they are taken in the process. As much as i dont advocate that. That aside or related to that. Its a hard thing to do. How can we ensure that people are getting the information how can a better influence the regulatory process. Two points that are in the comments. So i think it is a very important aspect of our regulatory, what gives it legitimacy frankly in i think in terms of what people can do to make their comments more think when businesses and individuals provide concrete evidence of how rules are impacting them i think that is really very useful to agencies. Would you agree with me that it is underutilized now . I think it is hard for me to have a sense of that. Not having all of the comments. Whether is your father, uncle or brother [laughter] i will check to questions. I ask that you wait for the microphone. Once i call on you state your name and please, keep it to a question. You have a lot of hands. Right here. My right side. There we go. Hello neck with Insight Health policy. I was wondering if you can give us your take on the fda current approach towards the regulation. Given the commissioner taken with they have called an unconventional approach in saying that the agency can actually deregulate by having new regulations better that fits with the administration is pushed towards the regulation. I think it certainly is the case that sometimes the regulation requires a new regulation. These are undoing something previous. Or sometimes certain forms of regulation can increase competition or innovation. Because they provide certain values around the marketplace and i think that can also be a regulatory action. Right here. Wait for the microphone. We have a microphone coming right there. Hi. This is ted, i am a blogger for forms. Neomi rao, what you plan to do to put the socalled independent financial regulatory agencies under under an umbrella. What he planned to do . I can make this a twopart question. The second part is, part of the argument that if you put in the independent regulatory agencies under this it makes rulemaking more susceptible to the whims of the public which investors which means, you can have more booms. As i mentioned before, with respect to the independent agencies, it is something we are thinking about and considering. And so i guess, that is what i would be able to say at this point. Lets go all the way in the back. Thank you. I am with bloomberg bna. They have been estimating cost and benefits for years. Why do you believe that benefits have been overstated and costs have been understated and do you think the methodology needs to change . I think you know i mean if you consider looking at the social cost of carbon, right . The effects of that were considered globally, right . Youre taking a regulation that affects domestic producers of energy and you are looking at the benefits across the world, you know, that is a particular choice. Right . A choice that may not have been supported by the statute. I think you have to look very carefully at these things. It is often easy to overstate either the cost or benefits depending on what youre trying to achieve. So we want to be very scrupulous about that. On both sides. All the way in the back. A lot of questions. Jamie conrad, you through some red meat to the audience when he said were systematically trying to crack down on bed regulatory practices. Could you identify with some of those are, that you are cracking down . I think some of the angles i gave her largely related to the process of change of regulatory requirements to guide the documents or through letters. And i think that these are especially problematic even if you support the policy because it has occurred without any notice. It has not followed process, the public has not had an opportunity to comment or weigh in. And so, agencies, you know we think should not be able to change obligations on the public without following the proper administrative procedures. And agencies often want to do this because you get a proper procedures, they take time. After analysis and then make your comments that they do not like that push against what they want to do. Even though this course hampers our efforts to undo things right . We are taking very seriously the idea that agencies should follow administrative procedures and give the public their notice of the things that they plan to do. Right here in the aisle. Cursed him and then you, sorry. Hi, i was wondering if, you are not going to do is look at the cost and benefits of the changes to the regulations also for the regulatory scheme. Like standards. We additionally look at deaths caused by the change of cafc standards and not the entire scheme and costbenefit analysis. Im not exactly. I think that embarrassment Contact Contact and it depends on the regulatory change but i think in some cases, where we are going to be looking at reforms, we will have to take, kind of open up the cost of benefits of the larger regulatory scheme. A quick point on that because it ties back to what we were talking about before. There is assessment of benefits of cost and trying to limit the cost. As you said first and foremost, the deference to the statutes to the constitution. So it is entirely conceivable they might have Something Like cafc standards that you think are consistent with the law is but you find our costly or even negative net benefits. There is no action on your part at that point. Is that correct . In other words, everything has to be dictated by the law. Whether or not you like the regulation or whether or not, it is not present it will always be a positive net benefit regulation. I think thats right. Sometimes statutes will require