I wish to take just a moment to speak about a subject that is very difficult for me to speak about and, quite frankly, difficult for a lot of Americans to speak about and hear about. It connects to all of us in extremely personal ways. Let…

It is an estimate, correct.

But the position has been that there has to be some kind of cost-benefit analysis.

What would you expect that they would do? What percentage or number that you would expect that they would do on a regular basis or is there a certain age to look at it and say, This rule is 30 years old and maybe it needs to be reevaluated?

But in a 20-year window, I would just say almost always the people that are paying the capital up-front are going to lose.

So I guess that is where we are trying to get on some of the assumptions.

Do you feel like you have the authority to be able to step into an agency and say, This is really important, this has to be done, or do you feel like that needs to be someone else or it is just really the agency that is going to make that…

the challenge of this--and I understand that budgets are tight on it and so it is difficult for agencies to prioritize their budgeting to go do a retrospective review

I have a company in Oklahoma that did not turn in their form to say they do not have any conflict minerals.

So the shift is what is interesting, I guess. If it is a reliable model and 3 years later you have to adjust it 50 percent, it causes all of us to raise our hand and say, Why is that a reliable model if you had to change it 3 years later…

I would suggest those kind of dates are necessary so that every agency sees the deadlines that are coming.

But it is obviously extremely important because when you are looking at cost and benefit, it is one of those factors that goes in that if it is not right, again when you look at a 20-year window or a 50-year window, it changes pretty…

It is always nice to start a hearing on government efficiency 30 minutes late.

So that the hard question is, can you commit to us you will follow through on Executive Order 12866 in 2016 and even in the rush to try to get some rules done at the end, we are still going to do due diligence at OIRA?

in the 1960s the Johnson administration led Congress to start allotting a small amount of money--of Federal funding from the Federal taxpayers to target schools and reach out to the poorest of the poor in America and try to help beat back…

If one side of the cost-benefit analysis is 20 years and the other side may go out 60, that is literally putting your thumb on the scale on one side and there is not a perception of fairness in between the two.

somehow we have to be able to balance that out, and if there is a need for additional authority or responsibility, we have discussed 12866

But it is a pretty significant input.

So how do you do the indirect benefits as well as indirect costs when you deal with something like the social cost of carbon?

Right. But there is a lot of authority there with the Executive Branch is where you have the ability to be able to have that dialogue where with the independent agencies it is only if they choose to come in and participate, and hopefully…

OIRA has a responsibility to be able to work with the agencies to say, This regulation that you are proposing has an effect or is connected to another regulation in another agency or one that they are planning.

How did you pick the four out of 676 rules that are out there?

So back to the 7 percent versus 5 percent decision on social cost of carbon, can you help us understand how that decision was made?

Right, but I am trying to get back to this 20-year amount that you say is what is typical.

How do you ensure agencies are periodically doing a retrospective review that is thorough and is rigorous?