US President order on regulatory review (2)

Owing to its importance in the development of Regulatory Reform, I am devoting a second post to President Obama's Executive Order, enlarging on my 18 January post.

1. Content: the Executive Order on "Improving Regulation and Regulatory Review", offers a complement to fundamental, many times updated Presidential Order 12866 (1993 )on regulatory planning and review. The new order requires Federal agencies to design cost-effective, evidence-based regulations that are compatible with economic growth, job creation, and competitiveness. It outlines following guiding principles (some of which are new):

• Cost-effective and cost-justified: consistent with law, agencies must consider costs and benefits and choose the least burdensome path.
• Transparent: the regulatory process must be transparent and include public participation, with an opportunity for the public to comment.
• Coordinated and simplified: Agencies must attempt to coordinate, simplify, and harmonize regulations to reduce costs and promote certainty for businesses and the public.
• Flexible: agencies must consider approaches that maintain freedom of choice and flexibility, including disclosure of relevant information to the public.
• Science-driven: regulations must be guided by objective scientific evidence.
• Necessary and up-to-date: existing regulations must be reviewed to determine that they are still necessary and crafted effectively to solve current problems. If they are outdated, they must be changed or repealed.

2. The Executive Order was accompanied on the same day by a memorandum for the heads of executive agencies and departments on regulatory compliance which also breaks some new ground, as it requires federal enforcement agencies to make publicly-available compliance information easily accessible, downloadable, and searchable online, to provide citizens with information they need to determine when entities fail to comply with the law.

3. Background: the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) manages a very rich website reginfo.gov on current initiatives, including the impressive Unified Agenda and Regulatory Plan. The site also publishes the numerous (183 at this date) submissions received during the recent consultation prior to the 18 January Executive Order which constitutes a particularly rich source of ideas for discussion (tip from Manos) .