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66–156 PDF 2011

COST-JUSTIFYING REGULATIONS: PROTECTING 

JOBS AND THE ECONOMY BY PRESIDENTIAL 

AND JUDICIAL REVIEW OF COSTS AND BENEFITS 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON COURTS, COMMERCIAL 

AND ADMINISTRATIVE LAW 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

MAY 4, 2011 

Serial No. 112–48 

Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://judiciary.house.gov 

(II) 

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY 

LAMAR SMITH, Texas, Chairman 

F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., 

Wisconsin 

HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina 

ELTON GALLEGLY, California 

BOB GOODLATTE, Virginia 

DANIEL E. LUNGREN, California 

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio 

DARRELL E. ISSA, California 

MIKE PENCE, Indiana 

J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia 

STEVE KING, Iowa 

TRENT FRANKS, Arizona 

LOUIE GOHMERT, Texas 

JIM JORDAN, Ohio 

TED POE, Texas 

JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah 

TIM GRIFFIN, Arkansas 

TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania 

TREY GOWDY, South Carolina 

DENNIS ROSS, Florida 

SANDY ADAMS, Florida 

BEN QUAYLE, Arizona 

[Vacant] 

JOHN CONYERS, JR., Michigan 

HOWARD L. BERMAN, California 

JERROLD NADLER, New York 

ROBERT C. ‘‘BOBBY’’ SCOTT, Virginia 

MELVIN L. WATT, North Carolina 

ZOE LOFGREN, California 

SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas 

MAXINE WATERS, California 

STEVE COHEN, Tennessee 

HENRY C. ‘‘HANK’’ JOHNSON, JR., 

Georgia 

PEDRO PIERLUISI, Puerto Rico 

MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois 

JUDY CHU, California 

TED DEUTCH, Florida 

LINDA T. SA ́ NCHEZ, California 

DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Florida 

SEAN MCLAUGHLIN, Majority Chief of Staff and General Counsel 

PERRY APELBAUM, Minority Staff Director and Chief Counsel 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON COURTS, COMMERCIAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE LAW

HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina, Chairman 

TREY GOWDY, South Carolina, Vice-Chairman 

ELTON GALLEGLY, California 

TRENT FRANKS, Arizona 

DENNIS ROSS, Florida 

[Vacant] 

STEVE COHEN, Tennessee 

HENRY C. ‘‘HANK’’ JOHNSON, JR., 

Georgia 

MELVIN L. WATT, North Carolina 

MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois 

DANIEL FLORES, Chief Counsel 

JAMES PARK, Minority Counsel 

(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

MAY 4, 2011 

Page 

WITNESSES 

John D. Graham, Ph.D., Dean of the School of Public and Environmental 

Affairs, Indiana University 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 2 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 4 

Jeffrey Holmstead, Partner, Bracewell & Giuliani, LLP 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 13 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 15 

Sally Katzen, Senior Advisor, Podesta Group, Visiting Professor, New York 

University School of Law 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 19 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 21 

Harold Furchtgott-Roth, President, Furchtgott-Roth Economic Enterprises 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 34 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 35 

APPENDIX 

MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING RECORD

Prepared Statement of the Honorable Trey Gowdy, a Representative in Congress from the State of South Carolina, and Vice-Chairman, Subcommittee 

on Courts, Commercial and Administrative Law .............................................. 46 

Prepared Statement of the Honorable Steve Cohen, a Representative in Congress from the State of Tennessee, and Ranking Member, Subcommittee 

on Courts, Commercial and Administrative Law .............................................. 49 

Prepared Statement of the Honorable John Conyers, Jr., a Representative 

in Congress from the State of Michigan, and Ranking Member, Committee 

on the Judiciary ................................................................................................... 51 

Prepared Statement of the Honorable Henry C. ‘‘Hank’’ Johnson, Jr., a Representative in Congress from the State of Georgia, and Member, Subcommittee on Courts, Commercial and Administrative Law ........................... 54 

Letter from the Coalition for Sensible Safeguards ............................................... 57 

Response to Post-Hearing Questions from John D. Graham, Ph.D., Dean 

of the School of Public and Environmental Affairs, Indiana University ......... 60 

Response to Post-Hearing Questions from Jeffrey Holmstead, Partner, 

Bracewell & Giuliani, LLP .................................................................................. 64 

Response to Post-Hearing Questions from Sally Katzen, Senior Advisor, Podesta Group, Visiting Professor, New York University School of Law ................ 70 

Response to Post-Hearing Questions from Harold Furchtgott-Roth, President, 

Furchtgott-Roth Economic Enterprises .............................................................. 73 

(1) 

COST-JUSTIFYING REGULATIONS: PROTECTING JOBS AND THE ECONOMY BY 

PRESIDENTIAL AND JUDICIAL REVIEW OF 

COSTS AND BENEFITS 

WEDNESDAY, MAY 4, 2011 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON COURTS, 

COMMERCIAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE LAW, 

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY, 

Washington, DC. 

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 3:08 p.m., in room 

2141, Rayburn Office Building, the Honorable Trey Gowdy (ViceChairman of the Subcommittee) presiding. 

Present: Representatives Gowdy, Gallegly, and Cohen. 

Staff present: (Majority) Daniel Flores, Subcommittee Chief 

Counsel; John Hilton, Counsel; Ann Hawks Woods, Counsel; Cecilia 

Daly, Counsel; Allison Rose, Professional Staff Member; Ashley 

Lewis, Clerk; (Minority) James Park, Counsel; and Susan JensenLachmann, Counsel. 

Mr. GOWDY. The Subcommittee will come to order. I want to welcome and thank all of our witnesses, acknowledge Mr. Cohen, and 

I believe Mr. Gallegly is on his way. 

Today is going to be somewhat unusual with vote schedules, and 

we want to be sensitive to your individual schedules as well. Mr. 

Cohen and I are going to waive our opening statements. And, Mr. 

Graham, I think you may have a plane to catch, so if your compatriots are okay with it, we may let you do your opening statement, direct any questions that may be applicable to you, and then 

handle the other three witnesses, unless there is vigorous opposition to that. 

I think I need to swear the witnesses, which in my other job 

somebody else did in a black robe. So, let me see if—— 

Mr. COHEN. They do not have to be sworn. 

Mr. GOWDY. They do not? 

Mr. COHEN. No, it is not like in a—— 

Mr. GOWDY. Good. Fine with me. 

All right. Let me introduce John Graham, who is the dean of the 

School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University, 

one of the largest public policy schools in the United States. Dr. 

Graham has a bachelor’s degree in politics and economics from 

Wake Forest University, a master’s degree in public affairs from 

Duke University, and a Ph.D. in urban and public affairs from CarVerDate Aug 31 2005 09:44 Sep 14, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 H:\WORK\COURTS\050411\66156.000 HJUD1 PsN: 66156
2 

negie Mellon University. He is the author and editor of numerous 

books, articles, and academic papers. From 2001 to 2006, Dr. 

Graham served as the administrator of the Office of Information 

and Regulatory Affairs in the Office of Management and Budget. 

With that, Dr. Graham, we would welcome you for your opening 

statement? 

TESTIMONY OF JOHN D. GRAHAM, Ph.D., DEAN OF THE 

SCHOOL OF PUBLIC AND ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS, INDIANA UNIVERSITY 

Mr. GRAHAM. Thank you, Mr. Gowdy, and thank you to everyone 

in the room for your flexibility in allowing me to get back to my 

flight. 

Our topic is benefit-cost analysis and its role in Federal regulatory decision making. Let me start by saying that this topic has 

an interesting bipartisan history, and in the literature, there is 

some conflict on where it actually begins in American political debate. My own view is the most important starting point was President Jimmy Carter, a small businessman himself who urged and 

assembled his White House economists to begin looking at regulations, and he also championed the Paperwork Reduction Act, which 

ultimately established the office in OMB that has a central role in 

this area. 

Ronald Reagan’s impact, of course, cannot be underestimated. 

This the President who established the process of OMB review of 

regulations with cost-benefit analysis being a central element. 

President Clinton reaffirmed a lot of these basic strategies and, 

I think importantly, focused the efforts on the most significant of 

the Federal rules so that the effort around analysis and economics 

would be concentrated. 

I worked for President George W. Bush. He made strong efforts 

to improve information quality and peer review as it relates to costbenefit analysis. And I am very pleased that President Obama has 

reaffirmed the importance of cost-benefit analysis in the regulatory 

process. 

So, this raises the following question: if all of these Presidents 

are in agreement that cost-benefit analysis is important, it should 

be part of the regulatory process, why would people be considering 

legislation where Congress would require agencies to move in this 

direction? And I think there are two basic answers to that question. 

One is that a President’s political preferences sometimes get in 

the way of the basic good government principle at looking at the 

benefits and costs of regulatory action. And I will give you as an 

illustration the President I worked for. 

After 9/11, the political imperative to pass Homeland Security 

regulations was overwhelming. And I must admit there were many 

regulations submitted to me as OIRA administrator under the banner of homeland security that were fairly expensive and fairly intrusive. Can I testify to you that each and every one of these was 

subject to a careful, cost-benefit analysis that looked at less expensive alternatives? To be honest with you, we did the best we could 

under the circumstances, but a President does not always want to 

go forward with the cost-benefit test when they have other political 

3 

reasons to want to support another activity. As a result, we quantified by 2004 that half of the cost of all new regulations in the 

Federal Government were due to Homeland Security regulations. 

My own view is if Congress had required us to do cost-benefit 

analysis of these regulations and it had been judicially enforceable, 

you would have given the airline industry, the colleges and universities who were impacted by these regulations, an ability to put 

reasonable pressure, not undue pressure, on the Federal Government to make sure that these regulations were necessary and 

worthwhile. 

So, the first reason that we need legislation is that presidential 

preferences do not always lead to faithful implementation of the 

cost-benefit requirement in these executive orders. 

The second reason is that the career staff at the agencies and 

OMB are human beings, and they are imperfect. And they develop 

regulations and promulgate them oftentimes without adequate economic and scientific basis. If, however, you have an enforceable 

check in court against the quality of their work, their incentive to 

do that work increases substantially. And as a consequence, there 

is a large body of literature showing the limitations of the existing—the quality of the existing activity. 

So, what should be the basic components of any kind of cost-benefit mandate of legislation in this area? One, it seems to me all cabinet and independent agencies should be subject to this type of benefit cost requirement. My own view is you should just start with 

the principles in the Clinton-Gore executive order in 1993, codify 

them unless there is a compelling reason to use other language. 

Second of all, I think this should be applied not only to regulations, but to so-called guidance documents that are really rules in 

their actual practical effect on businesses and on state and local 

governments. 

Third, I think it needs to be a judicially enforceable requirement; 

otherwise, you have not done anything different than what the 

Presidents have already done by issuing an executive order requiring cost-benefit analysis. 

And finally, it needs to be a benefits-justified cost test to make 

sure that the executive branch can account for qualitative factors 

as well as the quantitative benefits and costs. 

So, I have given you some examples of the kinds of things that 

should be in there. Let me conclude by saying cost-benefit analysis, 

like accounting and other tools, can be gamed. There is a garbage 

in/garbage out problem that needs to be worried about. There are 

ways to address this in the legislation by requiring OMB to issue 

technical guidance on how to do benefit-cost analysis, and by referencing the information quality and peer review requirements 

that OMB has already adopted. 

So, in short, I think that really cost-benefit analysis as a tool, as 

part of a process of regulation is a good government principle. 

There are times when Presidents would prefer not to follow good 

government principles for whatever reason. The regulated communities, whether they be business or state and local governments, 

need to have safeguards in situations when the executive branch 

does not adhere to these principles. 

Thank you very much for the opportunity to be here today. 

