Risk Assessment & Management Commission

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President H.W. Bush established a Risk Assessment & Management Commission at the urging of his lawyer/counsellor and general political advisor C. Boyden Gray. Gray was a heir to part of the RJ Reynolds Tobacco fortune, and so he was probably acting on the urging of the tobacco industry which was then attempting to promote "Risk Science" (aka "Decision Science") as a new way for regulators and agencies to handle the calculations of all kinds of risks, using accounting-type cost-benefit analysis.

The aim, of course, was to put the so-called experts in this new 'Decision Sciences" in the box seat, rather than leaving regulation and legislation to the bureaucrats and legislators who drew on the judgements of toxicologists, epidemiologists, biochemists and environmentalists. By a President's executive order, the Bush administration impose on the health and environmental agencies a burden which it was assumed, it would be impossible for them to handle in opposition to the corporations. They were to be forced to clear all regulatory proposals through a centralised office along with a formal risk evaluation. This was being pushed through by the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) which is a subdivision of the WhiteHouse's Office of Management and Budget (OMB).

RISK SCIENCE ENTRIES
Risk Science, Analysis & Management
Risk Assessment History/tobacco
Risk Assessment & Management Commission
Task Force on Regulatory Relief (WhiteHouse)
Delaney Clause (Food, Drug Act)
RISK ORGANISATIONS
ILSI Risk Science Institute
Society for Risk Analysis
Harvard Center for Risk Analysis (HCRA)
Harvard Group on Risk Management Reform (HGRMR)
Resources for the Future
Coalition for Uniform Risk Estimation (CURE)
Institute for Regulatory Policy (IRP)

The OIRA has been a favourite way for corporate-minded Presidents to block regulatory agencies from acting (despite their Congressional mandates) since the days when lobbyist James J Tozzi ran the office under President Reagan.