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26–028 PDF 2017

ACCOUNTABILITY AND TRANSPARENCY REFORM 

AT THE OFFICE OF INFORMATION AND REGULATORY AFFAIRS 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON 

GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT 

AND GOVERNMENT REFORM 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

MARCH 15, 2016 

Serial No. 114–152 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov 

http://www.house.gov/reform 


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COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM 

JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah, Chairman 

JOHN L. MICA, Florida 

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio 

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee 

JIM JORDAN, Ohio 

TIM WALBERG, Michigan 

JUSTIN AMASH, Michigan 

PAUL A. GOSAR, Arizona 

SCOTT DESJARLAIS, Tennessee 

TREY GOWDY, South Carolina 

BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas 

CYNTHIA M. LUMMIS, Wyoming 

THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky 

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina 

RON DESANTIS, Florida 

MICK MULVANEY, South Carolina 

KEN BUCK, Colorado 

MARK WALKER, North Carolina 

ROD BLUM, Iowa 

JODY B. HICE, Georgia 

STEVE RUSSELL, Oklahoma 

EARL L. ‘‘BUDDY’’ CARTER, Georgia 

GLENN GROTHMAN, Wisconsin 

WILL HURD, Texas 

GARY J. PALMER, Alabama 

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland, Ranking 

Minority Member 

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York 

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of 

Columbia 

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri 

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts 

JIM COOPER, Tennessee 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia 

MATT CARTWRIGHT, Pennsylvania 

TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois 

ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois 

BRENDA L. LAWRENCE, Michigan 

TED LIEU, California 

BONNIE WATSON COLEMAN, New Jersey 

STACEY E. PLASKETT, Virgin Islands 

MARK DESAULNIER, California 

BRENDAN F. BOYLE, Pennsylvania 

PETER WELCH, Vermont 

MICHELLE LUJAN GRISHAM, New Mexico 

JENNIFER HEMINGWAY, Majority Staff Director 

KATY ROTHER, Senior Counsel 

WILLIAM MARX, Clerk 

DAVID RAPALLO, Minority Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina, Chairman 

JIM JORDAN, Ohio 

TIM WALBERG, Michigan, Vice Chair 

TREY GOWDY, South Carolina 

THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky 

MICK MULVANEY, South Carolina 

KEN BUCK, Colorado 

EARL L. ‘‘BUDDY’’ CARTER, Georgia 

GLENN GROTHMAN, Wisconsin 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia, Ranking 

Minority Member 

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York 

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of 

Columbia 

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri 

STACEY E. PLASKETT, Virgin Islands 

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts 


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C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Hearing held on March 15, 2016 ............................................................................ 1 

WITNESSES 

The Hon. Howard Shelanski, Administrator, Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Office of Management and Budget 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 4 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 7 

Ms. Michelle Sager, Director, Stategic Issues, Government Accountability Office 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 11 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 13 

Dr. Richard Williams, Vice President of Policy Research and Director of 

Regulatory Studies Program, Mercatus Center, George Mason University 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 29 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 31 

Mr. Sam Batkins, Director of Regulatory Policy, American Action Forum 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 40 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 42 


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ACCOUNTABILITY AND TRANSPARENCY REFORM AT THE OFFICE OF INFORMATION 

AND REGULATORY AFFAIRS 

Tuesday, March 15, 2016 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS, 

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM, 

Washington, D.C. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 2:27 p.m., in Room 

2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Mark Meadows [chairman of the subcommittee] presiding. 

Present: Representatives Meadows, Jordan, Walberg, Buck, 

Carter, Connolly, and Maloney. 

Also Present: Representative Chaffetz. 

Mr. MEADOWS. All right. The Subcommittee on Government Operations will come to order. And without objection, the chair is authorized to declare a recess at any time. 

Good afternoon. I want to welcome all of our witnesses and express my appreciation for your attendance and certainly for your 

testimony today. 

Today’s hearing will explore concerns and complaints about 

transparency and accountability at the Office of Information and 

Regulatory Affairs. Just about a year ago, we had a similar hearing 

where the administrator obviously testified, and in reviewing some 

of the transcripts, I was reminded of some of the moments in that 

where the communication between you and members of this committee was, I guess, less than clear. And so we posed some questions that seemed very forthright to us, but it seemed maybe to be 

confused. And so obviously this follow-up hearing hopefully will 

provide some clarity as we look at that. 

For example, you know, can you send a list of either pre-proposed rules or other rules that are undergoing the informal review 

process? And the administrator said, well, I don’t know; what are 

you referring to? So, of course, I was referring to the same process 

that the GAO has referred to as an informal review at least as 

early as 2003, which is the time prior to the agency’s formal submission of the rule to OIRA, during which OIRA frequently has 

had a significant influence over the development of the rule. 

So this year, we wanted to bring back in some of the experts in, 

including a regulatory expert from GAO, to help us maybe wade 

through some of this messy process and possibly help us bridge the 

communication gap that may have resulted from my inability to articulate exactly what we were looking for. 


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GAO and regulatory experts have been calling for greater transparency and accountability from OIRA for more than a decade. In 

fact, in 2003 GAO issued a report that provided significant details 

on how OIRA’s review process could be addressed but also raise 

several concerns about transparency and accountability. 

And since then, GAO has issued reports and recommendations on 

how agencies and OIRA identify significant regulations and how 

they explain the cost-benefit analysis and improve retrospective 

regulatory reviews. By my count, there are about 17 open recommendations that OIRA has not yet addressed, and that would 

improve the Federal regulatory process. 

Instead, OIRA is marred by consistently late reporting, incomplete analysis, poor data quality, and insufficient oversight of the 

Federal regulatory process. OIRA is quite possibly an agency overwhelmed by this responsibility and insufficient resources, but the 

public doesn’t know because OIRA has failed to provide any insight 

into that process. So hopefully, we will be able to hear some on 

that today. 

In that past year, the committee has experienced a frustration of 

this secretive regulatory process at OIRA firsthand. I want to emphasize that I use the word frustration and I could use something 

much more definitive in terms of making that analysis. During last 

year’s hearing, several subcommittee members, myself included, requested that the administrator provide documentation on how 

OIRA conducted its reviews as it relates to the Waters of the USA 

rulemaking. This type of request is something that we would ask 

of any agency so that the committee can conduct its oversight responsibilities effectively. 

In general, agencies provide the committee with the information 

it needs to understand what happened and why. Some agencies 

take longer than others, but generally, we receive the information 

in a relatively reasonable period of time. 

Our experience with OIRA, however, has been different, and in 

the past year we have experienced an unprecedented effort in our 

opinion to obstruct the committee’s oversight abilities and restrict 

access to information about the Federal regulatory process. OIRA’s 

resistance to complying with the committee’s simple requests raises 

more concerns than we had last year. 

Persistent requests for transparencies and assistance with oversight from the public and now from Congress are apparently met 

with disregard from OIRA. This committee may need to look into 

other means to ensure that the agency is an effective regulatory 

gatekeeper and accountable to the taxpayers, and while the committee’s investigation into OIRA’s review of the WOTUS rulemaking is ongoing, it is really not the focus of this hearing. 

The committee wanted to hold this hearing to explore policy concerns and maybe options, Administrator, to address those concerns. 

And so today, we ask our witnesses both where additional transparency and accountability at OIRA are needed, as well as what 

legislative efforts that the committee should consider to spread a 

little sunshine into the secretive deliberative process of the agency. 

Do you think that putting OIRA’s regulatory review function into 

a statute would help OIRA better understand its obligations to 

Congress and the American people, or is OIRA overburdened with 


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the numerous obligations that you have? Does OIRA need more 

staff to conduct a more thorough review of the regulatory actions 

and meet its current obligations for transparency? 

We just want to know how this committee can help crack OIRA 

open for public review and purview and Congress to better understand the important work that this agency does. So any thoughts 

or suggestions that the witnesses can offer us would be very helpful. 

Mr. MEADOWS. And with that, I would now like to recognize my 

good friend Mr. Connolly, the ranking member of the Subcommittee 

on Government Operations, for his opening statement. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And I am sorry for the delay. I was detained on the Floor after 

votes. 

And thanks for holding another hearing on what is arguably one 

of the most influential and consequential Federal agencies that 

most Americans have never heard of. This relatively small and 

mostly anonymous office reviews and coordinates the issuance of 

vital Federal regulations that have an impact on our nation’s economy, environment, public health, and safety. 

A year ago, Mr. Chairman, this subcommittee gathered to discuss 

the challenges facing the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, OIRA. We reviewed the Government Accountability Office’s 

recommendations and examined ways to make the regulatory review process more efficient and transparent. We reconvene today to 

check on the office’s compliance and progress. 

OIRA plays a key role in shaping hundreds of important rules 

such as those that safeguard food supply, guarantee buildings are 

accessible for the disabled, promote public safety, and protect the 

quality of our drinking water, about which we had a hearing this 

morning and into the afternoon, and we will have another one 

Thursday. 

Despite the powerful impact this agency has on the lives of all 

Americans, OIRA operates mostly in the shadows. And from a good 

government point of view, greater transparency might be warranted. Unfortunately, there continues to be a documented lack of 

transparency within this small statutory office housed within the 

Office of Management and Budget. Over the years, GAO has repeatedly found that OIRA, under multiple administrations, has 

failed to meet the transparency requirements contained in the relevant Executive orders that prescribe the principles and procedures 

OIRA should follow when conducting regulatory review. 

