White House finalizes guidance expected to result in stricter regulations

The White House on Thursday finalized its effort to change how the government makes regulatory decisions — taking actions that are expected to enable the federal government to carry out more aggressive regulations. 

It published an updated version of guidance that informs how agencies dealing with issues ranging from food to the environment to worker safety make decisions. The finalization marked the first update to the guidance in 20 years. 

Ricky Revesz, who leads the White House’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, said in a statement that improved guidance can result in “better regulations, which, in turn, means lower costs for consumers; cleaner food, air, and water; less fraud and exploitation; increased workplace safety; more innovation; and a stronger economy.”

It instructed those agencies to give greater weight to an action’s impacts on the future, meaning, for example, that the potential for climate change-related damage could see more emphasis in an agency’s decision process.

Richard Newell, president of climate think tank Resources for the Future said the move is particularly important for climate change.

“It updates the methods for regulatory analysis to be more appropriate for issues — really for all issues, but in particular issues related to climate change — and it corrects certain flaws in prior guidance that tended to undervalue the long-term benefits of taking climate action,” he said.

Newell said agencies across the federal government will now be able to give more weight to the benefits of mitigating climate change, or the risks of not doing so.

“Using an approach that’s reflected in the new guidance increases the benefit from taking climate action by over threefold,” Newell said.

The White House’s guidance also clarified there are situations where it’s important to analyze regulatory impacts beyond the U.S.’s borders. 

And it provides more detailed guidance aimed at assessing the impacts of regulations in communities across different circumstances. 

The guidance aims for agencies to consider how a rule that reduces exposure to a toxin may impact communities differently based on other exposures to it or underlying health conditions. It also wants agencies to consider how gaining or losing $1,000 means more to a middle-class person than a billionaire.