Washington's Surprisingly Flexible Rulemakers

"The problem is because of a lack of documentation and transparency, it's difficult to know the results of the reviews," said Matthew Madia, a federal regulatory policy analyst with OMB Watch, a public-interest group in the District that monitors rulemaking policy.

OMB Watch estimated that 20 percent of the agency reviews were done as a result of a request from the OMB. "Who is calling the shots on these reviews?" Madia said, suggesting industry influence.

In one case cited in the report, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration discovered during a 2002 review that a 1988 mechanical press standard, designed to protect workers from injury, was never implemented. That was because there was no independent group to validate the safety device, as the standard required. OSHA is working on a revision.

There is no government-wide policy on how agencies should select, study and report the results of their reexaminations.

The GAO found that the Mine Safety and Health Administration took 16 years -- from 1980 to 1996 -- to review and modify its ventilation standards because the agency kept widening the scope of its study.

Agencies are interested in "listening to calls and comments, looking at the regulations, and understanding if they are actually working," said the GAO's Scire. "But there is more that can be done here."

To get better results, the GAO suggested that agencies set standards for measuring the performance of rules, make priorities for what gets reviewed and document the results.

Agencies said they often don't report results of their reviews unless a rule is changed.

The GAO highlighted a recent case involving the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. The FDIC and other bank regulators set up a task force that looked at 130 regulations. Public comment was invited, and 13 public meetings were held around the country. The result was the Financial Services Regulatory Relief Act of 2006, which reduced regulatory requirements on bankers.

Stuart Shapiro, assistant public policy professor at Rutgers University in New Jersey, said no constituency lobbies for comprehensive analysis of rules.

"Business learns to live with the rule, and the advocates for the rule don't want to see it changed," Shapiro said.

He said he was skeptical about how meaningful the 1,300 reviews cited in the GAO report are; only two looked at the accuracy of cost and benefit projections.

"The lack of attention to costs and benefits is a missed opportunity," Shapiro said.

Practical considerations drive how much gets done.

Richard Morgenstern, senior fellow at Resources for the Future, a District-based group that does social science research, said analysis requires data, which "is rarely available" or tough to get from industry.

"Retrospective analysis is a desirable thing, but there isn't much incentive to do it," he said. "Who in an agency wants to write a report that makes them look bad?"

Cindy Skrzycki is a regulatory columnist with Bloomberg News. She can be reached atcskrzycki@bloomberg.net.