President Joe Biden has installed legal scholar K. Sabeel Rahman as the political head of the White House regulations office, nearly two years after he first entered office.
(Bloomberg) — President Joe Biden has installed legal scholar K. Sabeel Rahman as the political head of the White House regulations office, nearly two years after he first entered office.
Rahman will serve as associate administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. The office is little-known outside Washington but wields tremendous power over how federal agencies execute the president’s agenda.
It hasn’t had a permanent leader since Biden took office, making Rahman the top political appointee there.
No president has taken this long to nominate someone to run OIRA since the position began requiring Senate confirmation in the late 1980s, according to Senate records. The role will be especially important if Democrats lose control of Congress. Without a working majority on Capitol Hill, Biden will need to advance much of his ambitious agenda through regulation.
Biden’s latest regulatory to-do list, released in June, included nearly 2,700 agenda items that defined his ambitions to increase federal oversight of greenhouse gas emissions, transportation, and consumer privacy.
More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com
©2022 Bloomberg L.P.