bigotry actions that may not be beneficial based on accounting of costs and benefits. If that is what the statute requires your role is to assess his benefits and costs even if it suggests that they are costly . I think that is part of the role. It was the public has awareness of what the cost of the statute might be then. I am charlie clark. Reported with government executive. I have a question about the expertise of career officials who have been balancing these decisions for decades. I just wondering, some critics feel that there is, the current regulation reform is driven by lobbyists who parachute in from pursuing their own interests. The question is, do the career democrats feel that their expertise is being respected . Well, i can save myself as administrator. I very strongly respect the expertise of my career staff and in my experience, i do not, our Reform Efforts are being dreaming by people parachuting in and asking is deregulatory forms. My will be honest in my staff has come forward with a lot of great ideas. Because they know rules that may not have been that beneficial. They understand the limitations of previous Regulatory Impact analysis. And so they have been very helpful in coming forward with ideas for Good Government reform measures. We work very closely with them. And previously they did what they called prompt letters i believe it was. They thought there was regulation that was either necessary with that beneficial but was not being done and essentially prompted the agency to regulate. Instead of being reactionary as a role. Has that happened under your term . No. Im not issued any prompt letters. Wait for the microphone, please. Hi, i am kate. Going back to the woman from bloomberg. I do not understand your answer. How have you been evaluating the cost being overstated and benefits being understated . I think there are some instances in which we take a careful look at regulatory analysis it seems like you can do better on you know a fair statement of cost and benefits. I think this goes back to what i asked about the annual reporting of benefits and costs. Where you are skeptical of those assessments. In some cases yes. Go ahead on this side of the room, with the yellow tie. Hi, thank you for coming here this morning. Im andrew, a graduate student at georgetown university. This semester im taking a course in energy and security that i find fascinating. Im wondering what you and administrative puree, secretary ziggy and secretary perry are doing to sort of limit the compliance cost burden on natural gas produces in the United States and what that means for the Energy Revolution in america. I mean i think all of those agencies that you mentioned are looking closely at a number of these issues. Im not sure specifically what is happening right now. I need to take a look at the agenda to see what is coming up next. I think these are all things that theyre considering seriously. Here, in the third row. Hi, im alan from resources of the future. We have not talked too much about budgets. At the agencies. And im wondering if you think there is any and compatibility. And i worry about this between large cuts we are looking at Agency Budgets and their ability to do the analysis that they have gone deeper than they have ever gone before to look more carefully at benefits and costs. Units of my regulatory budgets. I took my Agency Budgets. And then your concern is that the benefits and costs somehow have not been appropriately analyzed. But yet you are cutting back on the budgets at the agencies. I think you know, i mean we have not heard complaints of people lack the staff to do the analysis that has been required. And so, you know, i think that is something to look at. If people raise the issue but i have not heard that complaint. Did you go already . All right. Sorry [laughter] right there. I am paul marion. I wanted to ask you if your discouragement of guidance letters extends to the treasury and irs interpreting the tax law . Would you rather see them come out with regulations, no matter how long it takes rather than a notice or a letter . I think it is always hard to answer that question in the abstract. Right . It depends on the particular issue. You know we are not opposed to guidance that is truly guidance. Especially splitting regulatory requirements. Often times guidance can be helpful. Because it gives people notice of what an agency believes the laws or regulations mean. There is only a role for that and whether it is appropriate and the situation just depends on the context. But who this is an interesting, there is a great area. You clearly, there are some things we should not put the regulatory process to clarify. Who determines what side of the line who should determine whats on the line and irs guidance falls on . Or any guidance . I think an agency first of all but under executive orders significant guidance documents also come through a review. So if there is a guidance document that imposes significant cost, economically significant or otherwise, significant from a policy perspective. We should be taking a look at that. And then we might push back if it is an area we think is better addressed. But of course, is the agency, in the first instance that needs to make the call. I think we have time for a couple more. Lets go back. Yes. [laughter] second and from the aisle. There you go. Thank you, jonathan. This is to follow up on the last question about the tax law. If you coordinate with treasury or irs in any way as far as what youre looking for or what you want them to shy away from in terms of issuing guidance . In terms of are we coordinating with them on that . Well, the sick, the