Senators question nominee for chief regulatory post

Senators on Monday closely questioned Susan Dudley, the administration's nominee to handle regulatory issues for the Office of Management and Budget, on academic writings that many see as reflecting an antiregulatory slant.

At a crowded hearing on the Senate's first day back in Washington after the elections, Susan Collins, R-Maine, Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee chairwoman, led a nomination hearing that focused largely on Dudley's positions on air- and water-quality regulations, fuel economy standards, and how the government values benefits such as citizen privacy and the federal minimum wage. Four Democratic senators joined Collins; no other Republicans attended.

For the past eight years, Dudley has written and worked, sometimes controversially, from the Mercatus Center, a think tank at George Mason University. In opening statements, she described those writings as sometimes provocative. "I believe my years of working with, studying and teaching about regulation will serve me well if I am confirmed .… I also recognize that my role will be very different from what it is now," she told lawmakers.

Collins and her colleagues focused on areas in which Dudley has criticized proposed rules or recommended against regulation. Critics from a wide-ranging pool of environmental, social and government watchdog groups have painted her work as hostile to the public interest, citing her strong preference for market forces over regulation and her role at the start of the Bush administration in developing a set of Mercatus recommendations to repeal or modify 44 federal regulations.

The Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs "should not become a place where environmental regulations go to die," said Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, in opening remarks. He argued that the position of the OIRA administrator is much more powerful than is commonly recognized.

The administrator wields significant influence, mostly by setting governmentwide policies, advising agencies on regulations and working with them on draft rules. John Graham, the previous administrator, who left at the beginning of 2006, had been opposed by many advocacy groups.

Collins focused largely on environmental issues including air and water pollution, citing the negative effects her constituents experience from other states' pollution problems. Questioning Dudley's willingness to account for nonmonetary benefits of enjoying clean air and swimming in fresh water, she referred to a popular TV commercial that describes some things in life as priceless. The administrator should not take the view that, "for everything else, there's OIRA," Collins said.

Dudley assured the chairwoman that cost-benefit analysis was just one means of evaluating regulations, and would not be the deciding factor in setting rules.

She said the government is getting "better and better" in the environmental arena, on privacy issues, and in approaching issues from a nonpartisan perspective. She dodged some questions on the grounds that she does not like to speak on topics outside her own research, avoiding a question on whether rules should be strengthened to protect consumers' financial privacy.

Responding to a question from the chairwoman, Dudley promised that if confirmed, she would look into a proposed regulation that would require the Maine lobster industry to upgrade its equipment to reduce the number of whales accidentally netted. Collins said that regulation would be unnecessary and damaging to the industry.

In a conversation with reporters following the hearing, Collins said she appreciated Dudley's openness and the distinction she made between a theoretically based academic approach to regulation and the more measured approach that would be required at OMB. She said senators' additional questions for the nominee would be accepted through Wednesday.