 Darrell Issa |
Well, at least we can credit Darrell Issa with the courage of his convictions.
Our friends at OMB Watch brought to our attention that Darrell Issa, the new chair of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, has
“promised to publicly release responses he receives from 150 companies, trade groups and think tanks that he asked to compile wish lists of regulations they would like rolled back.” — from The Hill, “Oversight head to release business requests for regulation rollbacks“, 1/10/2011
We’ll be watching this list closely.
Communities and the environment rely upon federal oversight, present and future, to force resource extraction companies to account for the public good (to a greater or lesser degree, depending upon regulatory effectiveness) when operating. Without government oversight, these companies will and do simply ignore what’s in the public interest. And, sometimes, even with it.
In a sense, Issa has polled private industry to see where they think responsible operation is too expensive. It’s the very epitome of the fox in the henhouse.