Progressives Want One of Their Own as Biden's Regulatory Gatekeeper

(Bloomberg) -- An under-the-radar personnel battle is taking shape over who will be the White House’s gatekeeper for federal rule making, as the Biden administration prepares to advance its agenda through regulations.

Progressive lawmakers and interest groups are pushing for one of their own to be appointed to lead the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, a division of the Office of Management and Budget that is little-known outside Washington but wields tremendous power over federal agencies.

Vanderbilt University law professor Ganesh Sitaraman was vetted and interviewed for the post months ago, according to three people familiar with the matter, and even underwent a background check. He is a former aide and protégé of Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and a college friend of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, giving him the activist profile sought by some liberals.

But the White House has not moved forward with his nomination. Sitaraman did not respond to a request for comment on this story.

“It is hard to envision who would be a good candidate for the job because OIRA is such a lightning rod for controversy, to put it mildly,” said James Goodwin, a senior policy analyst at the Center for Progressive Reform.

The business community, particularly the financial services, manufacturing, health care and energy sectors, is concerned that Biden’s OIRA leader could fast-track regulations that would raise their costs. Any nomination is likely to spark another fight with Senate Republicans, many of whom will oppose anyone regarded as friendly toward federal rule-making.

OIRA “is the most powerful corner of the federal government that no one has heard of,” said Ken Spain, a former Republican congressional aide and founding partner at Narrative Strategies, a firm that represents a number of businesses concerned about federal regulations.

“This has been an administration that has had zero hesitation to nominate very progressive individuals across the Cabinet and within the agencies. The hope from the business community is that whoever is nominated will be a more moderating force,” he said.

Obama’s Director

Progressives are focused on President Joe Biden’s choice for the job because many of them still feel stung by President Barack Obama’s OIRA director, Cass Sunstein, whom they regarded as an impediment to ambitious regulations. Labor and environmental groups in particular want an OIRA director with an expansive view of the federal government’s regulatory power.

“None of us in the advocacy community are eager to relive that experience,” Goodwin said about Sunstein’s tenure at the budget office. Sunstein, a Harvard law professor who is serving as a senior counselor at the Department of Homeland Security, declined to comment through an assistant from Harvard. 

Sunstein is a former contributor to Bloomberg Opinion, which like Bloomberg News is owned by Bloomberg LP. 

No president has taken as long as Biden to nominate someone to run OIRA since the position began requiring Senate confirmation in the late 1980s, according to Senate records.

Read more: Biden Without Rules Chief Aims to Rethink How Business Competes

The White House has a short list of potential appointees for OIRA, including Sitaraman, and will likely announce its choice after the Senate confirms Shalanda Young as director of OMB, in which the regulatory office is housed. Young has served as the acting director of the budget office since March 2021. 

Any nominee for the post will likely need to be approved by the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, which includes Democratic members from all parts of the political spectrum, including Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, a key centrist.

A White House spokesperson declined to comment.

Caretaker Leaders

The office needs a political appointee in charge, said Susan Dudley, a former OIRA administrator under President George W. Bush who is now director of the George Washington University Regulatory Studies Center.

“In the past, when there is not a political head, other people are making key decisions, but you do not know who,” she said. “If it is someone in the White House making a final decision on a regulation – and that happens even when there is a political head – Congress cannot call them and ask, ‘Why was this decision made?’”

“I think OIRA plays an important role to countering the tunnel vision agencies might have. Under President Obama, it provided a dispassionate second opinion,” Dudley added.

OIRA is currently run by a long-time career official named Dominic Mancini. For several months during Biden’s first year in office, an acting administrator, former Harvard professor Sharon Block, ran the office. She stepped down at the end of January and declined to comment for this story.

Her temporary appointment was applauded by progressives, who appreciated her desire to move quickly to overturn Trump-era regulations. In an article for the left-leaning magazine American Prospect, Block also argued for expanding OIRA’s authority so that it could quickly approve regulations related to the pandemic.

At the start of the Biden administration, the president signed an executive order that asked OIRA to modernize its process and figure out ways any regulatory review can promote racial justice, social welfare, equity, environmental stewardship and health and safety.

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