Cass Sunstein was the administer of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. The OIRA is given the remit to review drafted rules (ie regulations) that various federal agencies want to enact. The OIRA is supposed to perform an external cost-benefit analysis of the proposed regulations. OIRA is suppose to turn around rulings in 90 days.
While Cass Sunstein was administrator (2009 to 2012), various pieces of regulation were submitted for review, and ended up being reviewed for ~3+ years. Examples include:
* Requiring rear-view cameras (submitted for review in 2011, regulation finally passed in 2014 with a 2018 deadline for compliance)
* The silicosis workplace safety regulations (as mentioned - submitted in 2011, finally passed review in 2013)
* Coal ash handling regulations (from the EPA) delayed from 2009 to 2014
For the specific case of silicosis specifically, it doesn't appear that the OIRA ended up blocking the regulation, though it certainly slowed it down.
Some news articles:
* https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/attacks-on-science/white-ho...
* https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-regu...
* https://www.theregreview.org/2013/11/26/26-verchick-silica/
It is worth noting that these delays continued after Sunstein left office, and there's certainly evidence of OIRA significantly delaying review processes prior to Suntein's term as administrator.
Since the article is referring to "83 cases among countertop workers identified across the state [of California] since 2019", it's almost certain helmets would save more lives than anything you do about engineered stone. So what's the excuse there?
I'm not saying that we need more delays. I'm also not saying that there isn't room for more regulation here, but just slapping any poorly considered regulation down may not solve the problem.
It’d be interesting to see a cost-benefit analysis of OIRA’s cost-benefit analysis. All the delays aren’t free.
Even more surprising to me was Sunstein and his wife Samantha Power attending Henry Kissinger's birthday party after Power previously published a book basically pinning 150,000 deaths in Cambodia directly on him. They knew this guy is basically a war criminal and still went to celebrate his birthday.
In the old slashdot times, such a comment would probably have +5 insightful badge attached, here in HN in 2023, it is downvoted to hell.
I think this is poe’s law in action :) I did not read the reply as earnest.