Description of the Executive Order on Regulatory Reform

Description of the Executive Order on Regulatory Reform

On January 21, 1993, President Clinton abolished the Council on
Competitiveness and soon thereafter asked the Vice President to prepare
recommendations for a new process of regulatory review. The Vice
President convened an informal working group to develop such
recommendations. The President will soon issue a new executive order to
implement the needed reforms recommended by the Vice President.

President Clinton's plan to reform the regulatory review process is
firmly rooted in his commitment to make government more efficient and
responsive, relieve businesses of unnecessary regulatory burdens, and
end special access for special interests.

The executive order on regulatory planning and review will create a
process that guarantees that government regulates only when necessary,
and that when it does so, it regulates cost-effectively, openly, and
fairly. It also will ensure that all agencies of the federal government
participate in a reexamination, across agencies, of the overall
regulatory scheme currently in place to eliminate any unnecessary
regulatory burden.

Putting People First

The President's plan provides a regulatory process that works for the
American people, not against them--one fundamentally dedicated to
improving their health, safety, environment, and well-being while
encouraging economic growth and job creation. It is aimed at producing
regulations that are effective, consistent, and understandable.

Regulating Only When Necessary

The process created by the executive order sets forth principles that
ensure that agencies regulate only when necessary. It makes clear that
alternatives, such as market incentives, are preferable to command-
and-control regulations. A regulatory working group of representatives
from agencies with major domestic regulatory responsibility will meet
regularly to consider new, creative, and more effective alternatives and
approaches to regulating.

When regulations are necessary, the order will ensure that they are
designed and implemented in the most cost-effective manner, so as to
maximize benefits to society and to place the smallest possible burden
on those being regulated. This process imposes a sensible, balanced
definition of costs and benefits to ensure a realistic assessment of
impacts on the economy, the environment, and public health and safety.

Sensible Planning

The executive order creates an enhanced planning process that starts
before rules are formally initiated. This process will provide early
guidance about administration priorities, thus minimizing conflicts and
inconsistent regulatory activities among agencies. Agencies will set
priorities and assemble annual regulatory plans, thereby improving their
own internal planning, and ensure that other agencies and the public are
informed of their activities.

Reviewing New Regulations

This executive order recognizes the primacy of agencies in the
regulatory process. It also makes clear that the Office of Information
and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), within the Office of Management and
Budget, will be the day-to-day entity responsible for necessary
centralized review.

The centralized review process will be improved by selectively reviewing
regulations. Under the review process, OIRA will review significant
regulations--not every regulation. Its review will be more useful and
realistic because it will be focused on the overall regulatory picture
and will consider a broad definition of costs and benefits. And its
review will be timely--driven by clear and appropriate time limits on
review that will prevent interminable delays.  There also will be a
clear process for resolving the rare regulatory disputes that develop
between agencies or between OMB and an agency. Such disputes will be
reviewed by the President only at the request of an agency head or the
Office of Management and Budget. The Vice President, aided by
appropriate White House policy advisors, will advise the President in
resolving these disputes.

Reviewing Existing Regulations

Too often, cumulative and unnecessary regulatory burdens hamper economic
growth and job creation. In order to ease such adverse effects on U.S.
citizens and the economy, a process will be established to conduct an
ongoing review of existing regulations or groups of regulations. Those
regulations that are cumulative, obsolete, duplicative, or inconsistent
will be identified for reconsideration and revision or elimination.

This process is carefully structured to be meaningful and to get
results. The agencies will be asked to prepare a specific program for
ongoing review of existing significant regulations and legislation that
requires regulations that should be reviewed. In addition, the Vice
President, in consultation with the White House advisors, will conduct
reviews of existing regulations with a cross-agency perspective, and may
identify regulations to the agency for review.

Enhanced Accountability

The executive order also will enhance government accountability in a
number of ways. It will clearly delineate the responsibilities of the
various entities involved in the regulatory review process.  The OIRA
review process will be conducted in the "sunshine."

The order requires public disclosure of OIRA meetings with, or
information received from, outside parties.  It also ensures that the
public knows of the status of all pending regulations and changes made
to regulations during the OIRA review process.

The process created by the new order also will end the "back door"
special interest access to the review process. The order makes clear
that the President's and Vice President's roles in the review process is
limited to (1) providing leadership, (2) assisting in planning, and (3)
resolving disputes. They will not act on behalf of, or be the conduit
for, special interests or any private parties.