Below The Radar

by Stuart Shapiro

Whenever I am away from the blogosphere for a few days (this time for a trip to Las Vegas — where apparently free wireless falls below penny slots as an attraction for tourists), I am struck by how much policy is actually moving forward.  The highlights these past few days:

–The EPA and the National Highway Transportation Safedy Administration (NHTSA)  issued a document that contemplates raising mileage standards to between 47 and 62 MPG by 2025.  This would be a huge increase in mileage and would result in a significant decrease in greenhouse gas emissions.

–The Department of the Interior finalized rules on offshore drilling that:

details the proper cementing, casing and drilling fluid procedures that drillers should use in order to maintain wellbore integrity while drilling. The new rule also strengthens oversight of equipment, like blowout preventers, used to shut off the flow of oil and gas.

This likely paves the way for the end of the drilling moratorium.

— The FDIC has begun rulemaking that would require banks to retain some risk when they make risky loans rather than packaging all of them and selling them off as was common before the 2008 crash.  This got Congress’ attention because it put the FDIC ahead of four other agencies that are supposed to issue similar rules under the financial reform law.

You can love Obama or hate him but the one argument I don’t understand is that his administration isn’t doing anything.

By: Stuart Shapiro

Stuart is a professor and the Director of the Public Policy
program at the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers
University. He teaches economics and cost-benefit analysis and studies
regulation in the United States at both the federal and state levels.
Prior to coming to Rutgers, Stuart worked for five years at the Office
of Management and Budget in Washington under Presidents Clinton and
George W. Bush.