In last year’s hearing, I mentioned GAO’s recommendations 

issued in 2003 to address transparency challenges. GAO followed 

up with a report in 2009 again noting transparency issues and providing additional recommendations. To date, OIRA appears to have 

implemented only nine of those 25 identified recommendations. 

And obliviously, today, we are going to hear from Mr. Shelanski 

about that progress or lack thereof. 

Furthermore, I believe the public and OIRA would be best served 

if it provided a guidance to agencies to ensure that they consistently report changes suggested by OIRA in the rulemaking dockets, 

disclose information about all outside parties it meets with regarding rulemaking, and ensure that the informal rulemaking reviews, 


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which are in place to streamline and verify the process, are not 

misused to reduce the very transparency we are seeking. 

Congress and the American people have a right to know why 

some rules sit under OIRA review for years when the review process is supposed to be 90 days. There are currently 31 regulatory 

actions that have been under OIRA review for more than 90 days, 

some considerably more. 

In closing, I also do want to recognize that OIRA has an incredibly difficult challenge and a hardworking and dedicated core of career staff that is providing first-rate quantitative analysis weighing 

complex economic costs against potential benefits. And somebody 

has got to do that because sometimes we have rhetoric up here that 

presupposes all regulation is bad and none of it ever has any positive externalities. And that is flat out untrue, and experience tells 

us that. 

So to have an independent agency that is doing that codification, 

doing that kind of analysis is critical, but as the chairman indicated and I certainly support, but transparency, in order to have 

validation, in order to have credibility, there has to be transparency. 

And so I thank the chair for having another hearing on this matter, and I welcome our panelists and look forward to the testimony. 

Mr. MEADOWS. I thank the gentleman from Virginia. I would also 

like to make note that we will hold the record open for 5 legislative 

days for any other members who would like to submit a written 

statement. 

We will now recognize our panel of witnesses, and I am pleased 

to welcome the Honorable Howard Shelanski, Administrator of the 

Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs at the office of OMB; 

Ms. Michelle Sager, Director of Strategic Issues at the Government 

Accountability Office; Mr. Richard Williams, Vice President of Policy Research and Director of Regulatory Studies Program at the 

Mercatus Center at George Mason University; and Mr. Sam 

Batkins, is that correct? 

Mr. BATKINS. Yes, it is. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Batkins, Director of Regulatory Policy at the 

American Action Forum. Welcome to you all. And pursuant to committee rules, all witnesses will be sworn in before they testify, so 

I would like to ask you to rise. Please raise your right hand. 

[Witnesses sworn.] 

Mr. MEADOWS. Thank you. Please be seated and let the record 

reflect that all witnesses answered in the affirmative. 

And in order to allow time for discussion, please limit your oral 

testimony to 5 minutes, but your entire written statement will be 

made part of the record. 

And, Mr. Shelanski, we will recognize you for 5 minutes. 

WITNESS STATEMENTS 

STATEMENT OF HOWARD SHELANSKI 

Mr. SHELANSKI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you for the invitation to appear before you today. I’m 

pleased to have this opportunity to discuss the role that the Office 


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of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) plays in the Federal 

regulatory process. 

Regulatory process in the United States is premise to an 

unrivaled degree on two principles: transparency and accountability. One of my priorities at OIRA has been to increase the 

transparency of the regulatory process by improving notice and 

predictability for the public. During my tenure, we have timely 

published each spring and fall the Unified Agenda and Regulatory 

Plan, which shows agency rulemaking activity for the year that follows. 

To further promote transparency, OIRA maintains a rigorous 

process when it comes to the review of individual regulations. First 

and foremost, OIRA consistently upholds the established standards 

the draft rules and their accompanying analyses must meet under 

applicable Executive orders, statutes, and published guidance. 

While OIRA takes the time necessary to ensure thorough interagency review of regulations, we are mindful that unnecessary 

delays in the publication of rules are potentially harmful across the 

board, harmful to stakeholders wishing to comment on proposed 

rules, to businesses and other entities that must make plans to 

comply with rules, and to parties denied the benefits of regulation. 

Under the Administrative Procedure Act, agencies must generally provide the public with an opportunity to comment on proposed rules before the agency can finalize those rules. OIRA plays 

an important role in this process by ensuring that agencies’ regulatory proposals contain sufficient detail, explanation, and underlying analysis for the public to provide meaningful comments and 

response. Such transparency is essential to the public’s ability to 

influence the regulations with which they must eventually live. 

Once an agency drafts the final rule for publication, OIRA again 

plays an important role by ensuring that the agency takes account 

of the public comments on the earlier proposal, that the final rule 

logically follows from the proposed rule and those public comments 

and that the agency’s final rule is well-grounded in the record evidence and meets applicable economic analytical requirements. Such 

accountability is essential to ensuring that agencies heed public 

comment and issue rules that are effective and efficient. 

As the discussion above implies, when an agency submits a draft 

final or proposed rule to OIRA, the rule is not yet finished and may 

change during the review period. OIRA circulates the rules to other 

Federal offices and agencies for comment and examines the rule for 

the quality of its underlying evidence and analysis. OIRA then 

transmits the comments from other Federal agencies, as well as its 

own comments on the rule, back to the rulemaking agency. Once 

this process is concluded, OIRA concludes review and the rule goes 

back to the agency for publication in the Federal Register. 

The Executive orders require the agency, upon request, to make 

publicly available both the version of the rule the agency originally 

submitted to OIRA, as well as the final published version so that 

the public can see any changes that occurred during interagency 

review. 

To further ensure accountability and transparency in the regulatory review process, when an agency submits the rule to OIRA, 

the submission appears publicly the next day on OIRA’s Web site 


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reginfo.gov. Stakeholders, therefore, have notice that OIRA is initiating review. This notice is important because, pursuant to Executive Order 12866, OIRA meets with any party interested in providing any input on a regulation under review. 

The entities with which OIRA typically meets includes State and 

local governments, businesses, trade associations, unions, and advocates from environmental health and safety organizations. OIRA 

posts a searchable log of all such meetings on its Web site, and 

that log now includes both meetings that have already taken place 

and also upcoming meetings. 

The Regulatory Right-to-Know Act, which calls for OMB to submit to Congress each year an accounting statement and associated 

report, promotes additional accountability. This report includes an 

estimate of the total annual benefits and costs of Federal rules and 

paperwork in the aggregate by agency and agency program and by 

major rule. OIRA issued its final 2015 report on the costs and benefits of Federal regulations earlier this month. 

Finally, a hallmark of this administration’s commitment to transparency and accountability is our retrospective review effort. Agencies submit reports on the status of their retrospective review efforts every 6 months. Agencies release their most recent reports on 

March 4 and will submit their next set to OIRA this summer. The 

agency’s regulatory look-back efforts to date are expected to yield 

an estimated net 5-year savings of $28 billion so far. 

In conclusion, the United States is perhaps the most transparent 

and accountable regulatory system in the world. OIRA’s review of 

executive branch regulations plays an important role in that system. OIRA will therefore continue its efforts to remain accessible 

to the public during regulatory review to work with agencies to provide the public with notice of planned regulatory activities and to 

ensure that the government regulates this effectively and efficiently as possible to the net benefit of all Americans. 

Thank you for your time and attention. I would be happy to answer any questions you may have. 

[Prepared statement of Mr. Shelanski follows:] 


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Mr. MEADOWS. Thank you. 

Ms. Sager, you are recognized for 5 minutes. 

STATEMENT OF MICHELLE SAGER 

Ms. SAGER. Thank you. Chairman Meadows, Ranking Member 

Connolly, members of the subcommittee, thank you for inviting me 

here today to discuss GAO’s work. 

We have consistently found opportunities to improve regulatory 

transparency, and I am honored to represent GAO and share a selection of our findings. My written statement provides additional 

detail, as well as references to the multiple reports that inform my 

remarks today. 

In the next few minutes, I will highlight findings from recent reports with a focus on, first, aspects of the regulatory review process 

that could be more transparent; and second, additional opportunities to enhance transparency and oversight of the rulemaking process. 

First, our reports on cost-benefit analysis, rule development, and 

OMB’s role in reviews of agencies’ rules illustrates specific opportunities to increase the transparency of the regulatory review process. For example, with regard to cost-benefit analysis, our 2014 report found that reviews of agencies’ rules sometimes did result in 

changes, but the transparency of the review process could be improved. 

In that report, we made three recommendations to OMB. First, 

that OMB work with agencies to clearly communicate the reasons 

for designating significant regulations and explain the reason for 

any changes to an agency’s initial assessment of a regulation’s significance. 

And second, we recommended that OMB encourage agencies to 

state in the preamble section of the Executive order definition of 

a significant regulatory action that applies to that particular regulation. OMB implemented the first recommendation in that report. 

Second, additional opportunities do exist to enhance transparency and congressional oversight of the rulemaking process. 

OMB plays a very important role in this process through oversight 

and by providing guidance to agencies on how they should comply 

with the various requirements. 

GAO reports covering a range of topics such as regulatory guidance, retrospective regulatory review, and exceptions for expediting 

the rulemaking process illustrate additional opportunities to enhance transparency. So, for example, retrospective analysis can 

help agencies evaluate how well existing regulations work in practice and also determine whether they should be modified or perhaps even repealed. 

