On the recordJanuary 24, 2011
As one who is firmly in the camp of not just supporting the benefits but the necessity of government regulation, I nonetheless welcomed the President's recent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal and his executive order to review the regulations we have in place. This is a unique opportunity to reframe at least part of the regulatory debate to satisfy both sides and better serve the public. The area of opportunity lies in creating a new generation of environmental protections that are performance based. Pioneering efforts to protect the environment, like the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act, were regulatory based that worked well for their time. Public health requirements, citizen expectations have evolved. Subsequent efforts have become more difficult, expensive, and time consuming. Having these agencies dictate specifics is not necessarily providing the most innovative, timely, nor cost-effective solutions. There is an alternative to rules-based procedures, command-and-control rules process. Such a model would give latitude to parties on how they comply with the standards for protection as long as they met or exceeded the requirement.
