Political Quotes

“this is a nonpartisan CRA, which doesn't happen around here all that often. This is basically just public participation in good government. When the Administrative Procedure Act was passed in 1947, the Department of Health and Human Services didn't exist. And for about a dozen years, it didn't have much in the way of responsibility. And so it was exempt from the provisions of the Administrative Procedure Act that apply to public comment and public input on significant decisions in Agencies that apply throughout the Federal Government. In the early seventies, Elliot Richardson, who was President Nixon's Secretary of Health and Human Services, issued a waiver of the exemption. I realize it is a little contorted, but, basically, what he found was that the role of the Health and Human Services Department was vastly expanded after Medicare, Medicaid, and the other responsibilities that had been placed in that Department. So he said, in effect: We will be subject to the Administrative Procedure Act, and we will notice the major activities that we are going to do to the public, and we will allow public comment. It is not a veto. It is just a simple transparency of ``here is what our activities are going to entail,'' and it allows the public to comment. And that has been the law for 54 years, through six Republican Presidents, including Ronald Reagan and the first administration of Donald Trump.”