In a 2014 report, we found that agencies often did change their 

regulations in response to completed retrospective analysis, but 

they could improve reporting on their progress and also strengthen 

linkages between their retrospective review and agencies’ performance goals. 

We also concluded that OMB could enhance transparency of the 

information provided to the public. We made three recommendations in this report: first, that OMB improve reporting on retrospective regulatory review outcomes; second, to improve how these reVerDate Nov 24 2008 11:50 Jul 17, 2017 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00015 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 H:\26028.TXT APRIL

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views could be used to help agencies achieve their agency priority 

goals; and third, to ensure that OIRA monitor the extent to which 

agencies have implemented guidance on these reviews and then 

confirm that agencies have identified how they would assess the 

performance of regulations in the future. Staff from OIRA generally 

agreed with these three recommendations, and last year, the administrator indicated that the agency was indeed taking actions to 

address them. 

In summary, as you see in my written statement, OIRA has implemented nine of the 25 recommendations in the selected reports 

outlined in the written statement. We believe that the other 16 related recommendations that have not been implemented still have 

merit and, if acted upon, would improve the transparency of Federal rulemaking. In a step in that direction, last year, the administrator noted that OIRA has worked with agencies to help them 

with their Executive order disclosure requirements. 

Increased transparency of the rulemaking process holds potential 

benefits for your continued oversight, as well as for increased public awareness and understanding of the rulemaking process for the 

regulations that affect all of us as citizens and as taxpayers. 

Chairman Meadows, Ranking Member Connolly, members of the 

subcommittee, this concludes my prepared statement. I look forward to any questions that you may have. Thank you. 

[Prepared statement of Ms. Sager follows:] 


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Mr. MEADOWS. Thank you, Ms. Sager. 

Dr. Williams, you are recognized for 5 minutes. 

STATEMENT OF RICHARD WILLIAMS 

Mr. WILLIAMS. Thank you. Chairman Meadows, Ranking Member Connolly, and members of the subcommittee, thank you for inviting me to testify today. 

I want to offer my perspective as someone who has worked both 

at OIRA briefly and at an agency, the FDA. I know how difficult 

it is for economists at agencies to produce high-quality unbiased 

analysis, but also how difficult a job OIRA analysts have ensuring 

that regulations are solidly grounded in good analysis. When they 

are so grounded, regulations address real problems, actually help 

to solve those problems and with reasonable cost. 

Good analysis helps the public to understand the likely effects of 

regulation, i.e., make them transparent. But the job for OIRA analysts is becoming much more difficult because of the growing imbalance between OIRA and the agencies they’re expected to regulate. 

While Federal agencies have grown to twice the size that they were 

in 1980, OIRA, the arm of OMB that’s supposed to oversee regulations, has been halved. Regulatory agencies now have about 

280,000 employees versus about 40 in OIRA. 

And OIRA only looks at a small percentage of the 3 to 4,000 regulations that we get each year. Between 2004 and 2014, they only 

looked at 8 percent, and they’ve only returned one regulation in the 

last 5 years. But even with those they do review, the record is not 

an encouraging one. In that same 10-year period, only 116 out of 

roughly 3,000 major rules had estimates of both benefits and costs, 

and many of those estimates were quite poor. 

So where OIRA was reasonably effective at the outset, the growing imbalance between OIRA and the agencies is producing these 

poor results. It is now David versus Godzilla. Take one example 

from a recent rule produced under the Food Safety and Modernization Act. The food industry estimated that it would cost more than 

$18 billion to comply with just one rule, the packaged food rule. Yet 

in its analysis of that rule, FDA claimed not to have any idea 

whether or not it would make an impact on food safety. 

OIRA should have been in a position to stop this rule. This was 

a rule to reduce risk, and OIRA is at a disadvantage when they are 

reviewing risk-related rules. Assessing risk is an activity that virtually every American engages in every day, and they do so objectively. In agencies, regulations are often based on formalized risk 

assessments to determine the baseline risk and the amount of risk 

that will be reduced by the regulation. If these assessments are inaccurate, then the benefits of the rule will be inaccurate. In fact, 

time and again, agencies overstate risk or the amount of risk produced. So OIRA needs risk assessors to be able to review the analyses to make sure that benefits can be compared to costs. 

But OIRA has another role to play beyond reviewing regulations: 

ensuring that the public has enough information and time to adequately comment on the rules that often take years to develop, run 

to thousands of pages, some including very complex analysis. Typically, the public gets 60 to 90 days to respond, and that’s insufficient. 


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So what can help? First, I think to get better analysis you can 

restore OIRA to its original size, which was about 90. In addition, 

ensure that OIRA has qualified risk assessment—assessors on 

staff. Second, you can codify the economic Executive order a little, 

make it much more enforceable. 

In terms of the public, it’s important to let the public know 

what’s coming and how to respond. The current system seems designed to inhibit public comment. To accomplish this, there are several things that can be done. First, have OIRA, in conjunction with 

GAO, enhance the Unified Agenda to make agencies include more 

information in proposals, which would include a statement of the 

problem, the legal basis, alternatives for solving the problem, and 

a preliminary discussion of the benefits and costs. 

For bigger rules, agencies should be required to publish an advance notice of proposed rulemaking with an expanded discussion 

of what’s in the Unified Agenda. This will give the public, particularly small businesses, much more time to formulate a constructive 

information-rich comment that clearly communicates and supports 

their claims, as the Federal Government asked them to do. 

OIRA should also be charged with making it easier to find out 

when a particular industry has to comply with various rules from 

different agencies. So, for example, an industry can get regulations 

from the IRA, from EPA, and from OSHA, and they can have different dates that are all running together. OIRA could create online calendars by industry that would list the compliance dates for 

various rules. In fact, OIRA could go further. They could coordinate 

with agencies to make sure that no industry is faced with bunched 

up compliance dates. 

OIRA has a long and distinguished history in helping to solve social problems, but they are simply outgunned as Congress has allowed this agency to dwindle in size and importance. But given the 

size and reach of the regulatory state, this is a much-needed check 

for the President to exercise some degree of control over the regulatory agencies 

Thank you, and I welcome your comments. 

[Prepared statement of Mr. Williams follows:] 


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Mr. MEADOWS. Thank you, Dr. Williams. 

Mr. Batkins, you are recognized for 5 minutes. 

STATEMENT OF SAM BATKINS 

Mr. BATKINS. Thank you, Chairman Meadows, Ranking Member 

Connolly, and members of the committee. 

At the outset, I just want to reiterate some of the testimony we 

have heard today and note that OIRA does play a critical role in 

our regulatory process. When you consider that 40 or 50 employees 

have to review the work of tens of thousands of regulators reviewing roughly 400 rulemakings annually, sometimes highly technical, 

it is a testament that we’ve had, I think, six administrations help 

to establish and advance the work of OIRA, three Democrats and 

three Republicans to help advance the work of OIRA. 

With that said, there are obviously transparency and reporting 

concerns at the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. And 

if you look—take a look back at the last 20 or 30 years of regulatory reform, you’ll find sometimes OIRA is very much at the center of those reform efforts, but all of them have transparency and 

reporting issues, and you can sort of just go down the litany, you 

know, some of which has been well litigated in the past, issues 

with the Unified Agenda, the Congressional Review Act, the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act, the Information Collection Budget, 

which reports on cumulative paperwork totals as part of the Paperwork Reduction Act. OIRA reports to Congress and implementation 

of Executive Orders 13563 and 13610. 

On the Unified Agenda it’s again well-known that in 2012 there 

just for some reason wasn’t a spring Unified Agenda for whatever 

reason, and to our knowledge that’s the only instance when there 

weren’t two Unified Agendas published in a calendar year. 

With regard to the Congressional Review Act, there was a recent 

report from the Administrative Conference of the United States, 

which found thousands of rulemakings that were never submitted 

to GAO as part of the CRA process, which would then, I guess in 

practice, could deprive Congress of its oversight ability under the 

CRA. Now, agencies do have a responsibility to submit rules to 

GAO under the CRA, but OIRA also has a responsibility to label 

rules as major under the CRA procedure as well. 

With regard to the Information Collection Budget, I know that’s 

a somewhat obscure report on paperwork, but it’s—has been more 

than 500 days since our last update of the Information Collection 

Budget. 

And finally, on implementation of Executive Orders 13563 and 

13610, which were ostensibly designed to modify, streamline, expand, or repeal the existing regulatory state, we saw op-eds in the 

Wall Street Journal about moving to a 21st century regulatory system and streamlining and repealing redundant regulation. And if 

you actually look at the 4 to 500 rulemakings contained in these 

reports, you will find notable examples of rulemakings that do cut 

costs and paperwork. But from our account, they are often dwarfed 

by all the new rulemakings that, for example, implements the Affordable Care Act. And we sort of struggle to understand how implementation of the Affordable Care Act constitutes retrospective 

review designed to streamline or eliminate red tape. 


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And there are some other notable examples as well. Department 

of Education’s Gainful Employment Rule, which has billions of dollars in costs and millions of paperwork hours, is also included in 

these retrospective reports. 

In addition to the controversial Waters of the United States Rule, 

which has found its way in EPA and DOD’s section of the report, 

along with CAFE standards, the 2017 to 2025 CAFE standards. 