4 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Graham follows:] 

Prepared Statement of John D. Graham, Ph.D., Dean, 

Indiana University School of Public and Environmental Affairs 

INTRODUCTION

My name is John D. Graham, Ph.D. I am currently Dean of the Indiana University School of Public and Environmental Affairs—SPEA (Bloomington and Indianapolis, Indiana). SPEA is one of the largest public affairs schools in the United States 

and has graduate programs that are ranked in the top five by US News and World 

Report and by the National Research Council/National Academy of Sciences. Prior 

to joining IU in 2008, I served as Dean of the Frederick Pardee RAND Graduate 

School in Santa Monica California (2006–8), as Administrator of the White House 

Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the U.S. Office of Management and 

Budget (2001–2006), and as tenured Professor of Policy and Decision Sciences at the 

Harvard School of Public Health (1985–2001). For twenty-five years, I have taught 

the analytic tools of risk analysis and benefit-cost analysis in the classroom and 

published research on the application of these tools to health, safety and environmental issues. In fact, my doctoral dissertation at Carnegie-Mellon University 

(1983) was a benefit-cost evaluation of automobile airbag technology. While my testimony today draws on my academic expertise, it also draws on my experience at 

OMB, where I supervised a staff of fifty career policy analysts as they reviewed benefit-cost analyses performed by Cabinet agencies such as the Department of Labor, 

the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Homeland Security and 

the Department of Transportation. I am honored to have the opportunity to express 

my opinions on how benefit-cost analysis can be used more effectively to improve 

the federal rulemaking process. The views I express are strictly me own, and do not 

necessarily represent the views of SPEA or Indiana University. 

TERMINOLOGY

With respect to terminology, the phrases ‘‘cost-benefit analysis’’ (CBA) and ‘‘benefit-cost analysis’’ (BCA) are synonyms and thus can be used interchangeably. I prefer the phrase BCA because it reminds students and policy makers that this analytic tool is aimed at increasing the benefits of regulations as well as reducing unnecessary costs. (B also has the alphabetical advantage over C!) When regulatory 

options are compared, a BCA tells us which option produces the largest surplus of 

benefits minus costs (assuming all benefits and costs can be quantified in monetary 

units). When only some benefits and costs can be quantified (or monetized), the netbenefit surplus (or deficit) is reported but the decision maker is also informed of any 

important benefits and costs that could not be quantified. After considering both 

benefits and costs (quantitative and qualitative), OMB instructs agencies to make 

a determination as to whether the benefits of a rule justify the costs, compared to 

doing nothing and compared to other viable regulatory options. 

The phrase ‘‘cost-effectiveness analysis’’ (CEA) refers to a close analytic cousin of 

BCA. With CEA, the measure of effectiveness is expressed in physical units (e.g., 

lives saved or tons of pollution prevented), and the outcome of a CEA is the best 

option indicated by ‘‘bang for the buck’’ (e.g., the regulatory alternative that saves 

the most lives given a budget constraint, or the alternative that achieves an environmental goal at minimum cost to society). It is sometimes useful for agency analysts to conduct a CEA in addition (or instead of) a BCA, especially if the benefits 

of the rule are difficult to quantify in monetary units. 

BIPARTISAN SUPPORT FOR REGULATION INFORMED BY BCA

The origins of BCA in federal regulatory policy are a matter of some academic debate but the push for cost-justified regulations goes back at least to the administration of President Jimmy Carter. As a small businessman, President Carter knew 

that the costs of regulation were a serious national problem and he deployed White 

House economists in a determined effort to reign in business regulations that were 

too costly. President Reagan went further and placed OMB in the driver seat during 

interagency reviews of the BCAs or CEAs prepared by federal agencies. President 

Clinton reaffirmed the legitimate role of benefit-cost analysis in regulatory decision 

making while focusing OMB’s efforts on a smaller sample of significant rules and 

recognizing the primacy of agency policy discretion. President George W. Bush 

largely reaffirmed the benefit-cost language in the Clinton Executive Order and I 

interpret President Obama’s position on BCA in regulatory policy to be largely consistent with the positions espoused by previous presidents of both parties. Thus, alVerDate Aug 31 2005 09:44 Sep 14, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00008 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 H:\WORK\COURTS\050411\66156.000 HJUD1 PsN: 66156
5 

though there are some advocacy groups and legal academics who oppose the use of 

BCA in federal regulatory policy, I think it is fair to say that recent Presidents of 

both parties have expected agencies to prepare benefit-cost analyses and use the insights from those analyses when making regulatory decisions. 

I would also like to point out that leading members of Congress from both political 

parties have been consistent advocates of a stronger role for BCA in federal regulatory policy. For example, Senator Carl Levin (D–Michigan) and Senator Orrin 

Hatch (R–Utah) have been pioneers of BCA proposals in the Senate. Much can be 

learned by reviewing the relevant speeches and legislative proposals of these members for the last twenty years. 

MYTHS ABOUT BCA

In my testimony today I would like to dispel some popular misconceptions about 

BCA. Much of my testimony about myths draws on a comprehensive article, ‘‘Saving 

Lives through Administrative Law and Economics,’’ University of Pennsylvania Law 

Review, 157(2), December 2008, 395–540 that I have made available to subcommittee staff and would like to have inserted in the record of this hearing. 

Myth #1: It is not feasible to quantify the benefits of public health, safety or environmental regulations. 

Due to thirty years of progress in public health science, environmental science, 

risk assessment, and health/environmental economics, it is now feasible to produce 

(at least approximate) estimates of the benefits of federal health, safety and environmental regulations. The validity of benefit estimates varies depending on the 

quality of science used by federal agencies. For example, the projected number of 

lives saved by DOT’s mandatory airbag regulation (1977) was estimated based on 

laboratory crash tests with cadavers, observed rates of safety belt use, injury surveillance data from police reports and hospital records, and engineering judgment. 

Based on more than 30 years of real-world experience with the airbag regulation, 

we now know that the safety benefits are smaller than projected by regulatory analysts but benefits are still large enough to justify the extra investment in airbag 

technology. In contrast, EPA’s air pollution regulations have been shown to have 

higher public health benefits than previously thought due to better understanding 

of how the rate of premature death rises in a community due to the inhalation of 

soot and smog. As rates of urban air pollution have declined, the trends in mortality 

rates from chronic diseases (age adjusted) have been downward. Today, some of the 

best analytic work on the benefits of federal regulations is performed by analysts 

at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. While the benefits of federal regulations are sometimes overestimated and sometimes underestimated, there is no evidence that use of BCA causes any systematic bias in the estimates of benefits prepared by federal agencies. 

Myth #2: It is unethical to consider costs when making regulatory decisions about 

medicine, public health, safety, and environmental protection. 

The notion that ‘‘safety’’ or ‘‘protection’’ from harm is an absolute right, regardless 

of costs, is not defensible on either philosophical or practical grounds. Philosophically, complete safety (also called ‘‘zero risk’’) is an illusion because well-informed 

citizens choose, on a daily basis, to assume many risks in life in exchange for a variety of benefits (e.g., we reduce travel time by driving faster on four-lane highways 

than we do on two-lane roads). When risks are imposed on citizens without their 

explicit consent (e.g., when a pedestrian inhales pollution emitted by a car), the 

philosophical analysis is more difficult but the ethical solution is not necessarily a 

mandate for zero risk. A more compelling resolution is that regulators should protect citizens from imposed risks to whatever extent the affected citizens would prefer, assuming those affected citizens were to experience both the benefits and costs 

of the regulation. Philosophically, this is a standard of hypothetical informed consent, and it forms the ethical foundation of BCA. To reject the informed preferences 

of citizens in favor of absolute safety is a form of authoritarianism—an ill-considered rejection of the ideals of personal freedom and consumer sovereignty that are 

at the heart of democratic capitalism. The practical objections to zero risk are even 

more compelling. If regulators go so far in the pursuit of complete safety that they 

make families poorer (e.g., through higher prices for regulated, zero-risk products), 

there may be more imposed risk from the induced poverty than from the target risk 

that regulators seek to eliminate. For example, many regulations in the energy sector have the practical effect of raising the prices of gasoline at the pump. For many 

low-income households, rising gasoline prices have adverse ramifications for all aspects of welfare (including health). Thus, practical considerations favor some form 

of benefit-cost determination rather than blind pursuit of zero risk. 

6 

Myth #3: BCA is a mathematical straight jacket that prevents consideration of 

important qualitative values such as fairness and special concern for the welfare of 

children. 

The falsehood here is the assumption that a benefit-cost determination may be 

based only on a numerical comparison, without consideration of qualitative values 

such as fairness and the special needs of children. It is well-accepted in the field 

of BCA that, while many benefits and costs can be quantified, some valid considerations are essentially intangible. BCA textbooks call for intangible benefits and 

costs to be disclosed by analysts and considered by regulators. For example, suppose 

that a federal regulation will reduce the rate of lead poisoning among children in 

poor urban communities. Assume further that the quantified benefits and costs of 

this regulation are roughly equal, without considering the fact that low-income children are the primary beneficiaries. A fairness argument can be made that a tiebreaking, intangible consideration favors the regulation: the notion that the federal 

government owes a special sense of fairness to low-income children who are less 

able than middle-class or wealthy adults to protect their own interests. Notice that 

this legitimate, fairness consideration may not be as compelling if the costs of the 

regulation are also borne by low-income families. In other words, a benefit-cost determination is not a mathematical straight jacket the prevents analysts and regulators from giving weight to compelling intangible considerations. 

Myth #4: BCA of business regulations is biased against regulation because the 

costs of regulations are exaggerated and the benefits of regulation are understated. 

For a variety of reasons, it is sometimes asserted that analysis of business regulations is biased because costs are exaggerated and benefits are under-valued. The literature now includes several dozen regulations where the ex post estimates of benefit and cost are compared to the ex-ante estimates made by agency analysts before 

regulations were issued. While many of these estimates have been shown to have 

errors, there is no universal pattern that costs are exaggerated and benefits are underestimated. Indeed, my summary of this literature is that it shows no systematic 

bias in the quantitative estimates of benefits and costs by federal agencies. 

Myth #5: BCA is so complicated and time consuming that it slows the regulatory 

process to a halt. 

There is a theory in the legal literature that the federal regulatory process has 

become so ‘‘ossified’’ by procedural and judicial requirements that the pace of federal 

rulemaking is now at a snail’s pace. A related concern is that the addition of BCA 

requirements will exacerbate the ossification, and slow down the issuance of necessary regulations. Based on the available empirical literature and my five years of 

experience at OMB, I can assure you that federal agencies have no difficulty issuing 

numerous regulations, including highly expensive ones, when there is a political desire to do so. Consider, for example, the rapid flow of homeland security rules after 

the tragic events of 9/11. Anyone who has been following the Obama administration 

is aware that numerous new regulations are being proposed and finalized, despite 

the BCA requirement and other procedural requirements on agencies. And since 

most important regulations are already litigated by a wide range of stakeholders, 

and federal judges are already considering the findings of BCA, it is hard to see how 

a well-crafted statutory requirement for BCA could lead to more ossification or judicial delays. 

Now that I have addressed some of the myths about BCA in federal regulation, 

I turn to some constructive suggestions for legislation in this arena. 

SUGGESTIONS FOR STATUTORY REFORM

First, I recommend that Congress pass a simple statutory requirement that regulators conduct and use BCA (and related tools) when issuing significant federal 

rules. Reasonable people can disagree over how the benefit-cost mandate should be 

framed but I think it is sensible to start from the principles in the Clinton-Gore executive order (1993). I believe it may also be useful to review the legislative language that Senators Carl Levin and Fred Thompson crafted almost fifteen years 

ago, including some of the refinements made in consultation with the Clinton-Gore 

administration. I am very pleased that President Obama has recently reaffirmed 

presidential commitment to BCA as a valuable tool in rulemaking. 

Basically, there needs to be a statutory requirement that regulators perform BCA, 

a requirement that a preferred regulatory option have benefits that justify costs, 

and some safeguards to ensure that the BCA is performed with a high degree of 

quality. For example, the agency should be required to analyze at least one option 

that is less expensive and one option that is more expensive than the agency’s preferred option. In other words, analyses that simply compare one regulatory option 

to ‘‘doing nothing’’ should not be considered adequate. Since presidents and agencies 

7 

do not always adhere to the provisions in presidential executive orders, it is imperative that judicial review of the new statutory requirements be authorized. The benefits-justify-costs test should be applicable to each significant regulation, unless the 

agency’s authorizing statute has explicitly prohibited consideration of BCA. 

Second, I recommend that Congress require OMB to issue guidance on the proper 

conduct of BCA, and that this guidance be updated periodically (e.g., at least every 

ten years or as soon as there is significant change in the state of the art of BCA). 

