The upshot of this is that regulatory policymaking has become centralized in the White House. Obama has appointed some decent regulators at the various agencies, but all of their work gets funneled through Cass Sunstein. The regulators are just trying to make do with too-small budgets to fulfill their responsibilities. They also have to constantly look over their shoulders to see how Cass Sunstein is kneecapping their recommendations. And the real-world effects of all this are huge.

The good folks at Center For Progressive Reform recently released their report on the issues surrounding Cass Sunstein, Obama’s pick for OIRA – the part of OMB with the power to kill off health, food, enviro, and any other regulation intended to protect us and the living world we depend upon.

What does the Office of Management and Budget have to do with our health and our environment? Well, the OMB effectively has the last word on the regulations Federal agencies write to implement Federal Law. For decades, OMB’s been where proposed Federal rules to keep poison out of our lives meet lethal doses of deregulation.