And by our account the last report that was issued, if you include 

the regulatory costs and the regulatory cost-cutting measures, it 

contains roughly $16 billion in costs and 6.5 million in new paperwork burden hours. 

And finally, an issue which I’m sure the committee is familiar 

with of midnight regulation, this is something that Administrator 

Shelanski has already issued a memorandum to agencies sort of 

outlining the procedure for regulations during this presidential 

transition year. Similar memos were issued in 2008. Of course, that 

at the time did not stop sort of the flood of regulations that happened during that time, and there’s a lot of quantified evidence 

showing that flood of regulation. 

And just to give you an idea of how quickly things can run 

through the process with a willing executive, we found some Department of Energy regulations in 2000 and 2008 where the entire 

life of the rulemaking from proposed rule to final publication in the 

Federal Register was less than the comment periods for some notable regulations during the proposed cycle, so the entire history of 

rulemaking of just, you know, about 100 days. 

So, finally, another issue again related to the Congressional Review Act is the carryover provision, which, by our calculation and 

by the Congressional Research Service calculation, this year will be 

somewhere around mid- to late May, which means that any regulation issued after that date Congress and the next administration 

could review in 2017, which there is certainly an incentive for the 

administration to have sort of a mini-rush in regulation during this 

spring so as to avoid any review under the CRA in 2017. We 

haven’t seen any evidence of that so far, but that’s something that 

we’ll certainly be monitoring this spring going forward. 

Thank you. 

[Prepared statement of Mr. Batkins follows:] 


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Mr. MEADOWS. Thank you, Mr. Batkins. 

The chair recognizes the gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Carter, for 

5 minutes. 

Mr. CARTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank all of you for 

being here. 

Mr. Shelanski, would you agree that part of the core mission of 

OIRA is to ensure that agencies analyze less-burdensome means of 

fulfilling policy objectives? 

Mr. SHELANSKI. One of the things that we ask agencies to do is 

to analyze regulatory alternatives when such are available. 

Mr. CARTER. And to analyze less-burdensome ones, correct? 

Mr. SHELANSKI. When there’s a less-burdensome alternative 

available, we ask them to —— 

Mr. CARTER. Okay. Well, as you may be aware, the Department 

of Labor has proposed a very complex Fiduciary Rule. You are familiar with that? 

Mr. SHELANSKI. Yes, I am, sir. 

Mr. CARTER. Okay. Yet OIRA has not ensured that the Department of Labor has analyzed any less-burdensome options to the 

currently proposed rule. In fact, the Department of Labor openly 

refused to do that, openly refused to analyze any other options. 

Don’t you see that as being a direct conflict to what the core mission of OIRA is? 

Mr. SHELANSKI. Thank you, Congressman Carter. The rule is 

still under review at OIRA, and so we have an ongoing review on 

the Conflict of Interest rule, or the Fiduciary Rule as you referred 

to. So that review is not yet complete. And I can assure you that 

all of the input, all of the public comment, all of the relevant issues 

are being seriously considered during that review, which is, as I 

said —— 

Mr. CARTER. So before the Department of Labor implements this 

rule, you are telling me that it has got to be approved by OIRA? 

Mr. SHELANSKI. The rule is—the final rule is currently under review in my office that has to—we have to complete that review before they can publish it in the Federal Register and implement it. 

Mr. CARTER. How long have you been reviewing this particular 

rule? 

Mr. SHELANSKI. I’d have to check how long we’ve had it. We’ve 

had it for a good bit of time. 

Mr. CARTER. A good bit of time being? 

Mr. SHELANSKI. Again, I would have to check exactly when it 

came in. 

Mr. CARTER. Okay. So I just want to make sure I am clear on 

this now. So the Fiduciary Rule that Department of Labor is proposing, you have to approve it first before it can be published by 

the Department of Labor and become the rule, the law? 

Mr. SHELANSKI. Yes, we have to conclude review on this final 

rule just as we did on the proposed rule, so it’s back with us for 

a second time and they cannot publish the rule in the Federal Register until my office concludes review. 

Mr. CARTER. And again, I want to make sure I understand the 

core mission. The core mission of OIRA is to make sure that agencies are looking at less-burdensome means for fulfilling policy objectives —— 


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Mr. SHELANSKI. The core —— 

Mr. CARTER.—right? 

Mr. SHELANSKI. One of the elements of our core mission is to find 

by the Executive orders and relevant statutes is to make sure the 

agency has analyzed and considered regulatory alternatives —— 

Mr. CARTER. This is certainly a case where we have asked the 

Department of Labor to look at some less-burdensome rules, so we 

are depending on you to fulfill this core mission, okay? 

Mr. SHELANSKI. Understood, sir. 

Mr. CARTER. Understood, okay. Let me ask you something. Have 

you received any instructions from the Department of Labor or the 

White House regarding any kind of timeline for the review of this 

particular Fiduciary Rule? 

Mr. SHELANSKI. We clearly want to complete our review within 

a reasonable period of time —— 

Mr. CARTER. That is not what I asked, okay. I am sorry. I will 

try to be succinct. Have you been given any instructions from the 

Department of Labor or from the White House regarding a timeline 

for the review of this Fiduciary Rule? Yes or no? 

Mr. SHELANSKI. No. 

Mr. CARTER. No, you have not. Have you received any kind of 

communication from the White House or from the Department of 

Labor regarding the importance of getting this Fiduciary Rule done 

as quickly as possible? 

Mr. SHELANSKI. Yes, of course. 

Mr. CARTER. You have? Can you make that communication available to us, to this committee? 

Mr. SHELANSKI. The communication comes in the form of a conversation sometimes, which is we’re submitting —— 

Mr. CARTER. Do you have anything in writing? 

Mr. SHELANSKI. Probably not, no. 

Mr. CARTER. Probably not, but it comes in the form of communication. 

Mr. Chairman, how do we handle something like that? Because 

I would be really interested in knowing what exactly has been communicated. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Well, certainly emails and other types of messages would have to be preserved, so is it the —— 

Mr. SHELANSKI. Yes, I’ve preserved —— 

Mr. MEADOWS.—gentleman’s testimony that there was none of 

that, that it was all verbal? 

Mr. SHELANSKI. Mr. Meadows, I would have to go back and 

check. I mean, these come in the form of conversations. When we 

receive briefings on a rule, we’d really like to move this forward so 

that the industry has notice of what’s coming so that they will have 

the opportunity to plan their compliance with any rule. 

This is rather standard. I mean, I work in the White House so 

it’s rather normal that I would have conversations with other officials in the White House bearing on policy issues. So —— 

Mr. CARTER. Okay. Well, let me ask you this way then. Have you 

received any directions from the White House or from the Department of Labor to make this happen, to make this rule—to let this 

rule go through? 


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Mr. SHELANSKI. Both the White House policy offices and the Department of Labor are absolutely aware that we must be left independently to review this rule. And I have received no order about 

any specific outcome from our review process from —— 

Mr. CARTER. I am going to ask you again, if you have anything 

in writing, will you please make that available to this committee? 

Mr. SHELANSKI. I will go back and see what I have and I will 

—— 

Mr. CARTER. That —— 

Mr. SHELANSKI.—consult—but I would ask you to please route 

any such requests through our Legislative Affairs Office, and they 

will come back to me and, you know, endeavor to get you all the 

information you need. 

Mr. CARTER. Okay. Can I have one final one? 

Mr. MEADOWS. [Nonverbal response.] 

Mr. CARTER. Okay. One final question. Would you agree, Mr. 

Shelanski, that one of the core missions is to ensure that the agency addresses any concerns raised by other agencies? 

Mr. SHELANSKI. Absolutely. That is a core function —— 

Mr. CARTER. So the SEC has raised 30—excuse me. The SEC has 

raised 26 concerns, 26 regarding the Department of Labor’s Fiduciary Rule, yet the Department of Labor rejected the majority of 

them. Have you and OIRA—have you addressed any of these that 

have been raised by the SEC or is that what you are doing now? 

Mr. SHELANSKI. As I say, we have the rule under review. All concerns are being considered. 

Mr. CARTER. Including the 26 concerns by the SEC? 

Mr. SHELANSKI. All of the substantial interagency concerns are 

dealt with during the review process. 

Mr. CARTER. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. MEADOWS. I thank the gentleman. 

The gentleman from Virginia has been very kind to let the chairman of the full committee Mr. Chaffetz be recognized for a series 

of questions. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you, Chairman. And I appreciate Mr. 

Connelly. Thank you for your generosity and cooperation. 

Mr. Shelanski, I want to understand what you believe your duty 

and obligation is to respond when Congress sends you a letter. And 

specifically, I am talking about the Oversight and Government Reform Committee. I am the chairman of this committee. I have sent 

you on the Waters of the United States two letters and a subpoena, 

and yet we still have an incomplete document production. That 

subpoena was July of last year. What do you feel your duty and 

obligation is to respond when we send you a letter? 

Mr. SHELANSKI. So, first of all, let me say that I think the oversight function that this committee and all congressional committees 

perform are vitally important. And so I fully agree with and support and would endeavor to get you all the information you need 

for your lawful oversight functions. I believe that’s a critical function. 

