Regulatory Reform

Policy Accomplishments for 2007

• Successfully modified Sen. Murray's (D-WA) Ban Asbestos bill (S. 742) to narrow the definition of "asbestos" to exclude "noasbestiform minerals."
• Successfully fought Democratic efforts to re-introduce overly expansive legislative language to the House version of the Ban Asbestos bill (H.R. 3339).

• Successfully opposed congressional efforts to accelerate the implementation date of mandatory Country of Origin Labeling (C.O.O.L.) on meat and produce by one year to September 30, 2007. The Chamber previously succeeded in getting a moratorium on mandatory C.O.O.L. provisions until September 30, 2008.

• Testified on two separate occasions before Congress on the importance of Executive Order 13422 to the regulatory process, noting that it would help increase agency accountability in the regulatory arena. When the House passed legislation that contained an amendment barring funding for the implementation of Executive Order 13422, the Chamber established a coalition with more than 60 associations and businesses to oppose a similar amendment in the Senate version of the bill. A Chamber-supported Motion to Strike the defunding provision was successfully accepted into the Manager's Amendment.

• Successfully supported House and Senate passage of their respective versions of the Openness Promotes Effectiveness in our National Government Act, which makes commonsense reforms to the way federal agencies process requests for documents under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The Chamber believes that this bill will dramatically increase agency accountability for FOIA decisions and ensure that the public is provided with information in a timely and transparent manner.

• Provided comments on the California Environmental Protection Agency's (CalEPA) proposed Green Chemistry Initiative, which has the potential to create a new regulatory structure for chemicals. The Chamber supports science- and risk-based chemicals management policies that protect human health and the environment, while ensuring product safety and promoting innovation in the marketplace.
   

• The Chamber partnered with the National Chamber Foundation to host the event Breaking the Barriers: The BIG Business of Nanotechnology. This event brought together key leaders in the nanotechnology industry.

Ongoing Activities:

• Convinced EPA to acknowledge, yet not take full responsibility for, the numerical errors in its online chemical databases. The Chamber arranged a high-level, interagency meeting to discuss the establishment of a task force dedicated to resolving data inconsistency.

• Filed comments with the Office of Management and Budget concerning its proposed statistical products directive, which would clarify data quality expectations for all non-economic statistical data produced by U.S. government agencies. The submitted comments aim to improve the clarity of the directive and strengthen the underpinnings of actions taken to ensure reliable and transparent statistical products. 

• Filed comments with the General Services Administration (GSA) on a proposed rule that would force federal agencies to migrate all their personal property sales to a GSA-approved Sales Center, devastating the private sector online auction industry. The Chamber discourages any interference by the federal government in the marketplace, particularly when it is unnecessary and drives up costs for American taxpayers.

• Successfully opposed the addition of several anti-business provisions to the Farm Bill, including anti-arbitration, dairy import tax assessments, and accelerated mandatory country-of-origin labeling provisions.