by Richard Belzer

in Regulatory Economics

Sin taxes are always popular with legislators. People volunteer to pay them, and volunteers garner little public sympathy.

Maryland legislators are proposing to levy a new tax of ten cents per eight ounces of alcoholic beverage sold in the State. A news story today shows how proponents of sin taxes tend to also be in favor of sin.

9 Aug 2009

Market 'Failure' in the Wine Business:
The case of 'Wines 'Til Sold Out'

by Richard Belzer

in Amusements, Information Quality, Regulatory Economics

UPDATED. SEE "MORE".

The Panic of 2008 and subsequent recession have put a damper on the wine market, especially at the high end. As a member of too many wine clubs (still the best way to access fine West Coast wine from the East Coast), I have seen more discounting by wineries in the last six months than I observed in the previous six years.

So it should not be surprising to see a bevy of entrepreneurs pop up who are attempting to exploit these depressed conditions. The Los Angeles Times published an intriguing story by reporter Patrick Comiskey about new web-based vendors doing exactly what we'd expect ("Good deals go fast on wine websites," July 8, 2009). Of the vendors Comiskey mentions, Wines 'Til Sold Out seems to have the most unusual business plan: they sell tranches of a single wine, one at a time, first come first served, presumably (but not verifiably) until they are sold out -- then move on to another wine.

After reading the article, I signed up with Wines 'Til Sold Out to investigate.

3 Jul 2009

National Organic Program:
Is it 'going to seed'?

by Richard Belzer

in Regulatory Policy

Washington Post staff writers Kimberly Kindy and Lyndsey Layton say the US Department of Agriculture's National Organics Program is falling short, allowing synthetic ingredients or to be used in making organic foods.

In their long Page One story, Kindy and Layton never reveal crucial facts about the National Organic Program: it's a marketing program, not a food safety program.

25 Feb 2009

Regulatory Review in the Obama Administration, Part 3:
Cass Sunstein and his critics

by Richard Belzer

in People & Institutions, Regulatory Policy

Long time University of Chicago Law (and recent Harvard Law) professor Cass Sunstein is expected to be nominated by President Obama to be the new Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. OIRA is the statutory office within the White House Office of Management and Budget that, among other things, has conducted centralized regulatory oversight on behalf of the president since 1981.

When Susan Dudley was nominated in 2006 to head this office, Neutral Source published an eight-part analysis of her "paper trail," which is summarized here. We undertook this task because her nomination generated controversy from certain activist groups, most notably Public Citizen, and we found significant factual discrepancies between the actual content of this paper trail and her critics claims about it.

We intend to repeat this effort, but Sunstein presents an unusually difficult challenge.

24 Feb 2009

Regulatory Review in the Obama Administration, Part 2:
Alive and well, reports to the contrary notwithstanding

by Richard Belzer

in Regulatory Policy

In a February 17 article, Politico reporter Josh Gerstein claims that "[i]n his first weeks in office, President Barack Obama shut down his predecessor’s system for reviewing regulations" and "managed to take all these actions with nary a mention from the White House press corps." Gerstein further claims that this "escaped notice because they were never announced by the White House Press Office and were never placed on the White House web site."

Gerstein's reporting is erroneous.

3 Feb 2009

Regulatory Review in the Obama Administration, Part 1:
Executive Order 13497

by Richard Belzer

in Regulatory Policy

On January 30, President Obama signed Executive Order 13497, which begins the process of changing the way the Office of Management and Budgwet performs centralized review of draft proposed and draft final regulations. In a memorandum to agency heads, the President also announced a plan to produce "a set of recommendations" within 100 days (~ May 14, 2009).

Texts for both documents are provided below.

12 Nov 2008

Petition for Correction to the Office of Management and Budget Concerning the Draft 2008 Report to Congress on the Benefits and Costs of Federal Regulation

by Richard Belzer

in Information Quality

On November 7, 2008, Regulatory Checkbook -- Neutral Sourcve's sister nonprofit organization -- filed a public comment on the Office of Management and Budget's draft 2008 Report to Congress on the Benefits and Costs of Federal Regulation.

This public comment also was submitted as a formal Petition for Correction under OMB's Information Quality Guidelines (PDF). Under those guidelines, influential information OMB disseminates must be substantively and presentionally objective, transparent and reproducible, and provide utility for its intended purposes of informing Congress and the public.

The draft Report does not satisfy these information quality standards.

OMB is obligated by its own guidelines to respond within 60 days (i.e., by January 6, 2009).

25 Sep 2008

Benefits and Costs of Federal Regulation:
2008 draft report published for public comment

by Richard Belzer

in Regulatory Economics

The Office of Management and Budget has published its 2008 draft report to Congress on the benefits and costs of federal reguilation. OMB is required by lawe to publish this report every year.

Public comments are due by Friday, November 7, 2008.

19 Sep 2007

OMB's Principles for Risk Analysis:
OMB's initial response to the National Academy of Sciences

by Richard Belzer

in Regulatory Policy, Regulatory Science

Today the Office of Management and Budget issued a memorandum to agency heads directing them to adhere to certain principles of risk analysis. The memorandum is OMB's initial response to the report of a National Research Council panel that OMB asked to review a 2006 proposed bulletin on risk assessment. That report called the proposed text "fundamentally flawed" and gave seven recommendations, one of which was that it be withdrawn.

A fair reading of the new memorandum is that OMB followed this specific recommendation. More...

27 Jul 2007

Who Pays the Cost of Regulation?
Insights from corporate income tax incidence

by Richard Belzer

in Regulatory Economics

Regulation is widely understood as a tax on the activity or person being regulated. Where these activities repair genuine market failures, benefits from regulation may result. If there are benefits from, say, automobile safety regulation, one would expect the beneficiaries to be persons who otherwise would have been killed or injured at the pre-regulatory safety level.

But what about the costs of regulation? Who bears them? More...

1 Jul 2007

Markets vs. Governments:
Contaminated Chinese imports

by Richard Belzer

in Regulatory Economics, Regulatory Policy

Over the past several months increasing evidence has arisen indicating that products manufactured by Chinese firms and exported to the U.S. often do not adhere to U.S. health and safety standards.

Does the federal government need to enact new regulations to deal with these threats? More...

11 May 2007

Government-wide Information Quality Guidelines:
Does journal peer review achieve "adequate" objectivity?

by Richard Belzer

in Glossary, Information Quality, Peer Review

Federal guidelines require information disseminated by federal agencies to satisfy a few broad criteria, one of which is objectivity. These guidelines give a "rebuttable presumption" to scientific information published in scholarly journals.

• Do all scholarly journals transmit this rebuttable presumption of objectivity? What about scholarly journals that also have an advocacy mission?
• What is the burden of proof for mounting a successful rebuttal?

8 May 2007

Federal Agency Guidance Documents:
Building the inventory

by Richard Belzer

in Regulatory Policy

Executive Order 13422 and OMB's Bulletin on Good Guidance Practices will lead to major changes in the way federal agencies issue guidance.

The first step for each agency is to develop and publish inventories of their significant guidance documents. The deadlines for agency compliance are July 24, 2007 (for significant guidance documents issued on or after January 25, 2007) and August 23, 2007 (for all significant guidance documents). More...

7 May 2007

The New OMB Regulatory Review Procedures:
A primer on implementation

by Richard Belzer

in Regulatory Policy

On April 25 OMB issued guidance to agencies concerning the implementation of Executive Order 13422. More...