We do respond to all correspondence that were received from 

Congress. We have a process that that goes through. And it’s my 

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tween your staffs in your offices and the Legislative Affairs Office 

and General Counsel’s Office at OMB to respond to your requests. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. I don’t want to have any more staff discussions. 

My question is what duty do you believe you have to respond to 

us? 

Mr. SHELANSKI. I believe it is my duty to turn over all documentation to our General Counsel’s Office and our Legislative Affairs Office that is currently engaged in the process of producing 

documents and witnesses for you. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. So in the case of WOTUS, the Waters of the 

United States, when is it reasonable for us to expect you to produce 

a full, complete, 100 percent document production? What is a reasonable time for your response? 

Mr. SHELANSKI. Again, I am not personally involved with —— 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. What do you mean you are not personally involved? You are in charge of this organization so —— 

Mr. SHELANSKI. I am not personally involved with the process 

that has been ongoing for months between the General Counsel’s 

Office of OMB and the Legislative Affairs Office. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. So who do we —— 

Mr. SHELANSKI. The process —— 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Who do we call before this committee that will 

take accountability here, general counsel? What is his name or her 

name? 

Mr. SHELANSKI. Again, I do not have personal involvement with 

the negotiations that are ongoing. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. We are not here to negotiate. Why should we— 

you gave us a very—you said we have a valuable constitutional 

duty. Why should we have to negotiate what you are going to give 

to us? 

Mr. SHELANSKI. My understanding is that there is a process in 

place, Mr. Chaffetz, by which you have received thousands of pages 

of documents —— 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. No, most of those —— 

Mr. SHELANSKI.—witnesses for transcribed —— 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Let me —— 

Mr. SHELANSKI.—interviews, and all of my documents are turned 

over. Again, I am not personally involved in the negotiations that 

you and your office —— 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Give me some names. Who are the people that 

are involved? 

Mr. SHELANSKI. I would refer you to our Legislative Affairs Office 

—— 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. No, no, no. 

Mr. SHELANSKI.—for all that information. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. See, this is the runaround we get. I issued a subpoena in July of last year. Why shouldn’t I hold somebody in contempt? 

Mr. SHELANSKI. My understanding is that subpoena is the process of being answered. You have already done one transcribed 

interview —— 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. I am asking you what a reasonable amount of 

time is to get a response. 

Mr. SHELANSKI. Again, the process is ongoing. 


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Mr. CHAFFETZ. Seven months, is that reasonable? 

Mr. SHELANSKI. Again, I refer you to our Legislative Affairs Office. It is managing this process —— 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Give me some names, Mr. Shelanski. 

Mr. SHELANSKI. I’d be —— 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. You are saying you are not responsible, but you 

are the administrator of this office so —— 

Mr. SHELANSKI. Mr. Chaffetz, I am responsible for turning over 

all of my documentation and getting you all the information, all the 

information to our General Counsel’s Office. They have been working with your offices for months. I am not going to step outside of 

a robust, ongoing process —— 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. So you don’t believe that your responsibility is to 

respond to Congress. You believe your responsibility is to respond 

to an attorney at the White House? 

Mr. SHELANSKI. I disagree with your characterization. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Well, I am just trying to repeat what you just told 

me. You said your responsibility is to give it to the General Counsel. 

Mr. SHELANSKI. I have turned over all of my documentation, everything that I have on that rule. They are in a robust process that 

has been going on with your office that you were participating in 

that is ongoing, that has led to a large document production —— 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. It is not a large —— 

Mr. SHELANSKI.—and ongoing document production and witnesses. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. It is not a large—most of which we have. The 

overwhelming majority is publicly available documents. I can go to 

the internet and get it, you know, just download it. 

What we have asked for is the list of people and the documents 

themselves. I am asking a simple question. What is a reasonable 

amount of time for Congress to get that information? 

Mr. SHELANSKI. My understanding is that this is a process that 

has been ongoing that has been producing you documents. I have 

turned everything over that I have to the people that I work with 

at the offices —— 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. So you believe that the general counsel has 100 

percent of the documents? 

Mr. SHELANSKI. The general counsel has 100 percent of my documents. I am only involved with my documents. I’m not —— 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. See, this administration is just playing hide-thedocuments. I am trying to figure out how and where are these documents and who—give me the name of the general counsel. 

Mr. SHELANSKI. I believe that your office is deeply involved with 

the General Counsel’s —— 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. No, no, no —— 

Mr. SHELANSKI.—Office —— 

Mr. CHAFFETZ.—did you misunderstand my question? My question is give me the name of the person. 

Mr. SHELANSKI. I’m going to refer you to our Legislative Affairs 

Office. You —— 

Mr. MEADOWS. Mr. Shelanski, you have got to answer the question. Either you don’t know or you have to answer the question. 


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Mr. CHAFFETZ. You are under oath. Do you know that person’s 

name? 

Mr. SHELANSKI. Yes, I do. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Then what is his name. 

Mr. SHELANSKI. It’s a her. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. What is her name? 

Mr. SHELANSKI. Her name is Ilona Cohen, as your staff well 

knows. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Well, I am asking you the questions. Why do I 

have to spend 3 minutes trying to get you to give me a name. 

Mr. SHELANSKI. Mr. Chaffetz, we have had a very robust backand-forth —— 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. You can keep using that word robust. I know you 

trained up on it. I asked you a simple question. I send you a subpoena, I send you letters. We shouldn’t have to yank you up here. 

Mr. SHELANSKI. And I gave you a very simple answer. I’ve turned 

over all of my documents to the people who are working closely 

with your office and producing those documents, 4,000 pages of documents, at least one transcribed interview, so I’ve heard, and more 

of them scheduled. There is an ongoing process, so I do not think 

it is a fair characterization that you have not received an answer. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Well, I expect to get 100 percent of the documents 

so —— 

Mr. SHELANSKI. A hundred percent of my documents are turned 

over. I am not personally involved with —— 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Turned over to—not to us. 

Mr. SHELANSKI. To our Legislative Affairs Office and our General 

Counsel’s Office that is working with your office to get you —— 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. That is not —— 

Mr. SHELANSKI.—what you need. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ.—an acceptable answer. 

Mr. SHELANSKI. Well, I’m —— 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. You are failing in your duty to respond to Congress, and I quite frankly don’t understand why we shouldn’t hold 

you personally in contempt of Congress. 

Mr. SHELANSKI. That’s certainly your prerogative —— 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. I yield back. 

Mr. SHELANSKI.—Mr. Chaffetz. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Yes, it is. I will yield back. 

Mr. MEADOWS. I thank the gentleman. 

The chair recognizes the ranking member of the subcommittee, 

Mr. Connolly, for a series of questions for 5 minutes. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. I thank the chair, and welcome to the panel. 

Let me begin. Ms. Sager, since ’03 GAO has had seven reports, 

I believe, on OIRA, is that correct, containing a total of 25 recommendations over the course of the seven reports? 

Ms. SAGER. Correct. We focused on —— 

Mr. CONNOLLY. You have got to turn on your mic. 

Ms. SAGER. We focused on seven reports in the written statement 

that had—specific aspects of those reports had recommendations to 

OMB, to OIRA related to transparency. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. And about nine of those recommendations have 

been implemented to your satisfaction? 

Ms. SAGER. That’s correct. 


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Mr. CONNOLLY. And why have 16 not been implemented? 

Ms. SAGER. In those cases, either OIRA disagreed with the recommendation or there are some where they may have taken action 

and we are still trying to get documentation to close the recommendations. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Mr. Shelanski, can you highlight for us the ones 

with which you disagree? 

Mr. SHELANSKI. We have ongoing discussions with GAO. I would 

reiterate what Ms. Sager said. We have responded directly on a 

number where we have actually adopted the recommendations. 

There are several others where we are doing things that are very 

much in the spirit of the recommendation but not the specific thing 

that GAO is doing, and I can give you an example there. An example would be, for—on getting agencies to talk in their preambles 

about the basis for a significance determination. We haven’t felt 

that a formal guidance is necessary, but we’ve encouraged agencies 

—— Mr. CONNOLLY. All right. 

Mr. SHELANSKI.—to put that kind of information —— 

Mr. CONNOLLY. I think it would be useful if you could subsequently submit to the committee that status because it sounds bad 

that 16 of 25 are not being implemented. If some of them are in 

progress, I think we would like to know where you object and why 

with the remainder just for our illumination so it is not a transparency issue; it is, you know, a substantive issue. 

Going back to this issue of WOTUS, I guess the minority staff 

were under the impression that this would not become a WOTUS 

hearing. But since the issue came up, Mr. Shelanski, I wouldn’t 

want to leave the impression that your office has been entirely uncooperative with this committee. Your staff came to meet with the 

committee staff on January 29 to discuss subpoena compliance, is 

that correct? 

Mr. SHELANSKI. Again, I’m not directly involved with the subpoena compliance beyond turning over any documents —— 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Are you aware whether your staff meets with our 

staff or not? 

Mr. SHELANSKI. I am aware there’s a process —— 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Well, did they meet on the 29th of January or 

not? 

Mr. SHELANSKI. I don’t know if they met with you on the 29th 

of January, Mr. Connolly. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Okay. After that meeting, it is my understanding 

that your staff agreed to make rolling productions available on a 

monthly basis. Are you aware of that? 

