Extend White House regulatory review to independent agencies
What the document says“Regulatory analysis and OIRA review should also be required of the historically “independent” agencies as the Office of Legal Counsel has found is legally permissible.”
Independent agencies, such as the financial and communications regulators, have not generally submitted their rules to White House review. The chapter says regulatory analysis and OIRA review should be required of them too, citing an Office of Legal Counsel finding that this is legally permissible. It puts the word independent in quotation marks.
What the document actually says“Regulatory analysis and OIRA review should also be required of the historically “independent” agencies as the Office of Legal Counsel has found is legally permissible.”
These agencies should have to send their rules to the White House for review too.
Some agencies have long been kept apart from the White House. They write rules without sending them over first. The book says they should have to send them. It says a legal office has said this is allowed.
Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies
2025-02-18 · 90 FR 10447
Section 1 states that all executive departments and agencies, including so-called independent agencies, shall submit for review all proposed and final significant regulatory actions to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs before publication in the Federal Register, and section 3 amends the definition of agency in Executive Order 12866 to reach any agency under 44 U.S.C. 3502(1) plus the Federal Election Commission. That is the extension of White House regulatory review the passage asks for, applied to the same class of agencies. The fit is not complete: the order exempts the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and the Federal Open Market Committee in the conduct of monetary policy, reaching the Board only on its supervision and regulation of financial institutions; it covers significant regulatory actions rather than the regulatory analysis the passage also names; and it cites no Office of Legal Counsel finding, which is the authority the passage rests the proposal on.
The order makes so-called independent agencies send big rules to the White House first. That is the review the chapter asked for. But the Fed is left out for its money work. And the order rests on no legal finding, which the chapter had leaned on.