OMB currently uses a guidance document called Circular A–4 that was issued in 

2003 after public comment, interagency deliberation, and expert peer review. I recommend that Congress require a similar process in the future, placing OMB in the 

lead in consultation with the White House Council of Economic Advisors and other 

agencies. In order to better ensure that the data and models used by agencies are 

valid and appropriate, the new statutory mandate should reference the informationquality and peer-review guidelines that have been issued by OMB, and provide 

stakeholders an opportunity for judicial review in cases where these well-developed 

guidelines are not followed by agencies. 

Third, I recommend that Congress expand the scope of the statutory mandate to 

include significant guidance documents as well as legislative rules, at least in cases 

where the agency’s action to issue a guidance document has the same practical effect on regulated parties as a regulation. Senator Collins (R–Maine) has already proposed a bill in the Senate to apply BCA to guidance documents, and I urge the subcommittee to take a careful look at her guidance-related provisions. 

Finally, Congress should consider adding a distributional arm of the ‘‘benefits-justify-costs’’ test that ensures that the welfare of low-income Americans is considered 

before a significant rule is issued. Thus, even if a regulation passes the benefit-cost 

test for society as a whole, it may not be advisable if low-income Americans are likely to incur more costs than benefits. For example, energy-related regulations that 

increase the price of gasoline at the pump have a disproportionately harmful effect 

on low-income families, especially those families living in small towns and rural 

areas where alternatives to automobile travel are not available. The benefit side of 

the ledger also needs to be considered, since some regulations offer significant benefits to low-income families while others do not. As a matter of fairness, regulators 

owe it to the most economically disadvantaged families in society to explore whether 

a proposed rule will make these families better off or worse off. My 2008 article in 

the Pennsylvania Law Review provides a more complete discussion of the philosophical and practical aspects of this recommendation. 

In summary, it has been accepted by U.S. presidents for at least 30 years that 

BCA should play an important role in federal rulemaking. While OMB and federal 

agencies have made significant progress in this direction, it is well known that OMB 

and federal agencies do not implement this policy with consistency and a high degree of quality. Congress should build on the logic of the recent presidential orders 

by passing a simple statutory requirement that is backed by the force of judicial review. If OMB and federal agencies know that federal courts are authorized to review 

the role of BCA in federal regulation, they will take their BCA-related responsibilities much more seriously than they do today. 

Mr. GOWDY. Thank you, Dr. Graham. Let me ask you a couple 

of questions, and then I will recognize the gentleman from Tennessee. 

Is it fair that some benefits are not quantifiable? Is that a fair 

statement to say? And how would you address that in a cost-benefit 

analysis if some benefits are not easily quantifiable? 

Mr. GRAHAM. Let me start by saying basic textbooks in benefitcost analysis acknowledge that not all costs and benefits will be 

quantifiable, or, even if they can be quantified in the physical 

units, like tons of pollution prevented, for example, they may not 

be quantifiable in dollar terms. So, clearly a good cost-benefit analysis lays out—think of it as the advantages and the disadvantages 

of the regulation, and quantifies those that can be quantified. But 

there is no point in forcing agency analysts to try to quantify 

things that cannot be quantified. 

8 

So, in the final analysis, the decision about whether the benefits 

justify the costs is a policy judgment made by a regulator. That 

does not mean that the regulator can do anything, but they do have 

to make a judgment. 

Mr. GOWDY. Dr. Graham, the best argument for codification, is 

it the political whims and caprices that change with Administrations? Is it judicial review? What are the three best, strongest arguments for codification in your judgment? 

Mr. GRAHAM. Well, I think the first thing to keep in mind is that 

at the career level, the staff members in the regulatory agencies, 

whether it be the Labor Department or Homeland Security, if they 

know that their regulation is going to be subject to judicial review 

for its benefit cost justification, they will devote more serious effort 

to the benefit-cost analysis. I think that is a very important thing. 

Without that codification, you are not going to get that type of judicial review on the benefit-cost analysis implementation. 

And then the second reason is, various Presidents—we can all 

pick our examples—they have called them political or policy preferences or campaign commitments in particular areas that they are 

going to want to proceed with, even though in some cases they really do not have a very good justification based upon benefits and 

costs. And the people who would be harmed by those regulations, 

they need the ability—the safeguards of the courts to ensure that 

those commitments and political commitments are not imposed on 

them without careful analysis of benefit and cost. 

Those would be my two primary reasons. 

Mr. GOWDY. All right. You said it is important to apply cost-benefit analysis to agency guidance documents because they have the 

same practical effect on regulated parties as a regulation. How can 

this happen? And, secondarily, does this mean that an agency can 

avoid the notice and comment process by just issuing guidance documents? 

Mr. GRAHAM. Well, the short answer is yes. But there are a couple of good lawyers on this panel sitting next to me, and they can 

describe to you in better detail than I do the creative ways that 

agencies work to basically impose a burden on, say, a business 

without actually ever writing a regulation. They simply issue a 

guidance document and say, it would be a good idea if your plant 

was designed in this way or if it operated in that way. And then 

in addition, they say we might have visits or enforcement actions 

at your facility at some point in the future, and it is all kind of informal. But as a practical effect, the agency is saying you better do 

what this guidance document says. 

That is, I think, is a very serious problem. And agencies, because 

rulemaking is more expensive, it takes longer, they like to do as 

much as they can through these guidance documents. 

Mr. GOWDY. Can codification force agencies to quantify factors 

they might otherwise say are not quantifiable? 

Mr. GRAHAM. I am not sure. I think the most important factor 

in the process of quantification is the peer review process where 

scientists, engineers, and economists from universities and from 

non-profit organizations, they review the analyses that are prepared by agencies. And they may say in certain cases, you know, 

there are data available that allow you to quantify this benefit or 

9 

this cost. Or they may say, you are trying to quantify this, but the 

data you have are not adequate to support that. It is that technical 

peer review process which needs to be part of this legislation that 

I think is the best assurance that the quantification process is proceeding in a valid manner. 

Mr. GOWDY. Thank you, Dr. Graham. At this point I would recognize the distinguished gentleman from Tennessee and biggest fan 

of the Memphis Grizzlies in Congress, Mr. Cohen? 

Mr. COHEN. Thank you. Thank you. And even though they lost 

yesterday, they are still very much alive. They will come back. 

Mr. Graham, of the Atlantic Coast Conference, which also plays 

basketball on a different level, when you worked with the Bush Administration and you had these regulations come up on Homeland 

Security, how did you determine what we should do on a cost-benefit analysis when you are talking about people’s lives and unknowns, such as Al-Qaeda? 

Mr. GRAHAM. Well, I think that is a great question. And remember, I am talking about this period, maybe the first 18 months after 

9/11 where there is a lot of emotional concern in the country about 

trying to do things to protect the next 9/11. 

The Administration had the authority, emergency authority, to 

do a wide range of things without any cost-benefit analysis whatsoever. If they had had the kind of basis that was necessary to declare an emergency, they could have done so without any of the 

analysis I am talking about. 

The Administration knew they did not have that as a matter of 

intelligence and as a matter of the situation at the time. So, they 

proceeded with these regulations through normal rulemaking process. When they made that decision, they were implicitly saying 

that we really ought to follow the same kinds of procedures that 

would normally apply for the rulemaking. 

And in the case of these Homeland Security regulations, what I 

thought was the most interesting was the requirements as they are 

implemented in the United States and around the world are actually quite different. All of us travel to go through airports. Have 

you ever noticed how much variation there is between the specific 

requirements when you actually go through screening? Do each of 

these differences have a justification? Sometimes your shoes are 

off, sometimes they are on. Sometimes your belt is off, sometimes 

it is on. And it varies. 

And I do not think there, frankly, is a really good, sound justification for a lot of this variation, and that tells me that the evidential basis for what is being required is somewhat thin. Does 

that mean we should not have any of these regulations? No. But 

I think a little more thought to how they are designed in the first 

place is probably a good idea. 

Mr. COHEN. I agree with you, and I do not know that much about 

the regs, and I thought about them this week when in Memphis 

they said you had to take off your belt. They have never said that 

before, and sometimes they say it in D.C., and sometimes they do 

not. But we never said you had to take off your tennis shoes or 

your shoes, and then comes this guy with the material in his shoes. 

I mean, how do you quantify that type of regulation when 200 lives 

10 

would have been in the balance if the guy had a better lighter or 

BIC or whatever? 

Mr. GRAHAM. You actually just did a little bit of quantification. 

And it does not require much in terms of number of lives saved, 

even potentially, to justify a significant regulation. So, the real 

question is, do they have the basis for these different types of distinctions and why they are requiring passengers to engage in this 

type of screening versus another type of screening. If they have 

that basis, even on a qualitative basis, I think you could potentially 

justify these types of regulations. 

I am just trying to be candid with you and be honest with you 

that I have tire tracks on my chest from rules after 9/11 that rolled 

through this Federal Government. You know, it probably would be 

a good idea right now to go back and look at some of those and see 

whether all of them are still really necessary. 

Mr. COHEN. Yeah, well, I do not disagree with you, and it is an 

interesting subject. I need to spend some more time on it. But some 

of the stuff is absurd, and I think we go overboard on some of the 

things. But nevertheless, safety, it is very difficult to do that in 

terms of dollars and cents. And some of it just seems like whether 

or not it makes sense, and sometimes we get into these regulations, 

like on the belt and all. We have really created an industry and 

we cannot get rid of it because their jobs are there, and there are 

companies that sell that equipment, and so they have become ones 

that push forward because, even though it really does not do us 

any good. So, I do not how you get around that. 

But the President has said some things about fairness, and he 

has talked about equity, and he has been criticized for that when 

considering rules with lead poisoning among poor children. Would 

you agree that the President has probably got something appropriate when he is dealing with fairness and equity or dealing with 

poor children and lead poisoning, and that maybe the criticism is 

not fair? 

Mr. GRAHAM. I have not seen the details of the criticism that the 

President made. But I do cite in my testimony what I think is an 

important role that fairness considerations play in a reasoned development of a regulation. And sometimes, for example, when you 

take energy regulations that increase fuel prices at the pump, 

those regulations have a disproportionate adverse impact on lower 

income Americans, particularly Americans who live in rural areas 

and in small towns where alternative transportation is not available. In that kind of a case, even if the benefits of that regulation 

would be somewhat greater than the cost, a fairness consideration 

might say, well, really this is not a very good time to impose this 

kind of burden on the lower income elements of our population. 

So, I am a firm believer that fairness considerations, particularly 

as related to low income populations, do have an important role in 

a benefit cost framework. But I would have to look in more detail 

at exactly what President Obama said to understand his particular 

claim. 

Mr. COHEN. So, if the Chairman would allow me for just 20 seconds, could you be willing to give me and/or the Chair and the 

Committee some of those tracks that you have got and tell us 

11 

which of those regulations you think we should not have passed 

and an explanation so that we may look at that? 

Mr. GRAHAM. It will be easy because my boss at the time was 

Mitch Daniels, the current governor of Indiana. And he allowed me 

in 2004 to actually publish an annual report from OMB that listed 

all of these Homeland Security regulations, what was estimated as 

to their cost, and what their rationale was. And we allow readers 

to make their own determination. 

Mr. COHEN. Do you have a Cliff’s Note of that? 

Mr. GRAHAM. Yeah, and it is on the website. It is a nice table 

actually, just maybe a two-page table that lays it all out. So, I will 

get you a copy of that. 

Mr. COHEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, sir. 

Mr. GOWDY. Yes, sir, Mr. Cohen. Dr. Graham, that buzzer, I 

think, means something, but I am going to recognize the distinguished gentleman from the great state of California, Mr. Gallegly, 

for his questioning. And then with the indulgence of the other 

three panelists, we aspire to go vote and then return. 

Mr. Gallegly? 

Mr. GALLEGLY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would just like to 

make a quick observation, and I know you have a flight to catch, 

and we have votes to take, and we are behind a couple of hours 

already. 

But in follow-up to Mr. Cohen, relative to airport security and so 

on, you know, we all do a lot of traveling. In fact, I have accumulated over 1,700 trips from one coast to the other because I commute every week to California. And you do get familiar with that 

process all too well. 