Mr. SHELANSKI. I want to make one clarification. The general 

counsel of OMB is not my staff, and the Legislative Affairs Office 

of OMB are not my staff. Those are peer separate offices with 

OMB. I do not direct their operations, so I think I need to clarify 

that. They handle these matters for the Office of Management and 

Budget, so in working with them, I am working through the normal process for subpoena compliance. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Mr. Shelanski, I have been a corporate officer in 

the private sector. I have been the chief elected officer in the public 

sector. I have run things. And even if something is handled by my 


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legal department, if I am in charge, I make it my business to know 

whether we are in compliance, especially if I know I am going to 

be testifying before a committee. I am actually trying to help you 

here, Mr. Shelanski, but, you know, you are wiping your hands of 

this and saying it is someone else’s responsibility as if you have 

nothing to do with it frankly plays into the hands of your critics. 

Mr. SHELANSKI. Let me be very clear. I will happily, willingly, 

and eagerly do anything that I am advised to do, I am told to do 

that your staffs and our staff agree constitute compliance with the 

subpoena. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Mr. Shelanski —— 

Mr. SHELANSKI. For that reason —— 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Mr. Shelanski, I am actually trying to help you. 

It was left out there that you are uncooperative with this committee. I am trying to establish for the record that there is another 

side to that story. In fact, your office has produced 4,000 pages to 

this committee. Now, maybe that is not to the full satisfaction of 

somebody or maybe they didn’t find what they wanted, but it is not 

like you haven’t been meeting with this committee and cooperating. 

But it is not helpful to me or you for you to wash your hands of 

it saying, well, I don’t know anything about that. 

Mr. SHELANSKI. No, here’s what I know. I —— 

Mr. CONNOLLY. When you are under subpoena. How can the 

head of an office under subpoena tell this committee I am unaware 

of it, I don’t know, not my business? 

Mr. SHELANSKI. That’s not what I said, Mr. Connolly. What I 

said is this —— 

Mr. CONNOLLY. It comes damn close to what you said, Mr. 

Shelanski. 

Mr. SHELANSKI. Well, then let me—if I may, I’d like to clarify. 

I am aware that we have a very serious process underway to comply. If we did not, I would be very concerned and I would be going 

internally to say what are we doing to comply. But something different is going on. I’ve turned over all of my documents and I have 

been informed and am regularly informed not of a specific date 

that a meeting takes place but that there are ongoing conversations and ongoing document productions to this committee. If that 

were not happening, I’d be gravely concerned. But not only that, 

every time I am told we have a request for you to do X, I said fine, 

tell me what to do. I’m ready to do what I—what the process dictates. And this is a cooperative process, I have been led to believe, 

between the people on your committee and the people in the Office 

of Management and Budget. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Yes, how is that working out for you? You just 

heard how cooperative that is. But I can’t help somebody that 

doesn’t want to cooperate. 

One final point, Dr. Williams, I found your testimony helpful in 

terms of specifics in how to improve the process and thank you, 

and I expect nothing less from one of the outstanding universities 

in the world, George Mason University, which just so happens to 

be located in the 11th District of Virginia. 

Mr. WILLIAMS. Thank you, Mr. Connolly. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. But thank you. I wish we had a little more time 

to explore because I would like the opportunity to sort of work with 


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you and Mr. Shelanski on how practical some of those suggestions 

might be because I think you make a—and then I will end. But I 

think you make a really good point. How can we possibly expect 

Mr. Shelanski and his colleagues at OIRA to really fulfill their mission with only 40 people —— 

Mr. WILLIAMS. Precisely. 

Mr. CONNOLLY.—when you were talking about this immense enterprise. And we can argue whether there should be more or less 

regulation, but whatever the number, it is still gargantuan, and 

one wonders whether just the sheer volume of it is something that 

we need to take a look at in terms of the role of OIRA. So I thank 

you for your testimony, and we are going to certainly follow up on 

that. 

Mr. WILLIAMS. Great. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you, Mr. —— 

Mr. WILLIAMS. I will tell you in my short time at OIRA I found 

the job depressing because it is so overwhelming. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you. 

Mr. MEADOWS. I thank the gentleman from the 11th District of 

Virginia, home of George Mason. 

The chair recognizes the gentleman from Ohio, Mr. Jordan, for 

a series of questions. 

Mr. JORDAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I probably will just 

use a minute or two here. But I wanted to follow up. I think it was 

about a year ago that Mr. Shelanski was in front of the committee 

and we asked him a few questions, so I kind of want to go back 

there. 

But first of all, Mr. Shelanski, what exactly is the core mission 

of OIRA? What exactly do you do? 

Mr. SHELANSKI. Well —— 

Mr. JORDAN. Because agencies come up with rules that have to 

be put in place when laws are passed and legislation is done. Tell 

me exactly what OIRA does. So tell the committee what OIRA 

does. 

Mr. SHELANSKI. When the agency has finished a rule, and it can 

be either a proposed rule or a final rule, they submit that rule to 

OIRA. If it’s a rule that is determined to be significant, we bring 

it in for review. And we do two things when we have it in for review, two primary things. We circulate it to other Federal agencies 

for their comments so that we get the interagency views so that 

there aren’t conflicts or duplication amongst agencies or problems 

with jurisdiction. And the other thing we do is we look at the rule 

carefully to make sure it’s grounded in the evidence, that it—you 

know, if it’s an economically significant rule, that it has a good 

cost-benefit analysis with it. 

Mr. JORDAN. Is your evaluation of the proposed rule or maybe 

the final rule, is it focused on the substance of the rule and/or did 

the agency comply with notice, public comment, cost-benefit? Is it 

all of the above or just parts of that? 

Mr. SHELANSKI. Certainly, when it’s a proposed rule that the 

agency is bringing forward for the first time before it’s had public 

notice and comment, we’re very focused on the substance. 

Mr. JORDAN. Okay. 


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Mr. SHELANSKI. And the reason we’re focused on the substance 

is that rule’s going to go out for public comment, and it’s going to 

be a notice of proposed rulemaking. 

Mr. JORDAN. So it is a two-step thing? So you are going to —— 

Mr. SHELANSKI. It’s a two-step thing. 

Mr. JORDAN.—look at the substance first. Then, the agency is 

going to send it out for public comment and notice it and public 

comment and —— 

Mr. SHELANSKI. Right. 

Mr. JORDAN.—you will get that feedback back? Then are you 

going to look to see if they actually complied with the process they 

are supposed to go through to make sure this rule is appropriate? 

Mr. SHELANSKI. Yes, that’s exactly what we do. So we look at the 

substance again when the rule comes back because the agency will 

often make changes between the proposed version and the final 

version. But the other thing that has happened in that time is 

probable one of the hallmarks of the U.S. regulatory system. It’s 

the public comment. And the important factor is the public comments are part of the administrative record. Those are documents 

that remain part of the record, so we make sure when an agency 

brings a final rule back to us of two things that tie very closely to 

process. One is that they do not ignore the substantive and important public comments that they’ve —— 

Mr. JORDAN. Right. 

Mr. SHELANSKI.—received. And the second thing is that the actual rule that they put forward, the substance of that rule logically 

follows from what the public had notice might happen. 

Mr. JORDAN. My understanding—is it accurate to summarize it 

is a two-step process. Step one, look at the substance. Step two, 

make sure that when it is an important rule they are going 

through the proper notification, proper public comment, proper notice and everything else? 

Mr. SHELANSKI. Both of those factor in, yes. 

Mr. JORDAN. Okay. So the GAO issues a report a few years ago, 

December 2012. What GAO found, very first sentence, agencies do 

not publish a notice of proposed rulemaking enabling the public to 

comment on a proposed rule for about 35 percent of major rules 

and about 44 percent of non-major rules published in about a 10- 

year time frame, 8-year time frame prior to that. Do you know anything about that? Because that would sound like it just went contrary to what you just described. 

Mr. SHELANSKI. So this relates to a particular kind of rule, if I’m 

recalling correctly, the GAO report. Agencies under the Administrative Procedure Act are allowed to do some rules directly to final, 

and that is permissible under some circumstances. 

Mr. JORDAN. So directly to final. So what part of this—if an 

agency goes directly to final, what part of that two-step process 

that you just described did they do an end run around? 

Mr. SHELANSKI. So this is where —— 

Mr. JORDAN. Both parts? 

Mr. SHELANSKI. No. So —— 

Mr. JORDAN. Just the second part? 

Mr. SHELANSKI. Some—and that’s—what GAO was concerned 

about is sometimes they did not do the second step. The —— 


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Mr. JORDAN. Okay. And do you have to sign off on that? 

Mr. SHELANSKI. No. What we have to sign off on —— 

Mr. JORDAN. Did you make an issue of it? 

Mr. SHELANSKI. Yes, absolutely. 

Mr. JORDAN. Well, then, why did it happen 35 percent of the 

time for major rules? 

Mr. SHELANSKI. Yes, so one of the things we’ve been trying to do 

since the time that that report was issued was to get agencies to 

commit ahead of time when they are legally able to do what’s 

called an interim final rule to make sure it’s truly interim and that 

they, in fact, do then put the rule out for public comment and finalize the rule in light of that public comment. 

Mr. JORDAN. If GAO would do a study now, what percentage of 

major rules are not following the notice and public comment process? 

Mr. SHELANSKI. I would hope it’s a greatly reduced number. I 

don’t know what the number would be. I don’t think it’s a common 

occurrence. 

