Center for Progressive Reform
lborkowski | August 7, 2017In late July, while many of us were preoccupied with Republican Senators’ attacks on healthcare, the Trump administration released its first regulatory agenda (technically, the Current Unified Agenda of Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions). These routine updates are published so the public can see what they can anticipate from federal agencies in the way of rulemaking. (Celeste Monforton has been tracking the Department of Labor regulatory agenda for years.)
The Trump administration’s first entry into this genre is better described as a de-regulatory agenda. It’s a dizzying array of delays,…
cmonforton | January 30, 2017Hearing someone describe a situation as “one step forward, two steps back” is never a good thing. When it involves efforts to protect people’s health or public safety, the consequences can be dire. President Trump doesn’t care. He’s making good on a ludicrous campaign pledge that for every one regulation issued by a federal agency, the agency will have to offset the cost by eliminating two existing regulations. He issued that order today. The nonsense goes something like this:
FAA: “We need to enhance testing requirements to protect against flocking birds affecting airplane engines. That's…
cmonforton | July 6, 2016The maximum civil monetary penalty for a serious violation of an OSHA regulation will increase on August 1 from $7,000 to 12,471. Congress directed this and other changes to OSHA’s penalty as part of the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015. The penalty amounts of other Labor Department agencies are also being updated. For willful and repeat violations of OSHA regulations, the minimum and maximum penalties are $8,908 and $124,709, respectively.
It’s been more than two decades since the agency’s penalty maximums were adjusted for inflation. The last time was in 1990 pursuant to the Omnibus Budget…
cmonforton | April 1, 2016I spend a lot of time each March preparing to commemorate Worker Memorial Day on April 28. I end up reading way too many news stories about workers who were killed on-the-job. I search here and there trying to identify the victims by name and figure out the circumstances that contributed to their deaths. Year in and out, one thing is clear: some companies are just plain reckless and they gamble with the lives of their employees.
Reckless business decisions and work-related deaths is the subject of a new manual developed by the Center for Progressive Reform (CPR). "Preventing Death and Injury…
cmonforton | March 4, 2015It’s a rare thing on Capitol Hill when a member of the Administration is on the hot seat from both sides of the aisle. But that’s what happened on Tuesday when President Obama’s regulatory czar, Howard Shelanski, JD, PhD, testified at a joint hearing of two subcommittees of the House Committee on Oversight & Government Reform.
The Republican Chairman Mark Meadows (R-NC) and Ranking Member Gerry Connolly (D-VA) and other subcommittee members, peppered him with questions about OIRA’s lack of transparency in numerous arenas. Their motivations were different, but they were equally tough in…
cmonforton | August 1, 2013Finally! After far too much hullabaloo about the cost of regulations, there was a U.S. Senate hearing today on why public health regulations are important, and how delays by Congress and the Administration have serious negative consequences for people's lives. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) called the hearing entitled "Justice Delayed: The Human Cost of Regulatory Paralysis," the first one conducted by the Senate Judiciary Committee's newly created Subcommittee on Oversight, Federal Rights and Agency Action. The witnesses included a parent-turned advocate for automobile safety, AFL-CIO…
cmonforton | February 4, 2013Leonel Perez put a human face on contingent workers in the U.S., during an interview with HuffPost Live's Jacob Soboroff. Perez is an immigrant farm worker from Imokolee, Florida. He explains the piece rate for picking tomatoes in the fields is about 50 cents for 32 pounds, a rate that hasn't changed in over 50 years. It's a poverty wage for an individual supporting himself, and worse yet for a farm worker who's trying to support a family.
The HuffPost interview also features University of Maryland law professor Rena Steinzor. She's president of the not-for-profit Center for Progressive…
cmonforton | January 15, 2013In the weeks ahead, President Obama will announce his pick to replace Hilda Solis as the 26th Secretary of Labor. It's the Cabinet-level position with the resources and best platform to promote strong policies for the benefit of U.S. workers----from fair, living wages and safe working conditions, to job training and family leave benefits. I hope the President's nominee takes the time to read "At the company's mercy: Protecting contingent workers from unsafe working conditions," a new report by the Center for Progressive Reform (CPR). It describes how work arrangements that don't fit the…
cmonforton | November 28, 2011A new report by the Center for Progressive Reform (CPR) confirms what some of us have suspected: there's not much difference between the Obama Admininstration's and GW Bush Administration's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) when it comes to meetings with industry lobbyists and giving lip-service to transparency.
In "Behind Closed Doors at the White House," CPR offers a 10-year analysis of the 6,194 draft regulatory actions reviewed by OIRA, a step in the rulemaking process dictated by Executive Order (EO) 12866 for rules of particular significance. Their assessment examined…