Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Obama Executive Order on Regulatory Issues

President Obama has released an executive order aimed at curbing burdensome regulations, increasing public participation and an open exchange of ideas. See
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/01/18/improving-regulation-and-regulatory-review-executive-order

I would submit that the recent decision of the Obama Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and Customs and Border Protection to ignore prior precedent and to extend import restrictions to "coins of Italian type" violates every precept the new executive order purports to support. See
http://culturalpropertyobserver.blogspot.com/2011/01/state-cbp-take-direction-from-aia-on.html and http://culturalpropertyobserver.blogspot.com/2011/01/state-department-imposes-import.html

The Executive Order mandates that the State Department and Customs and Border Protection should identify such burdensome regulations for possible elimination. One suspects, however, that the archaeological lobby will do all it can to make sure these regulations do not receive the scrutiny they so richly deserve. After all, the point of these regulations is to be as burdensome as possible as far as they are concerned.

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