But the regulations, and I would like to know a little bit about 

maybe the flexibility in some of these regulations, because you 

mentioned, you know, you go into one airport, they require a belt, 

you go in another airport, it is taking your laptop out of the case, 

or your iPad or whatever, and then the next week it is different. 

Well, an observation that I have made for some time, and I happen to know a little bit about the rationale behind it, and it has 

to do with flexibility sometimes is important, because when you are 

dealing with terrorists, the most important thing you can do is 

keep them flat footed and off guard. And every time you move a 

guard from one corner today to the next corner the next day, they 

never know which corner the guard is going to be on. So, if everybody is in the same place doing the same thing every hour with a 

belt or with a laptop or whatever, it has a strategic benefit. Could 

you maybe respond to that a little bit and how regulations impact 

on the importance of flexibility? 

Mr. GRAHAM. Well, first of all, I think you make a really excellent point, that in order to have an effective strategy in counterterrorism through these kinds of regulations, you would have to 

have some changes over time that keep the terrorists off balance 

in terms of their targeting. 

The examples I was referring to were not changes in practices at 

the same location. It is that when you are in this airport, they do 

it this way, and when you are at that airport, they do it that way. 

And to me, it is just not obvious that that is confusing many terrorVerDate Aug 31 2005 09:44 Sep 14, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00015 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 H:\WORK\COURTS\050411\66156.000 HJUD1 PsN: 66156
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ists. It just seems to be kind of an unexplained variation in what 

this practice is. 

But I agree with you. In fact, one of the things I noticed when 

I was at OMB and we were issuing all these rules, so many of the 

rules that we were issuing were trying to go back and prevent the 

incident that had already occurred. But surely a perceptive and 

shrewd terrorist, for their next couple of instances, would not necessarily be replicating the same pathway and the same targets that 

were used the time before. But how many regulations were we 

doing on all the other targets? Not very many. 

So, I am just trying to admit that the whole process of regulation 

in a situation where you have a lot of political, you know, saliency 

on an issue like that, it can benefit from some evidence, some analysis, some benefits and costs. 

Mr. GALLEGLY. The one thing that has certainly become abundantly clear is you have a very simple and unchallenging job. 

[Laughter.] 

I appreciate your testimony, and I do know the tremendous challenges, and they are changing every day. So, but yet we do have 

to have regulations. 

Mr. GRAHAM. We certainly do. 

Mr. GALLEGLY. But we need to learn how to best prioritize, and 

that is why we have the experts out there hopefully that are doing 

the right thing. And I feel confident you are. Thank you. 

Mr. GRAHAM. Thank you, sir. 

Mr. GOWDY. Thank the gentleman from California. It is the fervent hope of all three of us that you will make it through TSA with 

your shoes and your belt on. Thank you for your patience. 

To the three remaining witnesses, we continue to thank you for 

your indulgence. We are grateful for your patience. Mr. Cohen did 

much better in math than I did. He added up the number of minutes that we may be gone, and I am going to let Judiciary staff and 

our three witnesses decide how much of their lives they would like 

to be imposed on today. So, this could be a long series. 

But you have got a plane to catch. You have lives to live. I will 

let higher ranking people than me make the decisions. But if I see 

you again, I will look forward to it. If I see you again another day, 

thank you for your patience. 

We will be adjourned pending votes. 

[Recess.] 

Mr. GOWDY. We will reconvene. And, again, on behalf of Mr. 

Cohen and myself and everyone else involved in the process, we 

want to thank you again for your patience and understanding the 

vagaries of votes. 

Without further ado, it is my pleasure to introduce our three witnesses. 

Jeffrey Holmstead is one of the Nation’s leading air quality attorneys and leads the Environmental Strategies Group at the law firm 

of Bracewell and Giuliani. Did I pronounce it correct? 

As the head of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of 

Air and Radiation from 2001 to 2005, Mr. Holmstead saw firsthand 

how regulatory agencies conduct and use cost-benefit analysis. Between 1989 and 1993, Mr. Holmstead served on the White House 

staff as associate counsel. In that capacity, he was involved in the 

13 

passage of the Clean Air Act amendments of 1990 and the key 

steps taken to implement that law. 

He is a graduate of Yale Law School. He earned his bachelor’s 

degree, summa cum laude, from Brigham Young University. 

Sally Katzen has enjoyed a distinguished career in legal practice, 

government service, and academia. The first female partner of the 

law firm Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering, Ms. Katzen also served as 

the Section Chair of the American Bar Association’s Administrative 

Law and Regulatory Practice Group. She served for 8 years in the 

Clinton Administration, including 5 years as administrator for the 

Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Office of Management and Budget. 

She has a bachelor’s degree from Smith College and a J.D. from 

the University of Michigan School of Law. She has taught at 

George Washington University, the University of Michigan, University of Pennsylvania, and Georgetown, and is a visiting professor 

at New York University School of Law. 

Mr. Harold Furchtgott-Roth. Have I pronounced that close to correct? All right. From 1997 to 2001, Dr. Furchtgott-Roth served as 

the commissioner of the FCC. Before his appointment to the FCC, 

he was chief economist for the House Committee on Commerce and 

the principal staff member on the Telecommunications Act of 1996. 

He is a professional economist, the president of Furchtgott-Roth 

Economic Enterprises, the author of dozens of publications, and has 

authored or co-authored four books, which means he has written 

more books than we have read, right? 

Mr. COHEN. You can say whatever you want to say about yourself. [Laughter.] 

Mr. GOWDY. Dr. Furchtgott-Roth received his Ph.D. in economics 

from Stanford University and a bachelor of science degree in economics from MIT. 

We would like to thank all three witnesses for joining us, and we 

will recognize each of you from my left to right, your right to left, 

starting with Mr. Holmstead, for 5 minutes and your opening statement? 

TESTIMONY OF JEFFREY HOLMSTEAD, PARTNER, 

BRACEWELL & GIULIANI, LLP 

Mr. HOLMSTEAD. Well, thank you. I am happy to be here. I wanted to be somewhat informal like Dr. Graham was and just say, to 

begin with, I like to think I have a somewhat unique perspective 

having seen the regulatory review process both from the White 

House and then from EPA and also from the private sector. 

And having done this now for 20 years, worked on cost-benefit 

analysis and regulatory review, I want to say this. I know from my 

own experience that a lot of the career staff folks at EPA take costbenefit analysis seriously and they try to use it to make regulatory 

decisions. But I have also seen that Federal officials sometimes use 

cost-benefit analysis not to inform their regulations, but to justify 

the regulations that they want to do for other reasons. 

Cost benefit analysis is an important regulatory tool, but it can 

be done in properly, it can be done poorly, and in some cases it can 

actually be misused. And for this reason, I do think it is important 

to have some sort of meaningful oversight of the type of regulatory 

14 

analysis conducted by regulatory agencies. And I am enthusiastic 

that this Subcommittee is considering these types of enforcement 

mechanisms that would make sure that there is a meaningful costbenefit analysis. 

I want to just start with a quick example of what I consider to 

be the misuse of cost-benefit analysis. And this may sound like I 

am down in the weeds; I do not mean to be. But there has been 

a lot of research done over the past seven or 8 years, and Dr. 

Graham is one of the people doing this research, showing that reducing fine particle pollution is by far the most important thing 

EPA has ever done under any of its statutes. And, you know, there 

are arguments about all the EPA statutes, but I do not think any 

serious researcher disagrees that most of the benefits to our society 

achieved by EPA have come from reducing these fine particles, 

which we refer to as PM2.5. 

You would think, and in fact a proper cost-benefit analysis would 

say, well, what is the most cost effective way that we can achieve 

these benefits? Unfortunately, some EPA officials have come to use 

the benefits of reducing fine particles as a way to justify almost 

anything they want to do. Again, a proper cost-benefit analysis, one 

that actually adheres to the principles that President Obama has 

in his executive order and certainly comes from the prior executive 

orders, would say, well, let us look at the most cost effective way 

of achieving these benefits. But unfortunately, it has come to be, 

as I said, used as a way to justify almost anything. 

A particularly egregious example is something that we refer to 

as the Utility MACT Rule. This rule is supposed to be designed 

anyway to reduce mercury emissions from power plants. The sole 

basis for this rule was a determination back in the year 2000 by 

then administrator Carol Browner, that mercury emissions from 

coal-fired power plants needed to be reduced. So, they come up 

with this rule. The rule, as proposed, would be the most costly rule 

ever issued by EPA if they finalize it. And EPA’s analysis says it 

is about $11 billion a year of costs. But then they say this is still 

a good deal for society because it will achieve benefits somewhere 

between $50 billion and $100 billion, so this seems like a good deal. 

You get into the details, though, and EPA says, well, we did look 

at the benefits of mercury, reducing mercury from power plants, 

and we have quantified those benefits, and we estimate those benefits to be somewhere in the range of $500,000 to $6.1 million. So, 

benefits of half a million to no more than $6.1 million, and the 

costs are $11 billion. And they say, but that is okay because we are 

going to get all these PM2.5 reductions. But what they do not do 

is say, are there other ways that would be much more cost effective 

to achieve these reductions? And the answer is, there are, and Congress has specifically adopted a program to deal with these. It provides much more flexibility, a very different role for EPA. But EPA 

has chosen to use this benefits analysis to justify what it really 

wants to do anyway, which is to impose very costly regulations on 

coal. 

I see that my time is running out. I will mention my last two 

points. One are, there are other ways that agencies have learned 

to avoid oversight. In some cases, and I am sure Ms. Katzen will 

probably agree that she has seen this. Two, is that there are 

15 

friendly lawsuits that set deadlines on agencies that effectively prevent OMB from exercising any kind of regulatory oversight. I 

would be happy to give you many examples of that where, again, 

in the Environmental Protection Agency they will go into court and 

come up with a settlement agreement with an environmental 

group, and that will compel the Agency to issue a rule on a certain 

schedule, a schedule which prevents OMB from being involved in 

the process. And I think it is important for this Committee to at 

least think about mechanisms to ensure that there is an opportunity for meaningful regulatory oversight by the Office of Management and Budget. And I also believe that the kind of enforcement 

mechanism that Dr. Graham talked about where there could be 

some judicial oversight would also be a very helpful thing for the 

process. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Holmstead follows:] 

Prepared Statement of Jeffrey R. Holmstead, Partner, 

Bracewell & Giuliani, LLP 

My name is Jeff Holmstead. I am a partner in the law firm of Bracewell and 

Giuliani and the head of the firm’s Environmental Strategies Group. This afternoon, 

however, I am not appearing on behalf of my law firm or any of my firm’s clients. 

I am here as a former official in both the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) 

and the White House who has spent more than 20 years working on the development of federal regulations. 

I served as the head of EPA’s Air Office for more than four years (from 2001 to 

2005) and as an Associate Counsel to the President for almost four years (from 1989 

to 2003). During my time in the White House, I was very involved in the regulatory 

review process. I have also been an environmental attorney in private practice for 

many years. In both government and the private sector, I have spent many years 

thinking about and dealing with cost-benefit analysis as both a conceptual and practical matter. Thank you for the opportunity to address the subcommittee on the important issue of presidential and judicial review of regulations and the role that 

should be played by cost-benefit analysis (CBA), which is sometimes referred as benefits-cost analysis (BCA). Both terms (and both acronyms) mean the same thing. 

It is increasingly clear that we are in an age of unprecedented federal regulation 

over many aspects of the Nation’s economy. I am most familiar with the regulations 

that EPA has issued over the last two years, but Susan Dudley, the former head 

of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (‘‘OIRA’’), has noted 

that the Obama Administration has issued a total of 132 ‘‘economically significant’’ 

rules (i.e. rules whose costs or benefits exceed $100 million per year) in the two 

years it has been in office. To put this total in perspective, this total is approximately 40 percent higher than the annual rate under Presidents Bill Clinton and 

George W. Bush. 

While it is tempting to draw conclusions by simply looking at these totals, each 

rule or set of rules that affect the same entities should be evaluated by looking at 

its costs and the benefits it provides to society—and how these costs and benefits 

are distributed. Everyone agrees that many of these rules will impose very substantial costs, but the rules may still be justified if they provide even greater benefits 

to our society. On the other hand, if the cost of a rule exceeds its benefits, our economy suffers the consequences. Proponents of greater regulation often pretend that 

the costs are simply imposed on industry or ‘‘big business,’’ but they also affect— 

sometimes quite substantially—workers, consumers, ratepayers, and all Americans 

who have privately-funded pension plans or are otherwise invested in stocks, bonds, 

or mutual funds. 