Mr. JORDAN. Are you actively—are you cataloguing that? I mean, 

does OIRA know when an agency is not going to follow notice and 

public comment for—I am using GAO’s descriptive word here— 

major rules? Do you know that? 

Mr. SHELANSKI. So the number of interim final rules that fall 

into this category I think is, to begin with, a rather small number. 

What fraction don’t then go through the comment period I don’t 

know. We’ve been working very hard to give agencies —— 

Mr. JORDAN. Well, we would like to know that, and it seems like 

if you are the folks who oversee how the rules are done and making 

sure they are supposed to be done right, if 35 percent of the time 

major rules are going through the notice and public comment process, we would need to know that. So if you could get that information and get it to us, that would be helpful. 

Mr. SHELANSKI. And just to clarify for the record, it’s not 35 percent of all major rules. It’s 35 percent I think at the time of this 

particular category of regulations if I’m —— 

Mr. JORDAN. That is not what the sentence says. 

Mr. SHELANSKI. Yes, I would have to —— 

Mr. JORDAN. It says ‘‘for about 35 percent of major rules and 

about 44 percent of non-major rules.’’ 

Mr. SHELANSKI. Well, I will certainly go back and look, and I 

think you’re absolutely right; this is an area that if those numbers 

remain anything close to what they are, we need to do more on 

—— 

Mr. JORDAN. Well, I’m sorry, Mr. Chairman. I said 2 minutes and 

here I am taking 6 so I appreciate the indulgence. 

For the fact that—this would seem to be something that you 

would be jumping, kicking, and screaming and, you know, making 

all kinds of noise about that 35 percent of the time they are not 

doing what they are supposed to do, and it is the very thing that 

OIRA was created to make sure they did. 

Mr. SHELANSKI. Right. And so my—since I have been in office in 

2013 —— 

Mr. JORDAN. And more importantly—sorry to interrupt, but more 

importantly, you can’t tell me what that percentage is now. We 


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know it was 35 percent for a significant time frame when this report came out. We don’t know what that is now. We don’t know if 

it is higher, lower. We don’t know. 

Mr. SHELANSKI. I would hope that it’s significantly lower. It’s not 

something that’s happening very often. 

Mr. JORDAN. Well, we don’t want to go on your hope. We want 

you to give us the information. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. MEADOWS. I thank the gentleman. 

The chair recognizes himself for a series of questions. 

So let me follow up on one point, Mr. Shelanski. You just said 

that you review the public comment. You were telling Mr. Jordan 

you review the public comment? 

Mr. SHELANSKI. We don’t read all of the public comments ourselves. What we do is we make sure that the agencies have —— 

Mr. MEADOWS. So what percentage of the public comments do 

you review? 

Mr. SHELANSKI. Well, we—the agencies submit to us what’s 

called a Response to Comment as part of these rules. 

Mr. MEADOWS. So you don’t actually review public comment? 

Mr. SHELANSKI. We review an awful lot of them. I mean, sometimes there are millions of them that are —— 

Mr. MEADOWS. Well, the reason why I ask is because we have 

had, you know, a transcribed interview where someone under oath 

said, ‘‘We don’t get involved in the review of public comments.’’ So 

how do you reconcile your testimony with sworn transcript? 

Mr. SHELANSKI. Well, it’s exactly what I just said. We make sure 

that the agencies have responded to public comment. That’s what 

we do. But there is a form of —— 

Mr. MEADOWS. But that is not what you said. 

Mr. SHELANSKI. Well —— 

Mr. MEADOWS. So what you are telling me is you don’t review 

public comment, is that correct? 

Mr. SHELANSKI. It is not —— 

Mr. MEADOWS. You just make sure they review public comment? 

Mr. SHELANSKI. And more than just review it. They can’t just say 

we’ve reviewed it. They have to —— 

Mr. MEADOWS. So how do you determine that if —— 

Mr. SHELANSKI. We read in the document they submit to us as 

part of a final rule package what their response to the comments 

are. 

Mr. MEADOWS. So they do a response to the comments. So what 

you are doing is reviewing their response to public comment —— 

Mr. SHELANSKI. If they produce —— 

Mr. MEADOWS.—not reviewing public comment? 

Mr. SHELANSKI. They produce a summary of public comment and 

they show what their responses are, and we review to make sure 

that they weighed in. 

And I would add that one of the very important functions that 

we do when we’re under—when we have a rule under review is we 

meet with the public. We’re required to under the Executive order 

—— 

Mr. MEADOWS. What percentage of the public? 


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Mr. SHELANSKI. Well, in the last 2 years, we’ve had 900 meetings 

with stakeholders, 900. 

Mr. MEADOWS. And that would represent what percentage? 

Mr. SHELANSKI. Of the interested parties? Since we —— 

Mr. MEADOWS. Yes. 

Mr. SHELANSKI. Since we take any meeting that anybody requests, it’s, I presume, a pretty —— 

Mr. MEADOWS. So you will meet with 100 percent of the people 

that ask you —— 

Mr. SHELANSKI. We do not turn down meeting requests. We have 

accepted —— 

Mr. MEADOWS. So your testimony is you meet with 100 percent 

of the people that ask? How do you do that with a staff of 45 people? 

Mr. SHELANSKI. Like I say, we’ve had 900 meetings in the last 

2 years. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Okay. The ranking member was trying to help 

you out, Mr. Shelanski, because, honestly, some of your testimony 

is incongruent and so I will put it that way because it seems to be 

conflicted. At your previous hearing we talked about resources. Dr. 

Williams has talked about, you know, it is just overburdened, yet 

you said that you are adequately resourced in the previous hearing. 

So is your perceived—and I will use that word gently—perceived 

lack of complying to the subpoena a resource issue? 

Mr. SHELANSKI. Again, I want to clarify that I fully wish to comply with every —— 

Mr. MEADOWS. But you are not. 

Mr. SHELANSKI. I fully —— 

Mr. MEADOWS. If your testimony is—because on the January 29 

meeting that he has talked about where you actually came in and 

talked about subpoena compliance with staff, actually you provided 

a few rolling document productions. But the other part of what you 

agreed to do during that meeting has not been done. 

Mr. SHELANSKI. Can I clarify that I was not part of that meeting? 

When you say you —— 

Mr. MEADOWS. Yes, you can —— 

Mr. SHELANSKI. I just want to clarify —— 

Mr. MEADOWS. You are an agency. Okay. Your name is on the 

subpoena. 

Mr. SHELANSKI. I understand that, which is why —— 

Mr. MEADOWS. And so ultimately —— 

Mr. SHELANSKI.—I turned —— 

Mr. MEADOWS.—if someone is not complying with a subpoena, it 

is not the general counsel, it is not your staff, it is you because 

your name is on the subpoena. 

Mr. SHELANSKI. And it —— 

Mr. MEADOWS. And I am trying to help you out here. 

Mr. SHELANSKI. I—let me just say I hope that I am fully complying with the subpoena. I intend to fully comply with the subpoena. I would never do anything but fully comply with a subpoena 

from this office. I want to make that very clear. 

Mr. MEADOWS. But that has not been your testimony today because you have referred to the general counsel. You said it is up 

to the general counsel to determine —— 


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Mr. SHELANSKI. We don’t —— 

Mr. MEADOWS.—and yet their name is not on the subpoena. 

Mr. SHELANSKI. That is—actually, what I said was my understanding was there was an—I want to be very clear about this. My 

understanding was there is an ongoing process to reply to the subpoena and to comply with the subpoena. I have turned over everything I have into that process. For all I know, you have all of it. 

So it’s really hard for me to know what more I can do here. 

Mr. MEADOWS. All right. So your testimony is you have turned 

it all over to general counsel, every one of your documents, and it 

is your belief today that they have turned all of that over to this 

committee? 

Mr. SHELANSKI. It is my belief —— 

Mr. MEADOWS. That is your—in preparing for this hearing, that 

is what you were told? 

Mr. SHELANSKI. No. What I was told was there is ongoing discussion and turning over of document s—— 

Mr. MEADOWS. You know, ongoing is a long word. It doesn’t 

quantify when it is going to get—there are ongoing processes to try 

to balance our budget. It doesn’t mean that it is getting done. 

Mr. SHELANSKI. Well, all I can say is that I have—it has been 

my wish and my request that the subpoena be fully complied with. 

I’ve turned over all of my documents. And I will —— 

Mr. MEADOWS. What about the scope and the parameters of what 

you are even looking to provide to this committee? We have asked 

you for that, and yet you haven’t provided that scope and what we 

are looking at. We have asked for custodians. We have gotten very 

little information. Those would seem to be the easy answers that 

the ranking member and I could get within 24 hours of you going 

back and saying we need to let the committee know the scope of 

what we are looking at and the custodians who are charged with 

it and who all is involved. And we have been getting information 

that you haven’t even reached out to them. 

Mr. SHELANSKI. It is my understanding that every effort has 

been made to obtain the information you have requested. I certainly have turned over everything I have and that it is in my 

power to turn over—— 

Mr. MEADOWS. Okay. 

Mr. SHELANSKI.—to turn over. 

Mr. MEADOWS. All right. Let me put it this way. You are in 

charge. It is the opinion of some that you are not being compliant 

with providing information to this committee. I will be tenacious 

until we actually get your compliance. And I want to make sure I 

am clear here because some of my questions from a year ago and 

the responses you gave me are not—I guess I didn’t articulate them 

properly because the answers you gave me are not bared out with 

fact. Does that make sense? 