president issued an executive order that requires us to revisit the memoranda of understanding between oira and treasury under which we reviewed rules and that is an ongoing process. We are in discussions about that. The gentleman right there. Good morning, i am the chief economist at catalyst. Used to be a regulatory economist. About and a half dozen agencies including the question is this. I know from my years of experience, that interest used to get nowhere with regards for a petition for rulemaking when it came to a deregulatory action. Could you address or discuss the fact that industry and associations can now develop petitions of rulemaking for deregulatory actions and has oira developed new or modified guidelines for these petitions for rulemaking . We have, i think as an administration we have been seeking regulatory ideas from the public in a variety of ways. Agencies have been encouraging Public Comments on this. We welcome petitions for deregulatory rulemaking. In other been a number of comments submitted for deregulatory ideas. So we are very we would like to engage with the public and with companies and individuals on their Regulatory Reform ideas. We absolutely encourage that and have done that in a variety of ways. In the light blue short towards the back of the aisle. Thank you. Todd rubin. He took more about retrospective review . And specifically, apart from the twoforone requirement what oira could do to encourage agencies to not just look back at the rules, a number of years after they have been passed. But to think about retrospective review from the very outset and the replanning of the rule . We will take that and get a couple of more. I would like to hear more about the justification for the march ruling about saying that for the clean power act that this would only be looking at cost and benefits domestically. And not at all internationally. If you think that benefits have been overstated in the past, im a little curious what the justifications for only considering us cost and benefits when in fact, when it comes to global warming, this is something that impacts the entire world very heavily. And i am thinking especially in terms of rising sea levels, which would certainly affect bangladesh a whole lot more than anything even florida, in the us. And in terms of longer growing seasons but what about drought throughout africa and latin america . Okay. One more over here. Can you move down three people . We will close with that. I think we have enough to remember. Chris snyder, reporter. President trump mention cutting the number in the code of federal regulations cater about how you decided this was a reasonable number and also we be able to meet the target and in the next four years or eight years . Unfortunately another lemon loves lime questions but were running out of time. The Clean Power Plan domestically versus global and cutting the federal regulations to 1960 level of 20,000 pages. Not by changing the font [laughter] it is pretty small already right. I think the retrospective review. I think, how come encourage them more . I think at one of the things about the review we put rules in place there is an unanticipated cluster benefits. There is what it might cost and what benefits might cost your retrospective review is important because it allows her to see where the actual cost and benefits. I know one thing that has been proposed. Although i have not really seen this but is to build retrospective review into the rule itself. Every rule has a provision that requires periodic review. It is one possibility. But i do think you know, everyone agrees retrospective review is good policy. But i do think that the twoforone gives some real you have to find regulatory, you have to look at rules and assess whats on not working. And generate cost savings that way. I think while retrospective reviews have been supportive for a long time, i think we are giving realty to that. As for the Clean Power Plan. Those are all important concerns that were raised. And yes, the president s executive order talked about looking at domestic effects of co2 emissions and the administration is working through how that is being done. The final question. 20,000 pages 20,000 pages, right. The president did mention that i think to get down to the levels you would also have to have a lot of statutory reform. Because the growth from 1960 until today is largely based on a number of statutes that have required a lot of regulation. You have to work with congress in order to get back to those levels. With that, unfortunately, we are out of time. Please join me by a round of applause for our guest today. [applause] cspan2 washington journal live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. Coming up this saturday morning, Washington Examiner criminal justice reporter kelly cohen will join us with the House Intelligence Committee memo and potential impact on the mueller investigation. Also, Beacon Global Strategies managing director Michael Allen will share views on the release of the Intelligence Committee memo. Potential fisa abuses. Be sure to join us Live Saturday morning. Join the discussion. This weekend on American History t. V. On cspan3, saturday p. M. Eastern electors in history. University of North Carolina at chapel hill professor Molly Worthen on 20th century fundamentalism. And the origins of pentecostalism. Fundamentalists are conservative on distance who militantly oppose militantly oppose, militants is important new ideas about the bible, science, and society. And at 10 pm, on reel america, 1989 documentary island of hope, island of tears. 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