I can say from my own experience that many career officials at EPA take costbenefit analysis seriously and try to use it as much as possible to make regulatory 

decisions. Other federal agencies also do CBA, but perhaps to a lesser extent. I have 

also seen, however, that federal agencies sometimes do not use CBA to inform their 

regulatory decision, but rather to justify actions they may want to take for other 

reasons. CBA is simply a analytical tool that can be used properly or poorly or even 

misused. For this reason, it is important to have appropriate oversight of the analysis conducted by regulatory agencies—to ensure that regulatory decisions are conVerDate Aug 31 2005 09:44 Sep 14, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00019 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 H:\WORK\COURTS\050411\66156.000 HJUD1 PsN: 66156
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sistent with the principles of CBA and with the underlying statutory scheme created 

by Congress. 

I support this Subcommittee’s efforts to consider legislation that will ensure proper presidential and judicial review of the justification underlying Federal regulations. To further your efforts, I would like to focus attention on three key issues relating to problems with the current system of cost-benefit analysis and areas of 

focus for any potential solution. 

BACKGROUND

Before evaluating the current use (or misuse) of cost-benefit analyses and the 

need for legislative action, it may be helpful to briefly review the mandates placed 

upon all Federal agencies when issuing regulations. First, under Executive Order 

12866, issued by President Clinton in 1993, when an agency determines that a regulation is the best method of achieving a regulatory objective it must, among other 

things: 

• (1) ‘‘design its regulations in the most cost-effective manner to achieve the 

regulatory objective;’’ 

• (2) ‘‘propose or adopt a regulation only upon a reasoned determination 

that the benefits of the intended regulation justify its costs;’’ 

• (3) ‘‘identify and assess alternative forms of regulation and . . . specify 

performance objectives, rather than specifying the behavior or manner of 

compliance that regulated entities adopt;’’ 

• (4) ‘‘tailor its regulations to impose the least burden on society . . . taking 

into account . . . the costs of cumulative regulations.’’ 

In Executive Order 13563, issued on January 18, 2011, President Obama reaffirmed these regulatory principles under an overarching instruction to Federal 

agencies to protect public health and our environment ‘‘while promoting economic 

growth, innovation, competitiveness, and job creation.’’ 

MISUSE OF COST-BENEFIT ANALYSES

Having spent many years looking at the benefits of different environmental regulations, I agree with the many researchers who believe that reducing levels of fine 

particles in the air is the most important and beneficial thing that the federal government can do in the environmental arena. The vast majority of the benefits that 

EPA has ever achieved under all the federal environmental statutes come from reducing ambient levels of fine particles, which are often referred to as PM2.5. 

There are two major areas of uncertainty about the benefits of reducing PM2.5: 

(1) whether all the different components in PM2.5 should be regulated equally; and 

(2) whether there are benefits of reducing such pollution in areas where levels are 

already low. I believe that the EPA and other agencies should pay more attention 

to addressing these areas of uncertainty, but I will not discuss them here. 

My concern is that, rather than using cost-benefit analysis to develop the most 

effective way to reduce PM2.5, some EPA officials have come to view CBA—and the 

benefits of reducing PM2.5—as a way to justify virtually anything that they may 

want to do. All too often in recent years, EPA has understood the instruction to 

issue the ‘‘most’’ cost-effective regulation to mean that it may issue ‘‘any’’ regulation 

where it can show benefits exceeding costs. Unfortunately, this is a serious misuse 

of the type of cost-benefit assessment that is required by Executive Orders 12866 

and 13563. Proper CBA should identify the most effective way to regulate—and not 

be used simply to justify any regulation that can be claimed to provide benefits that 

exceed costs. 

A CASE STUDY: THE PROPOSED UTILITY MACT

EPA has recently issued a proposed rule to reduce emissions of so-called ‘‘hazardous air pollutants’’ (or HAPs) from coal- and oil-fired power plants. This rule is 

generally referred to as the Utility MACT because it was developed under a section 

of the Clean Air Act that calls for EPA to develop standards based on the ‘‘maximum achievable control technology’’ (MACT) that can be used to control HAP emissions from different type of industrial facilities. 

As proposed, the Utility MACT would be the most expensive rule in EPA history. 

Some experts believe that EPA has actually understated its likely costs, but even 

EPA acknowledges that it would impose costs of about $11 billion a year on the U.S. 

economy. Yet EPA has also gone to great lengths to argue that the benefits of this 

rule will greatly exceed the costs. Under the requirements of the two Executive OrVerDate Aug 31 2005 09:44 Sep 14, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00020 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 H:\WORK\COURTS\050411\66156.000 HJUD1 PsN: 66156
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ders cited above, EPA prepared a cost-benefit analysis which suggests that annual 

benefits will be in the range of $48 to $130 billion. If the annual costs of the rule 

are only $11 billion, then ‘‘the benefits of the proposed [Utility MACT] far outweigh 

the costs,’’ as EPA argues. 

The Agency’s sole basis for issuing this proposal is a regulatory determination 

that then-EPA Administrator Carol Browner made in December 2000 that it was 

‘‘appropriate and necessary’’ to regulate certain HAPs from power plants This determination was based almost entirely on the Administrator’s concern about mercury 

emissions from coal-fired power plants. Not surprisingly, the majority of the proposed rule deals with mercury reduction requirements for coal-fired power plants. 

It stands to reason that the vast majority of benefits claimed by EPA to justify 

the proposed rule must be the result of reductions in mercury emissions. But the 

Agency’s cost-benefit analysis tells a very different story. According to EPA, the benefits to society of the mercury-reduction requirements are in the range of $500,000 

to a maximum of $6.1 million in total (i.e. not even annual) benefits. In other 

words, in a rule estimated by EPA to cost $11 billion annually, the maximum total 

benefit of reducing emissions of mercury—the emissions of which serve as the primary basis for the rule—is $6.1 million. 

EPA asserts, however, that it’s proposal is justified based on cost-benefit analysis 

because the rule will provide benefits of up to $130 billion ever year. Yet virtually 

all these benefits come from reducing PM2.5. 

Although mercury is the Agency’s legal justification for the Utility MACT, EPA 

argues that it must also regulate non-mercury HAPs such as certain metals (e.g. 

nickel, selenium, etc.) emitted in trace amounts and acid gases (e.g. hydrogen chloride and hydrogen fluoride) that, according to EPA, do not pose a meaningful risk 

to public health. While some health risks from emissions of non-mercury HAPs are 

discussed in the proposed rule and the CBA (presumably implying health benefits 

from reducing such emissions), EPA does not make any attempt to evaluate the benefits that will be achieved by reducing these emissions. What is discussed at some 

length is that control technologies for non-mercury HAPs included in the proposed 

MACT standard result in reductions of emissions of PM2.5 and SO2. In fact, EPA’s 

analysis admits that virtually all (i.e. 99+ percent) of the estimated $42 to $130 billion in annual benefits are due to reductions in PM 2.5. 

Nowhere does EPA explain whether there is a less costly way to achieve these 

benefits, which is puzzling because Congress has created a whole separate program 

to regulate PM2.5—and it is very different from the MACT approach that EPA is 

now proposing. Although EPA is aggressively implementing the program that Congress created to regulate PM2.5, this program is much more flexible than the MACT 

program and would be a much more cost-effective way of regulating PM2.5 from 

power plants. 

Why should this matter to the public? I have explained part of the answer above: 

EPA is mandated to find the most cost-effective solution for the regulatory priority 

(here: controlling mercury emissions from power plants) How can the Agency possibly conclude that it is a good deal for society to impose an annual cost of $10.9 

billion to achieve benefits of $6.1 million? 

The other reason this type of analysis matters is that EPA has already controlled 

emissions of PM2.5 by setting a national ambient air quality standard (‘‘NAAQS’’) 

under section 108 of the Clean Air Act. In doing so, EPA has set a level of PM2.5 

that it has found to be sufficient to public health and welfare with an adequate margin of safety. Areas of the country that already have attained this level of PM2.5 

(i.e., that are in ‘‘attainment’’) are presumably therefore already safe from any 

health risks; Other areas that have not yet reached this level (i.e. are in ‘‘non-attainment’’) are already required to implement market-wide reductions in PM2.5 to 

get into attainment. 

In explaining how it developed the baseline for its benefits analysis, EPA’s RIA 

states that ‘‘EPA did not consider actions states may take in the future to implement the existing ozone and PM2.5 NAAQS standards[.]’’ Of course, as it did for 

the Utility MACT, EPA’s proposed NAAQS for PM2.5 contained an estimated analysis of the benefits of PM2.5 reductions. By not including these benefits in the baseline of the Utility MACT, EPA is essentially claiming these same benefits a second 

time to justify another regulation. Put a different way, the only way EPA can possibly claim more benefits from reductions in PM2.5 is to go beyond the controls it 

has already put in place under the PM2.5 NAAQS. Doing so, however, is completely 

contrary to Congress’ intent to regulate PM2.5 under a different section of the Clean 

Air Act and contrary to EPA’s own claims that the PM2.5 NAAQS is sufficient to 

protect public health and welfare. 

18 

USING ‘‘FRIENDLY’’ LAWSUITS TO AVOID OVERSIGHT

Currently, the only check on an agency’s use of cost-benefits principles to make 

regulatory decisions is the interagency review process overseen by OIRA, which is 

part of the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB). I have great respect for ORIA officials and staff, who are seasoned and dedicated economists and 

analysts with years of experience analyzing the costs and benefits of innumerable 

types of regulations. Unfortunately, OIRA officials are often unable to perform effective oversight due to factors outside of their control. EPA’s proposed Utility MACT 

is, once again, a useful illustration. 

In April 2009, after being sued by several environmental organizations for its failure to issue emission standards for HAPs from power plants, EPA voluntarily 

agreed to a consent decree. Under this consent decree, EPA agreed to an extraordinarily ambitious schedule that almost guarantees that there will not be enough 

time to do serious regulatory analysis. The consent decree requires EPA to issue the 

proposed Utility MACT by March 16, 2011 (which it has already done) and then to 

issue a final rule by November 16, 2011. It is not clear that the environmental organizations had a valid legal claim that EPA was required to issue the Utility MACT 

on any particular schedule, but there was certainly no legal justification for a schedule like this one. Some observers have suggested that EPA may have wanted to be 

‘‘required’’ to issue the rule well in advance of the next presidential election. 

To gather data for the proposed rule, EPA issued an information collection request 

(‘‘ICR’’) to utility companies in December 2009. This ICR required these companies 

to conduct extensive testing and analysis that cost almost $200 million to produce. 

This data was not even available until late 2010, so neither EPA nor any other interested party had more than four months to review it before the proposed rule was 

issued. Putting aside the question of whether four months is an adequate timeframe 

in which to perform the required technical and cost-benefit analyses, EPA only submitted its proposed Utility MACT to OMB for the regulatory review process on February 19, 2011. Accordingly, OIRA and OMB officials, as well as officials at other 

affected agencies, had a total of thirty days to review, analyze, submit and resolve 

comments on the 946-page rule and the 496-page cost-benefit analysis before EPA 

was required to publish the proposed rule. It goes without saying that thirty days 

to perform the type of careful analysis and provide the meaningful input intended 

by the Executive Orders is beyond the skills of even the most dedicated and hardworking public officials. 

This is just one example (a particularly glaring one, to be sure) of a consent decree having the effect, if not the intention, of cutting off meaningful regulatory review. But it highlights the need for Congress to ensure that agencies cannot make 

voluntary arrangements with outside entities which result in an end-run around the 

regulatory review process. I urge the Subcommittee to develop a legal, enforceable 

mechanism to ensure that there is sufficient time for meaningful interagency review. 

