Today’s Must Read

The dark reign of experts and regulatory officials is over!

From The New York Times:

In an executive order published last week in the Federal Register, Mr. Bush said that each agency must have a regulatory policy office run by a political appointee, to supervise the development of rules and documents providing guidance to regulated industries. The White House will thus have a gatekeeper in each agency to analyze the costs and the benefits of new rules and to make sure the agencies carry out the president’s priorities.

That’s right, each agency (like, for instance, the Environmental Protection Agency and Occupational Safety and Health Administration) will now have a politically appointed babysitter to make sure that regulations aren’t too onerous for corporations. In fact, the directive ensures that regulation is the absolute last resort: “in deciding whether to issue regulations, federal agencies must identify ‘the specific market failure’ or problem that justifies government intervention.”

“Business groups welcomed the executive order,” the Times notes, in a terrific understatement.