Holly Doremus Questions White House Review of EPA Mining Guidelines

-The Huffington Post, April 5, 2011 by Marcus Baram
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/05/tokyo-electric-knew-radia_n_845021.html

The EPA has announced that it will delay finalizing its guidance memorandum on Clean Water Act permitting for mountaintop removal mining projects, pending review by the White House Office of Management and Budget. The move worries those “hoping the Obama administration won’t completely cave to regulated interests,” says Berkeley Law professor Holly Doremus.

-Greenwire, April 7, 2011 by Manuel Quinones
http://www.eenews.net/gw/ (registration required; go to H:\Law School in the News\In the News 2011\News Clips for article)

Doremus maintains an agency guidance does not need review by the executive branch. “What [White House officials] are supposed to be reviewing is new legal burdens. A rule is something that imposes new legal burdens,” she said in an interview. “All this guidance does is say, look at all the existing laws and regulations, this is how we are going to enforce them.”

-The Charleston Gazette, Coal Tattoo, April 7, 2011 by Ken Ward Jr.
http://bit.ly/dMKQXw

In a post on the group’s blog, Holly Doremus, a law professor at the University of California at Berkeley, outlined some serious concerns: Why is the White House really involved? Because since the mid-term elections it has been only too willing to bend to big-money attacks on regulatory agencies.