Issa Statement on Obama Administration’s Release of New Regulations Agenda on the Last Business Day Before Christmas

WASHINGTON – On the last business day before Christmas at 3 p.m., the Obama Administration finally released the 9-month overdue Spring 2012 Unified Agenda of Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions (Unified Agenda). The Unified Agenda was initiated in the Reagan Administration to provide transparency to the American people of regulations working their way through the federal bureaucracy. In response to the extra-legal delay, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., offered the following statement.

“The Administration broke the law by withholding this document due in April until the end of the year, and broke the President’s promise to be transparent by releasing it at a time when they believed as few people as possible might see it. The Unified Agenda is designed to give American job creators the opportunity to plan ahead for new regulations. The Committee remains gravely concerned about the opaque process and the Administration’s determination to keep Congress and the American people in the dark.”

The White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, which oversees the production of the Unified Agenda, required all agencies to submit their proposed regulatory plan by April 13, 2012. Issa, along with House Judiciary Committee Lamar Smith, R-Texas, OGR Subcommittee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and Judiciary Subcommittee Chairman Howard Coble, R-NC, have pressed the Administration to release the Unified Agenda and explain its delay.