Thank you for the opportunity to meet with you regarding the regulatory review activities of the Council on Competitiveness. Following those meetings, we received the letter, dated October 22, 1991, from Allan Hubbard which was in response to our initial letter to you of April 17, 1991. Although we have received satisfactory answers to some our questions, that is not the case with others. In particular, the letter did not answer the following questions: "4. In what manner and under what circumstances does the Council solicit or receive comments on agency regulatory activities from persons outside the Council? What records are kept of such communications and what is done with the comments? 5. For each regulatory activity reviewed or otherwise discussed (including those currently under review) by the Council, please identify: - The proposal; The dates and length of review; The action taken by the Council (whether informal Any record that exists of the Council's In addition, while Mr. Hubbard explained how the Council is undertaking activities that were previously performed by the Task Force on Regulatory Relief, he did not answer our basic question as to the authority of the Council. So that there will be no further confusion, it would be greatly appreciated if you would send us a copy of the documents signed by the President that established the Council or otherwise authorized it to perform any activities. The Honorable Dan Quayle Page 2 Please include a copy of the document by which "[o]n June 15, 1990, President Bush directed the Council on Competitiveness to exercise the same authority over regulatory issues as did the Presidential Task Force on Regulatory Relief under Executive Order 12291." Further, Mr. Hubbard stated in his letter, "Citizens from around the country are invited to bring regulatory problems to the Council's attention." Please explain what specific steps the Council has taken to make the public aware of the Council's invitation and provide us with a list of the nongovernmental parties which have contacted the Council with regard to a specific rulemaking. Finally, an article in the latest TIME magazine reported that EPA had made 100 changes in proposed regulations to implement the Clean Air Act as a result of the Council's review. Please advise us as to the accuracy of this report and the substance of the 100 changes. If there is a document that reflects and explains the Council's efforts with respect to these changes, please provide us with a copy. Since so much time has expired since our April request, we would appreciate a response at the earliest opportunity to these outstanding questions. We believe it is our responsibility to know the role the Council on Competitiveness is playing in the regulatory review process. Our request is based solely on our concern for openness and fairness in the regulatory process. All the Vice President's Men: How the Quayle Council on Competitiveness Secretly Undermines Health, Safety, and Environmental Programs Christine Triano OMB Watch Nancy Watzman Public Citizen's Congress Watch SEPTEMBER 1991 Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank all those who helped shape this report, especially. Gary D. Bass, executive director, Dan Drolet, and Alair MacLean of OMB Watch; Joan Claybrook, president, Public Citizen; David Vladeck and Paul Wolfson of Public Citizen's Litigation Group; and Michael Waldman, Pamela Gilbert, Sherry Ettelson, and Chris McGinn of Public Citizen's Congress Watch. OMB Watch is an independent, nonprofit organization that monitors executive branch activities and advocates for greater government accountability and the public's right-to-know. It was founded by Gary D. Bass in 1983. Public Citizen is a national consumer and environmental advocacy organization founded by Ralph Nader in 1971. To order copies of this report, please send a check for $10.00 to one of the following addresses: OMB Watch 1731 Connecticut Ave., NW Washington, DC 20009 202-234-8494 Public Citizen's 215 Pennsylvania Ave., SE Washington, DC 20003 202-546-4996 Readers are encouraged to cite or use portions of this report, but please give attribution. ©1991 I needed a paycheck and the attorney general said that I would be the best to go down there because he knew that I was anti-consumer." -Dan Quayle describing how he ended up with a job in the consumer affairs department of Indiana, from Sidney Blumenthal's book Pledging Allegiance. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY In recent weeks, Vice President Quayle's Council on Competitiveness has made headlines for its attacks against wetlands protection and product liability laws. But these are just two of many examples of the Quayle Council's full-time occupation-providing a conduit for big business interests and using backdoor channels to undermine health, safety and environmental programs. In practice, 'competitiveness' has been a euphemism that cloaks Council micromanagement of a dizzying array of scientific and technical matters better left to agency experts. Just what is the Council on Competitiveness, and how did it become so influential? The Council is the direct successor to the Reagan-era Task Force on Regulatory Relief, which was chaired by then Vice President Bush. The Quayle Council's creation was deliberately low-key. An April 1989 press release by the Vice President's office casually announced that President Bush had designated Dan Quayle as the head of a new group called the Council on Competitiveness; it did not provide details of the Council's mission at that time. Not until a year later did the Council formally acknowledge that it had taken over the operational role of the Bush Task Force. In the early 1980s, the Task Force used authority over a controversial executive order signed by President Reagan-E.O. 12291. Brandishing the executive order, the Bush Task Force went on a deregulatory rampage. After a few short years, the Bush Task Force succeeded in: thwarting worker safety regulations; obstructing consumer product safety controls; rolling back highway safety initiatives; and weakening environmental protection. 2 Like the Bush Task Force before it, the Quayle Council has a stranglehold on the regulatory agency rulemaking process. The Vice President's Council oversees the regulatory review functions of the Office of Management and Budget's (OMB) Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA). Through OIRA, or on its own authority, the Quayle Council can pull any regulation that it dislikes for 'review' and pressure the agency to change it. Operating outside the open government rules that apply to federal regulatory agencies, the Council's small staff has worked to stall or block health and safety rules, advance deregulation initiatives, and pressure federal agencies to pull back from strong enforcement. By directly meddling in ongoing regulatory actions, the Quayle Council undermines the entire system of federal regulation. Over the years, Congress has charged expert agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) with the task of safeguarding the public's health and safety. These agencies, in turn, are governed by an elaborate legal structure designed to ensure that they are open to the public, that they hear from all sides, and that they base their decisions on complex scientific or technical matters only on substantive merits. (These rules are embodied, primarily, in the Administrative Procedure Act and the Freedom of Information Act.) By contrast, the Quayle Council invites regulated corporations unhappy about the results of regulation to quietly turn to the White House for relief. In the two years since the Council has been in place, it has already intruded in such detailed matters as the establishment of quality control standards for pap smears to determining just how much toxic formaldehyde workers can be exposed to safely. Because it acts in utter secrecy, the Quayle Council has set itself up as a channel for improper industry influence in regulatory decision-making. If it continues to expand its operations, the nation's health and safety standards will be in tatters. 1 See Fact Sheet on the Council on Competitiveness, April 12, 1989. This fact sheet was re-released the following summer, along with a June 28, 1990 press release announcing the appointment of Allan Hubbard as executive director of the Council on Competitiveness. 2 See memo from Cabinet Secretary Ede Holiday to cabinet and agency heads, June 13, 1990. |