ENSURING PROPER REVIEW AND ANALYSIS OF GUIDANCE DOCUMENTS

I also recommend that the Subcommittee go beyond just rules and regulations to 

require that significant guidance documents are subject to analysis and interagency 

review. Informal guidance is a very important part of the regulatory and compliance 

process, and it would be a mistake to do anything that would prevent agencies from 

developing guidance that is helpful to outside parties. But some guidance documents 

can have major impacts on regulated entities, even though they are not formally 

designated as ‘‘rules’’ that must go through the normal rulemaking procedures and 

interagency review. The Subcommittee should expand the scope of its inquiry to ensure than such guidance is analyzed and reviewed like rules that have the same 

practical effect on regulated parties as a regulation. 

* * * * * 

It has been widely accepted for many years that cost-benefit analysis should play 

an important role in federal rulemaking. Although OMB and some other federal 

agencies have used CBA as an important tool in regulatory development, this requirement is not always done well. Congress should build on the work that has been 

done over the last 30 years to ensure that agency do not avoid or misuse this type 

of analysis. 

Mr. GOWDY. Thank you, Mr. Holmstead. 

Ms. Katzen? 

19 

TESTIMONY OF SALLY KATZEN, SENIOR ADVISOR, PODESTA 

GROUP, VISITING PROFESSOR, NEW YORK UNIVERSITY 

SCHOOL OF LAW 

Ms. KATZEN. Thank you, Mr. Gowdy and Mr. Cohen. I appreciate 

the opportunity to appear today. 

I think all of the witnesses are in agreement to a point. We all 

support the use of economic analysis by regulatory agencies, and 

that would include the independent regulatory commissions, like 

the FCC and the SEC, the CFTC, and the Fed. And in my written 

statement, I provided several paths that Congress could take if it 

wishes to pursue this, and I would like to discuss that further in 

the question period if you are interested. 

I also think it is wholly appropriate for Congress, using hearings 

like this one or other oversight tools, to monitor agency activity, 

evaluate current practices, spotlight deficiencies, and bring public 

pressure to bear to improve agency performance, if that is what is 

called for. 

Now, where I disagree with my colleagues is whether Congress 

should codify the requirements that exist for the executive branch 

agencies, including centralized review, and provide for judicial review of that process. I think not. 

Before regulating, we ask agencies to identify the problem it intends to address and explain how the proposed regulation would fix 

that problem in an efficient and effective way. Those same questions should be asked before Congress acts. What is the compelling 

need to codify pieces or all of the executive order? The foundational 

principles have been in effect for over 30 years, endorsed and implemented by Presidents of both political parties, and recently reaffirmed by President Obama. And over the years, the benefits of 

regulations have consistently exceeded the costs. This was true 

during the Obama Administration, during the Bush Administration, during the Clinton Administration. 

I cannot and will not say that all executive branch agencies do 

a great job of economic analysis and always incorporate the results 

in rule development. While strikingly better than the IRCs, the 

record is mixed, which should not surprise anyone given that agencies have different cultures and different resources. The latter is 

important because economic analysis, at least thoughtful, careful, 

comprehensive analysis, is not cost free. It takes time and resources. And the more significant the proposed regulatory action, 

the more time and resources it should consume. Regrettably, some 

of the very people who call for more analysis are the first to suggest straight lining or reducing the agency’s budgets. 

But even if the agencies were not consistently doing and using 

high quality analysis, and that case has not been made, would legislating pieces or all of the executive order bring about significant 

change? 

Over the past 30 years, Congress has imposed a series of analytical requirements on the agencies—the Paper Reduction Act, Reg 

Flex Act, NEPA, the Unfunded Mandates Act, just to name a few— 

without substantially increasing the funding for the agencies to 

carry out the tasks that they were assigned. So, before adding another requirement, Congress might want to rationalize the current 

set of analytical requirements and/or provide more resources to 

20 

OIRA to review them. If there is an implementation problem, Congress should address the source of that problem directly and not 

just add another requirement. 

Second, executive orders are, after all, orders of the President, to 

those who report to him and for whom he is constitutionally responsible. Those who profess support for the unitary executive 

should pause before crossing the separation of powers line to codify 

an executive order despite its universal appeal. And the history of 

this particular line of executive orders, from 12291, to 12866, to 

13422, to 13653—do we not love all the numbers—shows that while 

many of the concepts are the same from one Administration to the 

next, different Presidents choose to emphasize different things— 

openness and transparency, market failure as a basis for regulating, public participation. These differences may be subtle, but 

are nonetheless important indicators of Administration policies and 

preferences. 

Third, if Congress were to codify the analytical requirements of 

the EO, it would be amending a host of previously enacted statutes 

dating back over half a century. At this point, it is totally unclear 

how many statutes and which ones would be amended, and what 

the implications of such an amendment would be, both for the regulated entities and intended beneficiaries of those statutes. 

A number of pieces of legislation are silent on the question of the 

role of cost, and others explicitly do not permit the consideration 

of cost. For that reason, the executive order says repeatedly that 

it will prescribe certain practices ‘‘to the extent permitted by law.’’ 

However, if you were to codify the executive order, that would become the law, and as a result, a proposed regulation, even under 

a statute that does not permit the consideration of costs, could not 

become effective unless, among other things, the benefits justify the 

costs. 

Now, Dr. Graham referred to the host of regulations coming 

through after 9/11 and was worried that they had not been costbenefit analysis. I recall explicitly that one of those was a DoT rule 

to reinforce the steel in the cockpit doors. That was what Congress 

told DoT to do. It was not just that the President, for some political 

reason, wanted to get these things through. Congress said to do 

that. Agencies are not free agents. They have to do what the Congress has told them to do. 

Now, you could amend all these acts. You can amend the Clean 

Air Act, the OSHA Act, and any other authorizing act. But I would 

urge you then to do it directly and not indirectly by creating 

decisional criteria. 

Lastly, I would like to say that the idea of judicial review here 

leaves me in a very difficult position. I am a lawyer who greatly 

respects our judicial system, and I am talking to the Judiciary 

Committee. I would ask you whether the Federal courts is really 

the proper forum for sifting through cost-benefit analysis and deciding whether or not it has been properly used in formulating 

rules. Dr. Graham talked about the non-quantified aspects. Fairness was one. Justice might be another. Disparate impacts. How do 

you have Federal courts deciding? So, that in addition to having an 

army of lawyers who will be battling out whether or not the 

decisional criteria here has amended the underlying act, you are 

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going to have armies of economists who will be doing battle as well. 

With all due respect, I do not think that is the way to promote economic growth and job creation, except perhaps for lawyers or 

economists. 

With that, I thank you very much for your patience. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Katzen follows:] 


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Mr. GOWDY. Yes, ma’am. Thank you. 

Mr. Furchtgott-Roth, we recognize you for 5 minutes? 


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TESTIMONY OF HAROLD FURCHTGOTT-ROTH, PRESIDENT, 

FURCHTGOTT-ROTH ECONOMIC ENTERPRISES 

Mr. FURCHTGOTT-ROTH. Thank you, Mr. Gowdy. It is a great 

honor for me to be here today. 

Mr. GOWDY. I might implore you to turn on the—— 

Mr. FURCHTGOTT-ROTH. I am sorry. Mr. Gowdy, Mr. Cohen, it is 

a very great honor for me to be here today before this Committee. 

I have to mention to Mr. Cohen that I was born in Tennessee, and 

I have noticed the color of your tie today, sir. Thank you very 

much. 

I am aware of the substantial effort that goes into preparing a 

hearing, an effort on the part of the Members and the staff, and 

I thank you for those efforts. 

I have a written statement that I would like to have entered into 

the record. 

I am trained as an economist and have spent my entire career 

as an economist, both inside and outside of government, except for 

three and a half years when I had the honor to serve as a commissioner on the Federal Communications Commission. I bring to this 

panel not only the perspective of an economist, but also the perspective of an independent agency, one that falls outside of the 

scope of executive orders, such as 12866 and 13563. I am not saying that those orders are perfect, but the value of those orders is 

all too apparent in agencies not covered by them, agencies such as 

the FCC. 

The FCC promulgates dozens of rules every year. I regret to tell 

you that for not a single one of them can we say with any certainty 

that the benefits exceed the costs because they are never documented. 

I can tell you from the perspective of an agency that has never 

been under these executive orders that Ms. Katzen described, there 

is a lot that is lost. There is a lot of process that is lost. It is a 

process that is not there simply for the purpose of process or for 

the purpose of providing paper. Those are processes that are there 

for the end result, which is more sensible regulation or rational 

regulation, and regulation that not just the government officials, 

but the American public can have some sense that the benefits exceed the costs. 

I will summarize my testimony in just a few areas. 

The public and our economy benefit substantially from the careful consideration of costs and benefits of regulation. Federal agencies have substantial legal and regulatory requirements, including 

executive orders, to document their consideration of the costs and 

benefits that are proposed in new regulations, but those do not 

apply to independent regulatory agencies. The executive orders are 

not sufficient, even in Federal agencies, to ensure recent rulemaking, in part because they are not always enforced, and because 

the public cannot go to the courts to ensure that they are enforced. 

I have noticed that the FCC, which has an independent statutory 

requirement to review its rules every 2 years and ensure that they 

continue to be necessary, that that provision of law has never been 

applied. It has been around since the ’96 Act, and in the past 15 

years I can assure you the commission has never reviewed its rules 

even once. And the reason is that the commission knows that no 

35 

court is going to compel it to do so. Without the ability of court review, I have very great doubts that there will be any enforcement 

of any statutory requirement for cost and benefit analysis. 

I am quite optimistic that the regulatory decisions that would be 

made if Federal agencies, such as the FCC, would substantially improve if there were requirement to do careful cost-benefit analyses. 

The results without it are all too apparent. I think even this Committee is going to have a hearing in the coming days on network 

neutrality. Regardless of your views of whether those rules were 

good or bad, the fact that those rules were promulgated without a 

cost-benefit analysis, without some documentation that the commission can say, the benefits of this rule are greater than the cost, 

I think puts the commission in a very weak position. And had the 

commission been compelled to go through the type of cost-benefit 

analysis that Ms. Katzen described, I think the rules probably 

would have been better, and I think that the commission would 

have been in a stronger position to defend those rules to the public. 

I know the hour is late, and so in the interest of time, I will end 

my comments at this point. 

Thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Furchtgott-Roth follows:] 

Prepared Statement of Harold Furchtgott-Roth, President, 

Furchtgott-Roth Economic Enterprises 

I. INTRODUCTION

A. Qualifications 

I am president of Furchtgott-Roth Economic Enterprises, an economic consulting 

firm in Washington, DC. I was a commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission from November 1997 through May 2001. 

From June 2001 through March of 2003, I was a visiting fellow at the American 

Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research in Washington, DC. In 2007, I was 

a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, another policy research organization. 

I have worked for many years as an economist. From 1995 to 1997, I was chief 

economist of the House Committee on Commerce where one of my responsibilities 

was to work on regulatory reform issues. 

My academic research concerns economics and regulation. I am the author or coauthor of four books: A Tough Act to Follow?: The Telecommunications Act of 1996 

and the Separation of Powers (Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute), 

2006; Cable TV: Regulation or Competition, with R.W. Crandall, (Washington, DC: 

The Brookings Institution), 1996; Economics of A Disaster: The Exxon Valdez Oil 

Spill, with B.M. Owen, D.A. Argue, G.J. Hurdle, and G.R. Mosteller, (Westport, 

Connecticut: Quorum books), 1995; and International Trade in Computer Software, 

with S.E. Siwek, (Westport, Connecticut: Quorum Books), 1993. I received a Ph.D. 

in economics from Stanford University and an undergraduate degree in economics 

from M.I.T. 

B. Summary of opinions 

Based on my years of experience both in government and in the private sector, 

and based on my training as an economist, I find the following: 

• The public and our economy would benefit substantially from the careful consideration of the costs and benefits of regulations. 

• Federal agencies have substantial legal and regulatory requirements, including Executive Orders 12866 and 13563, to document their consideration of the 

costs and benefits of proposed and new regulations 

• The executive orders are not sufficient to ensure reasoned rulemaking. 

• The FCC does not effectively document or weigh the benefits and costs of its 

rulemakings. 

36 

• Outside parties that participate in FCC proceedings do not insist that the 

agency consider costs and benefits of regulations because of the lack of judicial review. 

• FCC regulatory decisions would likely improve with greater consideration of 

costs and benefits. 

• Assigning to a federal agency the responsibility for reviewing the compliance 

of all agencies—including independent agencies—with requirements for costbenefit analyses could help standardize practices and give the public a more 

predictable standard of analysis. 

