The Clinton administration is paying far less attention to the cost-benefit ratio of proposed federal regulations than they received under his Republican predecessors, judging from General Accounting Office studies.

The agency responsible for reviewing the costs and benefits of proposed regulations is the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), part of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).

• Under Clinton, only rules costing more than $100 million are supposed to receive review -- whereas all rules were reviewed under Presidents Reagan and Bush.

• In the ten years before Clinton's first term, OIRA reviewed an average of 2,200 rules a year -- compared to only 460 reviewed in 1996.

• Between 1981 and September 30, 1993, OIRA returned to agencies for changes about 1.3 percent of proposed rules it reviewed -- as opposed to only 0.2 percent on average in the three years since then.

• Regulatory specialists say that since rules costing more than $100 million receive more scrutiny, agency bureaucrats routinely split costly regulations into two rules or estimate the cost at $99 million.

Those charged with scrutinizing the rules are reportedly very reluctant under the Clinton administration to return them to the originating agency. This has particularly been the case since the administration issued a plan several years ago to "deny promotions, bonuses and awards to (OMB) staff who are consistently the subject of valid agency complaints."

Source: Laura M. Litvan, "Who Regulates the Regulators?" Investor's Business Daily, March 18, 1997.