Venable partner Len Gordon was quoted in a May 2, 2013 FTC Watch article on President Obama’s nomination of Howard Shelanski to be the administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) in the Office of Management and Budget. The post is known as the regulatory czar because of the occupant’s significant role in determining which proposed regulations live and die based on a cost-benefit analysis.
“He is a brilliant economist,” Gordon said of Shelanski who currently serves as director of the FTC’s Bureau of Economics. “At the FTC what I was most impressed with was Howard’s ability to take complicated, sophisticated, sometimes abstract concepts and explain them in terms that people could understand. He has incredible intellectual rigor—he gets things. He is an easy person to deal with, really nice guy, very accomplished. He is disgustingly proficient—Supreme Court law clerk, a PhD economist, he’s a triathlete and apparently has a very cool car…Whatever position he’d be appointed to, he’d be a success. That’s a tough job that requires some intellectual rigor and also some common sense. I’m sure he’ll be great there.”
“He is a brilliant economist,” Gordon said of Shelanski who currently serves as director of the FTC’s Bureau of Economics. “At the FTC what I was most impressed with was Howard’s ability to take complicated, sophisticated, sometimes abstract concepts and explain them in terms that people could understand. He has incredible intellectual rigor—he gets things. He is an easy person to deal with, really nice guy, very accomplished. He is disgustingly proficient—Supreme Court law clerk, a PhD economist, he’s a triathlete and apparently has a very cool car…Whatever position he’d be appointed to, he’d be a success. That’s a tough job that requires some intellectual rigor and also some common sense. I’m sure he’ll be great there.”