Effective Advocacy at the Federal Agencies

The Role of Cost Benefit Analysis and the Obama Administration

The Obama administration has promoted cost benefit analysis as a norm in agency rulemaking to avoid imposing economic burdens without corresponding gains.  An Executive Order of the President and pending legislation on Capitol Hill would extend the same cost benefit discipline to the rulemaking proposals at independent regulatory agencies. Against this backdrop, the regulated community faces the challenge of persuading regulators to accept their cost benefit arguments. How do you argue the economic value of saving a life or making an environmental impact on a future generation?

Based on their first hand experience with the administrative process, our panelists will discuss strategies for effectively advocating cost benefit analysis to federal agencies during the rulemaking process.  Our panelist will cover:

• How OIRA review of agency rulemaking proposals works;
• How to argue the economic value of policy proposals, and how agency decision makers react to those arguments;
• What OIRA review might mean for the independent regulatory agencies. 

The goal of the program is to highlight effective advocacy strategies that embrace cost benefit analysis.  Participants will learn how to maximize the persuasive impact of those valuations in a manner consistent with the OIRA review process.

Speakers
Nancy A. Nord, Commissioner, CPSC
Michael A. Fitzpatrick, Senior Counsel, GE and former OIRA Associate Administrator
Reeve T. Bull, Attorney Advisor, Administrative Conference of the United States