THE
IDEALISTS
side of this, and they were on the
wrong side,” Aravosis said. “The
shit hit the fan.”
By November, Aravosis and
other gay activists launched a
“don’t ask, don’t give” campaign.
They vowed not to donate another
penny to the Democratic National
Committee or the Obama campaign until Obama kept his promises to the gay community.
For those hoping for an expansion of government regulations
protecting health, safety and the
environment after eight years of
devastating retreats, Obama’s selection of Cass Sunstein to lead
the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs was nothing short
of a betrayal.
Sunstein was an accomplished
intellectual in law and behavioral
economics, and one of Obama’s
old University of Chicago Law
School colleagues. But his approach to regulation was skeptical, not activist.
Watching Obama’s acceptance
speech in Chicago on election
night “gave me goose bumps,” said
Rena Steinzor, president of the
pro-regulation Center for Progressive Reform. But when Sunstein
was appointed, “that’s when I got
upset,” she said.
HUFFINGTON
11.04.12
Sunstein proceeded to delay,
micromanage beyond recognition
or simply scrap dozens of ambitious rules to protect people and
the environment. He and Obama
both started talking about the
dangers of excessive regulation
rather than the desperate need to
re-regulate in an era of financial
implosions and massive oil spills.
Steinzor saw the administration’s approach to regulation as
an obvious attempt to curry fa-
“IT’S EMBARRASSING TO
ME. WHAT DID HE REALLY
SAY OR DO THAT GAVE
US A REASON TO BE SO
OPTIMISTIC?”
vor with deep-pocketed corporate
interests. Its ultimate expression,
she said, was when Obama succumbed to a massive lobbying
campaign by the energy industry on September 2, 2011, and
blocked his own EPA’s sciencebased proposal to reduce smog.
“He was going back on a campaign promise that could have
saved thousands of lives,” Steinzor
said. Obama’s 2008 campaign platform explicitly stated that he would
“fight for continued reductions in