Become a Rulemaking Ninja: Exploring the OIRA Web Portal

November 2013
Citation:
43
ELR 10980
Issue
11
Author
Robert R.M. Verchick

In the first term of the Obama Administration, the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) introduced an interactive web portal designed to give you better information about the president’s centralized system of regulatory review. On entering the portal, there are only two things to keep in mind. First, don’t be afraid to snoop around: sometimes the most useful stuff is found three or four levels down. Second, don’t fall in love. OIRA’s slick website is a fresh breeze for advocates of government transparency. But there’s still a lot missing. Remember the line about statistics and swimsuits: what they reveal is interesting, but what they conceal is vital.

Robert R.M. Verchick holds the Gauthier-St. Martin Chair at Loyola University New Orleans and is a Member Scholar of the Center for Progressive Reform. From October 2009 to December 2010, he served as Deputy Associate Administrator for Policy at EPA. A version of this Comment first appeared at CPRBlog (http://www.progressivereform.org/CPRBlog.cfm)

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