Regulation in the White House

Regulation was entering a transition phase during the presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson. He and his advisors explored the idea of deregulation in the economic sphere, while offering specific proposals for expanded social regulation to protect consumer, environmental, and health and safety interests. Regulation in the White House is the first general study of regulatory policy and its development in the Johnson administration and the first comprehensive study of any. Presidency and regulation. Based upon a thorough analysis of presidential papers in the Lyndon B. Johnson Library, the book investigates the working relationships linking the presidency, regulatory commissions, and executive agencies with regulatory responsibilities in both the economic and social spheres. David Welborn finds that the president's business included regulation as a major component. Johnson's concerns in regulation were complex, but most important were. Fulfilling his duties as chief executive and encouraging regulation that would be perceived as reasonable, judicious, and transcendent of narrow special interests. He and his aides worked assiduously and with considerable success to establish effective, cooperative working relationships with regulators and to avoid the exercise of undue influence on particular regulatory determinations. In Welborn's view, Johnson traversed the treacherous ground of regulatory politics. With adeptness and successfully realized his major purposes in regulation. David M. Welborn is a professor of political science at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.