Mr. SHELANSKI. Since I don’t know what you’re referring to —— 

Mr. MEADOWS. Well —— 

Mr. SHELANSKI.—I can’t comment —— 

Mr. MEADOWS.—so let me share with you just one exchange, and 

this is one of three that we have but I will share with you. When 

we were talking about the informal review process and the fact 

that there may be some dialogue that goes on between you and an 


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agency, now, that particular one we were talking about, WOTUS, 

but today, I am talking about any of them, not just the WOTUS 

ruling. 

And I said, ‘‘Basically we have had a number of hearings here 

in this committee on the Waters of the USA on the proposed rule, 

and I believe that your testimony here today is that it has not been 

officially submitted to you, is that correct?’’ And you said, ‘‘Yes, 

that is correct.’’ ‘‘And so you have had no dialogue with them?’’ is 

what I asked. And you said, ‘‘I have had no dialogue with the 

EPA.’’ And I went on further. I said, ‘‘Informal or formal?’’ ‘‘I have 

had no dialogue whatsoever with the EPA on the Waters of the 

USA.’’ ‘‘Okay. How about deliberations?’’ I ask. And you said, ‘‘Well, 

no deliberations, no discussions.’’ 

And so in follow up to Mr. Carter’s response today, I ask, ‘‘So if 

I were to ask you for all of your records,’’—and so I assume that 

you turned over all of your records to general counsel. ‘‘So if I were 

to ask you for all of your records, would we find zero records, zero 

emails, nothing with the EPA with regards to the rulemaking on 

the proposed rule?’’ Your response was ‘‘We concluded review on 

the proposed rule, the EPA took it from there. The next I will hear 

about is when they submit the final rule.’’ 

Now, you actually changed that to say that you actually hadn’t 

had the formal rule at that particular time because you came back 

and corrected that. But here is my concern, the committee has 

emails where actually the administrator has had direct communication with OIRA and there were lines that were marked out and 

edited for the proposed rule. So that is my concern. You are saying 

there is nothing, and yet we have evidence that there was something. 

Mr. SHELANSKI. I think it’s important to draw a very clear distinction here. Of course I had discussions and interaction with —— 

Mr. MEADOWS. But that was not your testimony. 

Mr. SHELANSKI. Sir—sir —— 

Mr. MEADOWS. I mean, I couldn’t have been much clearer. I said, 

‘‘Informal or formal?’’ 

Mr. SHELANSKI. I need to finish my answer because —— 

Mr. MEADOWS. Sure. Go ahead. 

Mr. SHELANSKI.—this is vitally important. 

Mr. MEADOWS. It is. 

Mr. SHELANSKI. When we had the proposed rule under review, 

when we had the proposed rule under review formally submitted, 

I of course had correspondence with the EPA and interactions, and 

I would expect that you have those documents. When the agency 

had the proposed rule back in its hands and we had concluded review on the proposed rule, I don’t think I had any correspondence 

or interaction or discussion with the EPA —— 

Mr. MEADOWS. So you are doubling down that you never have 

discussion with an agency informally before it goes into the formal 

process? 

Mr. SHELANSKI. Are we talking about WOTUS or are we talking 

about —— 

Mr. MEADOWS. You know, it is your agency. Let me just tell you, 

I am trying to make it clear. Ms. Sager, do they—your GAO report 

seemed to indicate that there is this informal review process that 


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sometimes goes back and forth with an agency. Can you illuminate 

that any? 

Ms. SAGER. There are conversations between OIRA and the agencies about the nature of proposed rules, yes. 

Mr. MEADOWS. So how do you reconcile what the GAO is telling 

me with your testimony here, Mr. Shelanski? 

Mr. SHELANSKI. Well, Mr. Meadows, you’ve moved back and forth 

between the specific case of —— 

Mr. MEADOWS. No, sir, I think I have been —— 

Mr. SHELANSKI. You have. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Well, let me just tell you. It is not my agency, so 

please enlighten me because let me tell you, what it smells like 

here is that you are not being truthful with this committee. 

Mr. SHELANSKI. So let me separate two things and be very plain 

about it. My answer on WOTUS was correct. I had no interaction 

with WOTUS during—between the proposed and final rule with 

EPA on the clean water rule. Are there occasions, as Ms. Sager 

said, when agencies come and brief us on rules that they have not 

yet formally submitted? Yes, there are. And I’ve said that before in 

testimony. 

Mr. MEADOWS. But in my direct questioning I was trying to get 

to that very exact point and you gave an answer that was not —— 

Mr. SHELANSKI. But I realize that now. Last time we had the occasion to speak about the issue, Mr. Meadows, I was not clear on 

whether you were asking about proposed rules or talking about 

separately as informal rules because we don’t have a category that 

we keep of informal review, okay? What we do is sometimes an 

agency will say we’re developing a rule or we have a rule we’re 

going to submit in 2 months; we’d like to come in and brief you 

about it. We do have those discussions, as Ms. Sager said, but we 

don’t have the rule at that point. We’re not actually reading the 

rule, and we’re not involved in helping them develop the rule. 

We’re getting briefed on the scope of the rule. 

Mr. MEADOWS. All right. Let me interrupt you. If you are having 

discussions with them, how could that not be helping them develop 

the rule? Why are you having the discussion? Is it what did you 

have for breakfast? 

Mr. SHELANSKI. No, it’s more —— 

Mr. MEADOWS. If you are not helping them—how do you have a 

discussion if you are not helping them develop the rule? 

Mr. SHELANSKI. So they’re going to want to know what we will 

expect from them when the review process starts. 

Mr. MEADOWS. That is helping them develop the rule. 

Mr. SHELANSKI. Okay. I mean, we’re not setting—we’re not making policy decisions for them. They’ll come to us and say we have 

a rule on a particular topic. Here’s what—here’s the direction the 

rule is going often with not terribly much specificity, and we’ll tell 

them, okay, we’re going to need certain kinds of analysis, we’re 

going to need certain things to be an element of the rule package. 

But it would not be the proper role of OIRA, for example, to tell, 

you know, HUD what their policy decisions should be in a particular rule. 

Mr. MEADOWS. That is not what I was asking. The problem is 

your testimony today is in direct conflict with the testimony you 


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gave just about a year ago because this was the exact line of questioning that I was trying to get to. And either it was my inability 

to articulate it properly or your inability to comprehend it properly, 

but somehow, we miscommunicated. And what I am concerned 

about is it took other witnesses here for you to finally agree to 

what we already knew. 

Mr. SHELANSKI. Well, Mr. Meadows, I was not certain 5 minutes 

ago whether you were talking about a particular rule or —— 

Mr. MEADOWS. Okay. 

Mr. SHELANSKI.—generally, and I believe I’ve made —— 

Mr. MEADOWS. Well, they have called votes, and so, Dr. Williams, 

Mr. Batkins, you both gave some very good—as my good friend Mr. 

Connolly has indicated, some good analysis. What we would love to 

do is follow up. So we don’t keep you here any longer, we will submit some questions for that. 

I recognize the ranking member for a closing statement. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. I thank the chair. 

I guess I would just say, you know, Harry Truman used to have 

a sign on his desk ‘‘The buck stops here.’’ It was an acknowledgement that there had to be some ultimate authority where decisions 

got made and responsibility taken. You know, I don’t know Mr. 

Shelanski’s commitment to his mission, and he has a long and distinguished career, but what is untenable is to assert that even 

though I am the head of an agency, I have outsourced responsibility for compliance with a subpoena and the overall relationship 

with a committee to somebody else, and my only job is to hand over 

the raw documents and I am done. I don’t take responsibility for 

dates, for meetings, for what information if any is provided, and 

whether or not we are, in fact, in compliance with a subpoena. 

That is not a tenable position, and I can assure you on a bipartisan 

basis that is going to be the point of view on this committee. 

And so I urge Mr. Shelanski to think about that because I think 

we could avoid some problems by the taking of responsibility and 

by more awareness by Mr. Shelanski of in fact what meetings take 

place, who is at them, and what got agreed to even if he isn’t in 

that meeting. And I just respectfully submit that to the gentlemen 

in question because I think you are going to have real problems on 

this committee. And we already have a philosophical divide about 

the value and role of regulation, but to be eclipsed in that philosophical debate by an administrative hurdle that is not defensible 

makes no sense to me. But that is just me. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. MEADOWS. I thank the gentleman for his eloquent remarks. 

Mr. Shelanski, maybe what we can do is from this point forward 

believe that you are going to comply with the subpoena and all the 

documents and that we set the scope of when that would be along 

with timetables and how we are going to do that. That is what we 

will look for. 

Additionally, what I would ask with regards to the GAO recommendations which GAO recommendations that you plan not to 

implement, the ones that you do plan to implement and at what 

timetable are we going to look at that. I am going to check. I will 

follow up. I promise you I will follow up on that. 


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And then, Mr. Batkins and Dr. Williams, my apologies for not 

getting any further questions with you, but we will submit some 

for the record and ask you to respond back to this committee. And 

we appreciate your interest in this very valuable topic. 

And if there is no further business before the committee, the 

committee stands adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 3:45 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

Æ 


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