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1 1 (May 21, 2019)

handle is hein.crs/govzud0001 and id is 1 raw text is: Congressional _____ '~Research Service Informing the tegislative debate since 1914 OMB Issues New CRA Guidance, Potentially Changing Relationship with Independent Agencies May 21, 2019 On April 11, 2019, the acting director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued a memorandum to agencies on implementation of the Congressional Review Act (CRA). The memorandum discussed the types of agency actions covered by the CRA and, for some agencies, established a new process for determining whether rules are major under the CRA. The most noteworthy effects of the memorandum are its apparent changes to rulemaking procedures for statutorily designated independent regulatory agencies, sometimes also referred to as independent regulatory commissions(IRCs). Depending on how the memorandum is implemented, those changes could be significant for two main reasons. First, the requirement for IRCs to submit rules to OMB before publication could alter the relationship between the President (through OMB) and those agencies, which were statutorily designed by Congress to be at least partially independent from presidential control. Second, the memorandum could be interpreted as a new requirement for some of those agencies to engage in cost-benefit analysis. Presidential Control of IRC Rulemaking In 1981, President Ronald Reagan issued Executive Order (EO) 12291, which established centralized regulatory review in the newly created Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), located within OMB. Under the order, most federal agencies were required to (1) submit their proposed and final rules to OIRA for review to ensure consistency with the President's policy priorities and (2) conduct a cost-benefit analysis for major rules. These requirements applied to executive agencies (such as Cabinet departments) but not agencies designated under Title 44, Section 3502(5) of the United States Code as independent regulatory agencies. President Reagan's decision not to extend OIRA review to those agencies is widely understood to have been out of respect for Congress's decision to make those agencies independent. When President Clinton replaced EO 12291 with EO 12866 in 1993, he also chose to exempt IRCs from its requirements for OIRA review and cost-benefit analysis, reportedly for the same reasons. As such, the IRCs' development of rules has generally occurred without direct involvement of OIRA. Congressional Research Service https://crsreports.congress.gov IN11122 CRS INSIGHT Prepared for Members and Committees of Congress

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