II. THE PUBLIC AND OUR ECONOMY WOULD BENEFIT SUBSTANTIALLY FROM THE

CAREFUL CONSIDERATION OF THE COSTS AND BENEFITS OF REGULATIONS

Evaluating the costs and benefits of an activity is not an idle academic exercise. 

As individuals, as families, as businesses, and as other organizations, we constantly 

evaluate activities. We are reluctant to delegate to others those decisions about 

which activities we engage in. We reject those activities whose costs are too high 

for the possible benefits. We engage in those whose benefits exceed our estimate of 

costs. 

We make these cost-benefit analyses with varying degrees of formality. Individuals and families are informal. We reflect on those decisions that we make for ourselves as individuals. We may explain to our families decisions about why we make 

certain decisions, such as reducing our driving as gasoline prices increase. 

Businesses make decisions supported by documents. Woe be to the vice president 

of a company who proposes an investment without documents explaining the possible returns, examining them in detail, and reviewing possible alternative investments. Civic organizations do the same. 

A publicly traded company that makes major decisions without documentation is 

reckless. A privately held company making such decisions would have difficulty attracting investors. Investors insist on some documentation of decisions not because 

they are obsessed with process but rather because they are obsessed with results. 

Good documentation helps lead to good results. Good documentation leads to rational decisions— decisions that can be reviewed and vetted, decisions that can be 

replicated if they yield positive results, and decisions that can be avoided in the future if the results are negative. 

We insist on documentation and rational decision-making with benefits expected 

to exceed costs by our private companies and civic organizations. Yet, in government, we all too often insist on documenting practically everything except the common-sense requirement that the benefits of our federal agency decisions should exceed their costs. 

It may well be that many—or hypothetically even all—federal rules have benefits 

that exceed their costs. But such a statement today would be an unverifiable expression of faith rather than verifiable fact. We cannot possibly know which federal 

rules have benefits that exceed their costs because our government agencies too 

often fail to document such benefits and costs. 

The net result almost certainly is that we have some rules whose costs exceed 

their benefits. Perhaps even worse, we cannot identify those harmful rules and distinguish them from those that are beneficial. 

Bad government regulation harms America. It weakens our economy, lessens incentives to invest in America, destroys American jobs, and makes less productive 

the jobs that remain. It reduces the choices we have as consumers taking many options away from us and unnecessarily raising the prices of the choices that remain. 

It robs us and our children of the belief that our government is always in the right. 

We are a poorer country as a result of harmful regulation, regulation that we cannot 

even begin to identify. 

This result is not a surprise to the American public. Your constituents see it every 

day. We see it in our daily lives in toilets that do not work well as the result of 

government regulation. We see it in manufacturing plants that have gone elsewhere 

because of government regulations. We see it in security screening at airports. We 

see it in employment rules that ordinary Americans cannot understand. 

Ask your constituents about bad federal regulations, and you will hear an earful. 

Many if not most Americans have their favorite stories about a bad federal regulation. Some of the stories don’t even pertain to federal rules—such as automatic dish 

washing detergents that no longer work. Washington regulation has become so discredited in the eyes of many Americans that it is the presumed source of much that 

ails America, whether it is the actual culprit or not. 

37 

1 Executive Order 12866, Section 1. 

2 Ibid. 

Americans don’t understand Washington regulation, and Washington refuses to 

explain it. The result is not merely bad regulation that harms our country but a 

corrosive mistrust of Washington and our government in general. 

We are a better country than this. America deserves regulation that is accountable. We can do a much better job, and it begins with having better documentation 

of the benefits and costs of each regulation. 

Let me describe the value of documented cost-benefit analyses in at least two different stages in the regulatory process: 

1. Notices of proposed rulemaking—One of the most important aspects of the 

Notice of Proposed Rulemaking process is to obtain guidance from the public 

about how best to craft a rule. A federal agency should solicit ideas from the 

public first rather than develop a predetermined rule before seeking public 

comment. An agency that can articulate in detail the possible costs and benefits to various segments of our economy of each proposed rule and alternatives to it demonstrates some thoughtful analysis behind the proposed 

rule. And the agency can explain other forms of the rule, including no new 

rule, that can be considered. Part of the reason to make these cost-benefit 

analyses public at the NPRM stage is to enable the public to vet the analyses. Can the analyses withstand public scrutiny? Are they internally consistent? Do the numbers make sense? Here is what the federal agency identifies as the likely benefits and costs of the regulation. Here is what federal 

agency identifies as the likely distribution of those benefits and costs. 

2. Final rules—After it has received comments on the reasonableness of the 

cost-benefit analyses for a proposed rule, an agency can modify not only the 

proposed rule but modify the cost-benefit analyses as well. The final costbenefit analyses should present in some detail the expected levels and the 

expected distributions of the expected benefits and expected costs of the final 

rule. The final cost-benefit analyses should review the comments the agency 

received on the initial cost-benefit analyses and should explain how and why 

the final cost-benefit analyses were modified to accommodate the comments, 

or why certain comments were disregarded. As important, the final costsbenefit analyses should present milestones that the agency expects the rule 

to accomplish, milestones by which the rule can be reviewed in the future. 

If the rule is intended to reach goal Y in two years, the agency should be 

willing to have the rule evaluated in 2 years based on whether or not goal 

Y was in fact reached or not. In much the same way, a business makes an 

investment and projects that it will be cash-flow positive in two years. In two 

years, the board and the shareholders can evaluate both whether the investment met its targets and also whether management had good business acumen in the past and is worthy of being trusted to make decisions in the future. 

III. FEDERAL AGENCIES HAVE SUBSTANTIAL LEGAL AND REGULATORY REQUIREMENTS, 

INCLUDING EXECUTIVE ORDERS 12866 AND 13563, TO DOCUMENT THEIR CONSIDERATION OF THE COSTS AND BENEFITS OF PROPOSED AND NEW REGULATIONS

The processes that I describe above are not academic exercises. The assessments 

of costs and benefits for both proposed and final rules are required by Executive 

Order 12866. The review is to be comprehensive, consider all alternatives, including 

not regulating: ‘‘In deciding whether and how to regulate, agencies should assess all 

costs and benefits of available regulatory alternatives, including the alternative of 

not regulating.’’ 1 The objective is to ensure that benefits not only exceed costs, but 

that benefits exceed costs by as much as possible: ‘‘Further, in choosing among alternative regulatory approaches, agencies should select those approaches that maximize net benefits (including potential economic, environmental, public health and 

safety, and other advantages; distributive impacts; and equity), unless a statute requires another regulatory approach.’’ 2

Moreover, the Executive Orders instruct federal agencies to evaluate not only new 

rules but existing rules as well. Executive Order 12866 requires agencies to consider 

whether existing rules may contribute to a problem that new rules are intended to 

correct: ‘‘Each agency shall examine whether existing regulations (or other law) 

have created, or contributed to, the problem that a new regulation is intended to 

38 

3 Ibid., Section 1 (b) (2). 

4 Executive Order 13563, Section 6(b). 

correct and whether those regulations (or other law) should be modified to achieve 

the intended goal of regulation more effectively.’’ 3

Executive Order 13563 goes further and requires federal agencies to have periodic 

reviews of existing ‘‘significant’’ rules: 

Within 120 days of the date of this order, each agency shall develop and submit 

to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs a preliminary plan, consistent with law and its resources and regulatory priorities, under which the 

agency will periodically review its existing significant regulations to determine 

whether any such regulations should be modified, streamlined, expanded, or repealed so as to make the agency’s regulatory program more effective or less burdensome in achieving the regulatory objectives.4

Each agency may have additional cost-benefit analysis requirements under its organic statutes. Section 11 of the Communications Act, for example, requires the 

Federal Communications Commission periodically to review all of its rules every two 

years and eliminate those that are no longer necessary. 

IV. THE EXECUTIVE ORDERS ARE NOT SUFFICIENT TO ENSURE REASONED RULEMAKING

If fully implemented and enforced, Executive Orders 12866 and 13563 would go 

far towards ensuring reasoned regulation in the federal government. At least two 

limitations have prevented the full implementation of these Orders. 

First, as executive orders, these documents are not laws or rules under which interested parties can seek compliance or enforcement either through the executive 

branch agencies themselves or through the courts. 

Second, the Orders apply only to executive branch agencies, not independent federal agencies. The executive orders do not cover the Federal Communications Commission, on which I served, and other independent agencies. 

V. THE FCC DOES NOT EFFECTIVELY DOCUMENT OR WEIGH THE BENEFITS AND

COSTS OF ITS RULEMAKINGS

While the Executive Orders 12866 and 13563 are insufficient, they provide a 

framework for the evaluation of regulation that is entirely absent at independent 

agencies. It would help the quality of regulatory-decision making at the independent 

agencies to be required to comply with the executive agencies. 

Perhaps partly because it is not covered by the executive orders, the FCC does 

not directly weigh or even itemize the benefits and costs of a particular regulation. 

The FCC does not systematically consider alternative forms of regulation including 

no regulation. The FCC certainly does not focus on the alternative with the greatest 

net benefit. The only presentation of the costs and benefits of a regulation is an appendix for the Regulatory Flexibility Act. This appendix is at best an afterthought: 

a short, rarely read boilerplate passage that is outside the deliberative process. 

Sometimes it is forgotten altogether. I have seen little change in the regulatory 

analyses at the FCC since I left the Commission. 

I have seen even less attention at the FCC to the biennial review of all regulations under Section 11 of the Communications Act. After 15 years of Section 11 

being in the statute, the FCC has yet to review meaningfully all of its rules even 

once. Indeed, many if not most of its rules have never been formally reviewed at 

all. Those that have been reviewed have not documented cost-benefit analyses. 

Of course, the FCC, like every other federal agency, implicitly considers the costs 

and benefits of proposed and final rules. But the costs and benefits are rarely if ever 

formally presented. Rather than explain exactly how and why benefits would be 

greater than costs, and rather than explain the distribution and level of those benefits and costs, the Commission routinely recites the magic words—‘‘the public interest’’—as if it were possible for rules which plausibly had costs in excess of benefits 

to be in the public interest. 

VI. OUTSIDE PARTIES THAT PARTICIPATE IN FCC PROCEEDINGS DO NOT INSIST THAT THE

AGENCY CONSIDER COSTS AND BENEFITS OF REGULATIONS BECAUSE OF THE LACK OF

JUDICIAL REVIEW

The absence of judicial review of the regulatory process means that both the federal agency and the outside parties do not take the regulatory process seriously. If 

Congress were to alter the regulatory process, it would be important to have mechanisms whereby courts can review federal agency decisions. 

39 

Absent the prospect of meaningful judicial revision, outside parties that participate in FCC proceedings do not insist that the agency fully comply with either the 

Regulatory Flexibility Act or Section 11 of the Communications Act. Outside parties 

are reluctant to invest in an effort that will annoy a federal agency but have little 

prospect of a judicial remedy. Consequently, few if any parties bother to review either the initial and final regulatory flexibility analyses, much less comment on 

them. 

VII. FCC REGULATORY DECISIONS WOULD LIKELY IMPROVE WITH GREATER

CONSIDERATION OF COSTS AND BENEFITS

Careful and thoughtful consideration of costs and benefits of regulation could substantially improve the regulatory decision-making process at the Federal Communications Commission. Whether one agrees or disagrees with the new rules, it is impossible to determine from the Commission’s record whether the benefits of the new 

rule exceed the cost. The Commission provided no cost-benefit analysis for the new 

rule, nor did it explicitly consider and calculate the benefits and costs of alternative 

rules, including no regulation. 

The Commission is currently considering a wide range of new rules, some dealing 

with compensation among telecommunications companies, some dealing with spectrum, and still others dealing with the future of the broadcast industry. None of the 

proposed rules under consideration has a meaningful cost-benefit analysis. Nor do 

the proposed rules have a range of specific alternatives, including the option of no 

regulation. Based on documents that the FCC has provided the public, it is impossible to determine for each rule what the Commission considers to be either the 

range of benefits or the range of costs—and who will pay for those costs. The public 

has no basis to comment on whether the Commission’s assessment of benefits and 

costs of regulation are accurate because there is no such assessment. 

