Harvard Law Prof Cass Sunstein Appointed Regulatory Czar
Barack Obama has appointed a former colleague and friend from the University of Chicago to become the regulatory czar in his administration.
Cass Sunstein, now a law professor at Harvard, “pioneered efforts to design regulation around the ways people behave,” the Wall Street Journal reports. He will become the administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, where he will review draft regulations throughout government agencies, according to the Washington Post.
The Wall Street Journal says the obscure job “wields outsize power” and will be instrumental in administration efforts to regulate financial services, control greenhouse gases and implement universal health care.
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal last year, Sunstein said Obama is “not an old-style Democrat who’s excited about regulations” for their own sake. Instead, Sunstein said, Obama is “a University of Chicago Democrat, so he’s very attuned to the virtue of free markets and the risks of free-market regulation.”
