Legislators on the Senate Budget Committee gave a warm welcome to President Obama's nominee for deputy budget director on Tuesday.

Republicans on the panel did not show up to question or oppose Brian Deese, Obama's choice for second in command at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).

Deese pledged to bring renewed transparency to the regulatory structure, and Democratic lawmakers praised his focus on fiscal soundness and durable economic growth.

The court ruled that the CIA does not have to release photos of Osama bin Laden’s corpse to the public.

“We've found that the FEMA requirements ... seem to be a constantly moving target," said the city of Moore, Okla.

The bipartisan leadership of the House Natural Resources Committee wants the Interior Department to slow down development of revised rules unveiled last week to regulate oil and gas “fracking” on public lands.

The request to quadruple the public comment period from 30 days to 120 days underscores dissatisfaction with the proposal on the left and right, although not for the same reasons.

“We jointly believe that this [30-day] timeframe is unacceptable and not nearly long enough to allow the public to formulate in-depth and constructive comments on this 171 page, complicated rule,” Reps. Doc Hastings (R-Wash.) and Edward Markey (D-Mass.) wrote in a new letter to Interior Secretary Sally Jewell.

Wednesday's Federal Register will announce a number of advisory committees' meetings in the coming weeks. Here they are:

A Legal Services Corporation committee will hold a conference call on May 28 to discuss fundraising policies and other business.

A couple of new rules are scheduled to be published in Wednesday's Federal Register affecting defense acquisitions, animal drugs and everything in between. Here they are:

Plants and animals:
The Environmental Protection Agency is establishing a limit for the plant hormone 1-naphthaleneacetic acid on a variety of fruits. 

The Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) is preparing to decide which large nonbank companies will fall under increased regulation following the Great Recession, The Wall Street Journal reports.

The chairman of the panel, Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew, is set to brief the Senate Banking Committee on the FSOC’s work and the state of the economy. But The National Journal reports that the focus of the hearing is likely to turn to the ongoing scandal at the Internal Revenue Service.

Net neutrality regulations could actually undermine the openness of the Internet, according to The Washington Post.

Opinion: Newly unveiled rules on hydraulic fracturing do not go far enough to ensure water supplies are protected from chemicals, The Salt Lake Tribune opines. 

Green groups have used “sue and settle” tactics to force more than 100 new rules from President Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency, according to a new Chamber of Commerce study released Monday.  

Government regulations have not made sunscreen safer or more effective for consumers, a new report finds.

The Environmental Working Group's (EWG) annual analysis of sunscreen products found that rules out of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have not improved protection from the sun's rays.

"EWG’s analysis of 750 beach and sport sunscreens found that the new FDA rules have not led to dramatically better sunscreens than those offered in previous years," the organization said in a statement announcing the study.

Read more...