Not infrequently, Congress itself is alerted to new rules at the Federal Communications Commission that raise public concern. Late last year, the FCC adopted 

new rules for network neutrality. The FCC provided no meaningful assessment of 

costs and benefits in the final rules, nor specific consideration of alternative forms 

of regulation including no regulation. The FCC has not helped its cause by failing 

to provide at various stages of the regulatory process clear statements about the assessment of benefits and costs of its network neutrality rules. Had the Commission 

presented to the public such an assessment of the costs and benefits of these rules, 

and had the Commission accepted and incorporated comments on such an assessment, the Commission would today be in a much stronger position to defend those 

rules. 

Instead, the Commission is in the weak position of asking Congress and the public 

to trust its judgment to regulate sensibly. It cannot point to a document that lists 

the benefits and costs of the new rules and explains in straightforward terms how 

the benefits and costs were assessed, who will likely receive the benefits, and who 

will likely pay the costs. Nor can the Commission point to such a document that 

has been vetted by the public and modified to reflect public comment. 

The Commission’s neglect of accounting for costs and benefits of regulation is not 

limited to network neutrality. The Commission proposes and promulgates dozens of 

new rules each year, some more controversial than others. For none of the rules, 

controversial or otherwise, does the Commission prepare a document that either an 

economist or an ordinary citizen would consider a full accounting of the costs and 

benefits of each of the proposed or new rules. 

VIII. ASSIGNING TO A FEDERAL AGENCY THE RESPONSIBILITY FOR REVIEWING THE COMPLIANCE OF ALL AGENCIES—INCLUDING INDEPENDENT AGENCIES—WITH REQUIREMENTS FOR COST-BENEFIT ANALYSES COULD HELP STANDARDIZE PRACTICES AND GIVE

THE PUBLIC A MORE PREDICTABLE STANDARD OF ANALYSIS

It would be useful to designate a federal agency with responsibility for ensuring 

the uniform application of cost-benefit analyses across different agencies so that the 

public can more easily interpret agency findings. 

Mr. GOWDY. Thank you. I will ask a series of questions, and then 

recognize the gentleman from Tennessee. 

Mr. Furchtgott-Roth, picking up on what you said toward the 

end, why is it that no President to date has included a cost-benefit 

40 

analysis in the executive orders for independent agencies? They 

could have done so, right? 

Mr. FURCHTGOTT-ROTH. I believe they could have. I believe that 

one of the limitations is that most independent agencies, certainly 

when I was at an independent agency, I would have been reluctant 

to feel guided by an executive order. And that is, I think, one of 

the benefits of having a statutory remedy, that a statute definitely 

applies to an independent agency. It is an open question as to 

which executive orders apply to independent agencies. And the 

string of executive orders on cost-benefit analysis explicitly do not 

apply to independent agencies. 

Mr. GOWDY. What do you think the result of a cost-benefit analysis would be with respect to net neutrality? Walk me through 

what that analysis would be like. 

Mr. FURCHTGOTT-ROTH. The agency would have been required to 

at least put on paper what it views as the benefits of the rule and 

what it views as the cost of the rule. And it would have had to explain those benefits and costs. 

The commission does not have to do that, and what it does is it 

has other statutory requirements. I am not saying that it does not 

follow those. It does, but the net result we do not know because no 

one has ever, at least the commission has never done that. And it 

might have come up with a very different set of rules had it been 

required to have that benefit-cost analysis. 

Mr. GOWDY. Mr. Holmstead, toward the end of your testimony, 

you made a reference to friendly lawsuits allowing folks to skirt 

oversight. Can you give an example of that or extrapolate on that 

some? 

Mr. HOLMSTEAD. There are a couple of recent examples where an 

environmental group brings a lawsuit trying to argue that EPA 

should have issued a regulation. In at least two recent cases, it is 

far from clear whether EPA did have that obligation, if anybody 

had been kind of litigating that straight up, that the environmental 

groups did not really have much of a case. Notwithstanding that 

fact, EPA entered into a consent decree in one case to issue something called new source performance standards to reduce greenhouses gases from coal-fired power plants and from refineries, 

which had been a big target of regulation. There is no legal basis 

for that suit, especially to get them to issue the greenhouse gases. 

Notwithstanding that fact, they entered into a consent decree. They 

went to the court to get that consent decree blessed, and the consent decree includes a schedule which is extremely aggressive. And 

as a result, because the consent decree has a date that has to be 

met by court order, OMB might get 2 weeks to review a rule that 

is going to cost several billion dollars. And it completely prevents 

the kind of normal interaction and analysis that would go on. 

And I could give you a number of examples for the record, but 

they are, you know, allies of the agencies that enter into these lawsuits and certainly have the results, if not the intention, of avoiding regulatory oversight. 

Mr. GOWDY. Are there instances where you can cite agencies double counting the benefits, single counting the cost? 

Mr. HOLMSTEAD. And, again, I keep coming back to the Utility 

MACT Rule because it is a particularly egregious example. The 

41 

heart of the Clean Air Act is designed to force states to regulate, 

to meet these standards. And so, there are regulations on the books 

today that require states to reduce flying particles. And now, EPA 

has done this Mercury MACT Rule, which is supposed to be about 

mercury, but EPA says, well, we are going to get all these benefits 

from flight particles. And they take credit, again, for benefits that 

they are taking for in this other regulatory program. So, that may 

be not a very good way of explaining, but, yes, there are cases 

where EPA does double count the benefits in justifying different 

rules. 

Mr. GOWDY. Ms. Katzen, Cass Sunstein, I believe, I know he 

wrote a book on judicial review. I think he was a law professor and 

now currently with the current Administration. If my research is 

correct, he supports an executive order that allows judicial review? 

Ms. KATZEN. I would be reluctant to speak for him now. But I 

would say—— 

Mr. GOWDY. I was going to ask you for yourself on whether or 

not you think that is a good idea. 

Ms. KATZEN. No. I mean, I will speak to it, and, no, I think it 

is a very bad idea. During the Clinton administration and during 

the Bush administration, George W. Bush administration, there 

were attempts to provide for judicial review of those processes. And 

in both instances, both the Democratic and the Republican administrations, took the position that it would not be productive. As I 

said, it is a question of where is the proper forum to have that kind 

of analysis reviewed. There are issues whether, it be forum shopping to find the right court that will stop something or other issues. 

It is another level as part of the process. 

But judicial review does exist. If there are problems with the regulation, it will be challenged in court. And one of the basic tenants 

of administrative law is that it has to pass the arbitrary and capricious standard. It has to have substantial evidence. That material 

is in the record. But to have an additional clause that goes to the 

cost-benefit study and whether the benefits justify the costs, when 

you have part of the benefits being qualitative, not quantitative, I 

find it just mind blowing. And I have been practicing law for over 

40 years. To ask a Federal judge to go through that, it strikes me 

as being really quite an extension. 

If I may, Mr. Gowdy, I would like to answer your very first question because—— 

Mr. GOWDY. I will ask permission from Mr. Cohen because I am 

2 minutes over my time limit. So, I will—— 

Mr. COHEN. Permission not granted. 

Mr. GOWDY. Permission not granted, so I am going to recognize 

the gentleman from the great state of Tennessee, Mr. Cohen? 

Mr. COHEN. Thank you. Ms. Katzen, answer the first question? 

Ms. KATZEN. President Reagan was the first one to write the executive order. His advisers asked the Office of Legal Counsel at the 

Department of Justice whether the President had the authority to 

extend the economic requirements and centralized review to the 

independent regulatory commissions. He was told yes. He declined 

to do so for political reasons, not legal reasons. He declined to do 

so because he did not want to offend Congress. 

42 

When we drafted the executive order for President Clinton in 

1993, we went back to OLC. We asked them the exact same question. They gave us the same answer. They said, yes, he has the authority to do it. The President chose not to extend it for political 

reasons, not legal reasons. He did not want to offend Congress. 

It is for that reason that in my written testimony I give you several routes that you could take to achieve this, whether it be a 

sense of the Congress that the President could do it, or you selfdesignate an entity. It is there. It is possible. 

Mr. COHEN. Well, if Congress did it, little chance of offending 

Congress. 

Ms. KATZEN. If Congress did it for the IRCs, there would be little 

chance of offending Congress, particularly if the entity was who 

was going to review it was OIRA. 

Mr. COHEN. Let me ask you this. It does seem a bit, Ms. Katzen, 

in your testimony, and then, gentleman, if you all would like to add 

your comments. If you give the courts the right to make these decisions on the cost-benefits analysis, I do not know what their standard would be and how they would do it. And since of it is qualitative, are you not letting the courts then legislate and take value 

judgments that they have and make them law? And is that not 

somewhat antithetical to kind of the idea that you are supposed to 

interpret the law and not make the law? 

Mr. HOLMSTEAD. Can I answer? 

Ms. KATZEN. Well—— 

Mr. COHEN. Please, Mr. Holmstead? 

Mr. HOLMSTEAD. We are not asking courts to make those judgments. As I understand it, we are asking them to review whether 

the agency made a good faith effort to do that. That is a much easier inquiry for the courts than many of the things that they view 

today. I mean, if you look at the statutory provisions that judges 

deal with under the Clean Air Act, under the Clean Water Act, 

under the FCC, all sorts of things, there are much more complicated questions than whether the agency made a showing that 

the benefits justify the costs. 

So, I do not think it is a meaningful change. What I do think, 

though, is that agencies would take the requirement much more seriously if it were enforceable. So, it seems odd to me to say, well, 

we believe in these principles; we just do not want them to be enforced. 

Ms. COHEN. Ms. Katzen? 

Ms. KATZEN. If you read Dr. Graham’s testimony, he says that 

judicial review should extend to whether the agency has followed 

the guidelines set out by OMB in Circular A-4. I invite you, if you 

have insomnia, to read Circular A-4. It is 50 pages single spaced 

of alternative ways of calculating everything under the sun and 

throughout it says, ‘‘where appropriate,’’ ‘‘where appropriate, where 

appropriate.’’ 

Mr. Holmstead sas the inquiry is did they do it? I have not heard 

good faith. Has the agency met the requirements? Do the benefits 

justify the costs? Has the agency chosen the alternative that maximizes net social benefits? Those are result questions, not process 

questions. 

43 

Mr. COHEN. And that seems like, as I said—Mr. Furchtgott-Roth, 

if you would like to comment. It just seems to me that it does give 

a lot of discretion to the judge to make policy, which the Congress 

should be doing? 

Mr. FURCHTGOTT-ROTH. Mr. Cohen, the FCC is challenged in 

court on its rules on a routine basis. Many of those challenges have 

to do with compliance with the APA. Was there adequate public notice? Did the findings reflect the comments that were provided to 

the agency? 

The commission candidly has a very poor track record in court. 

The courts deal with that agency all the time, and I do not think 

it is the case that the courts necessarily get involved in legislating 

as you described it. A lot of times they simply say, you know, this 

is not in your statutory authority to make this judgment. 

I think right now, parties can and do go to courts on everything 

from they did not provide adequate notice in the NPRM, they did 

not do this, they did not do that. But if someone came to a court 

and said, this agency did not put on paper that the benefits of the 

rule exceeded the cost, the court would say, well, you know, they 

are not required to. 

Candidly, as a citizen, I find that result to be so profoundly disturbing for a government that requires agencies to document practically everything under the sun, but to say they are not required 

to demonstrate to the American public that the benefits of a rule 

are greater than the cost, I do not get it. 

Mr. COHEN. Well, I have a plethora of additional questions, but 

my time has expired. I yield back to the Chair. 

Mr. GOWDY. I am sure Mr. Cohen joins me in expressing the 

frustration of having such a distinguished and learned panel fall on 

an afternoon where our vote schedule impacted your schedule and 

our ability to have this hearing in a timely fashion. So, it was a 

treat to hear from each of you. I compliment you on your acumen, 

your professionalism, and, frankly, your civility toward one another. 

Without objection, all Members will have 5 legislative days to 

submit to the Chair additional written questions for the witnesses, 

which we will forward and ask the witnesses to respond as promptly as they can so their answers may be made pat of the record. 

With that, again, my apologies to all for disrupting more of your 

afternoon than we were originally planning on doing. And we 

thank you. 

[Whereupon, at 6:02 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.] 

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