Making The Rules

"Graham heads an obscure agency in the White House called the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), which reviews hundreds of federal rules...With Bush facing stiff opposition in Congress to his energy and environmental legislation, the White House turned to rule-making to push much of its agenda. And Graham is the man pressing the levers and switching the gears.

While it's relatively simple to document how environmental regulation hurts businesses, the value of pristine forests, clean lakes and species protection can't be expressed in dollars. As a result, the ratio between costs and benefits often appears skewed.And when it comes to actually writing regulation, OIRA has a record of adopting language proposed by industry lobbyists, not environmentalists."