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International Expert Dialogue

Defining & Measuring Regulatory Excellence

University of Pennsylvania Law School

3501 Sansom Street · Silverman Hall Room 147

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

March 19-20, 2015

Sponsored by the Alberta Energy Regulator

Agenda

Defining Excellence: Thursday March 19

9:30-10:30 am: Continental Breakfast and Registration (Great Hall)

10:30 am: Welcome, Introductions, and Context-Setting (Silverman 147)

• Wendell Pritchett, Dean and Presidential Professor, Penn Law

• Jim Ellis, CEO, Alberta Energy Regulator

• Cary Coglianese, Director, Penn Program on Regulation, Penn Law

12:00-1:20 pm: Lunch: A Common Case Study (Gittis 213)

To provide everyone a common frame of reference for our discussions to follow, we will hear from a former regulator who worked to bring one of the largest industries under his agency’s regulatory authority. This common case will raise many of the issues we will be exploring: what defines regulatory excellence, and how does one measure it?

• “Tackling Tobacco: Lessons in Regulatory Leadership,” The Honorable Dr. David A. Kessler, former Commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration

1:40 pm: Session 1: Regulatory Leadership and Accountability (Silverman 147)

As the lunch presentation will be open to the Penn Law community as well as participants in the Dialogue, we have asked Dr. Kessler to join us after lunch for a brief follow-on discussion in our dialogue group. This will afford us an intimate opportunity to exchange on some of the lessons presented at lunch.

Session 2: Defining the Regulator’s Mission (Silverman 147)

We start by asking: “Excellence at what?” Even when working in the same general regulatory field, different regulators may have differently defined missions. What defines a regulator’s mission? And what is a regulator to do when its general mission calls for it to address problems that, either because they are new or fall into gaps, are not precisely covered by existing policy directives?

Session 3: Attributes of Excellence: What Makes Some Regulators Better Than Others? (Silverman 147)

We next turn to the question of whether more generalizable attributes of excellence can be articulated that apply to regulators anywhere, regardless of differences in their particular missions. Should such attributes capture characteristics, actions, or outcomes?

5:30 pm Reception (Living Room, Inn at Penn, 3600 Sansom Street)

6:30 pm Dinner (Woodlands, Inn at Penn, 3600 Sansom Street)

• “Reflections on Regulatory Excellence,” Dame Deirdre Hutton, Chair, UK Civil Aviation Authority

Measuring Excellence: Friday March 20

8:30-9:00 am Breakfast (Great Hall)

9:00 am Session 4: Performance Metrics and Aggregation (Silverman 147)

It is not enough to define excellence. To know whether a regulator is moving closer toward excellence, measures are needed of the selected attributes. What are the qualities of appropriate metrics? How should performance on varied metrics be aggregated in assessing a regulator’s overall degree of excellence?

Session 5: Risk-Based Performance Management (Silverman 147)

How should taking account of risk affect judgments about regulators’ performance? What does it mean for a regulator to be “risk-based” and what implications does this have for performance management?

Lunch (Levy Conference Center – upstairs)

Session 6: Seeking Satisfaction or Substantive Results? (Silverman 147)

Some metrics of excellence might be related to decision-making or public engagement processes, while others will be focused on substantive outcomes. Some metrics might be operationalized using surveys of satisfaction (expert or the public), while others are based on independent, “objective” measures. Finally, some methods of measurement might simply take temperatures, while others will seek to attribute, causally, any changes in metrics to particular actions by the regulator. How should regulators confront these choices?

Conclusion: Bringing It All Together: Building a System of Regulatory Excellence (Silverman 147)

3:30 pm: Adjourn

Participants

Robert Baldwin
Professor of Law, London School of Economics and Political Science

Darryl Biggar
Special Economic Advisor, Australian Energy Regulator

Rob Brightwell
Deputy Director, Operations and Communications; (UK) Better Regulation Executive, UK Department of Business, Innovation and Skills

Filippo Cavassini
Policy Analyst, OECD

Tim Church
Vice President, Nation, International Stakeholder and Government Relations, The Alberta Energy Regulator

Cary Coglianese
Edward B. Shils Professor of Law and Professor of Political Science; Director, Penn Program on Regulation, University of Pennsylvania Law School

Jim Ellis
President and Chief Executive Officer, The Alberta Energy Regulator

Dan Esty
Hillhouse Professor of Environmental Law and Policy, Yale University

Adam Finkel
Senior Fellow and Executive Director, Penn Program on Regulation, University of Pennsylvania Law School

John D. Graham
Dean, School of Public & Environmental Affairs at Indiana University; former Administrator, Office of Information & Regulatory Affairs

Neil Gunningham
Professor, Australian National University

Kathryn Harrison
Professor, University of British Columbia

Brad Herald
Vice President, Western Canada, Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP)

John Hollway
Associate Dean; Executive Director of the Quattrone Center for the Fair Administration of Justice, University of Pennsylvania Law School

Bridget Hutter
Professor of Risk Regulation, London School of Economics and Political Science

Dame Deirdre Hutton
Former Chair, Civil Aviation Authority / Cranfield University

The Honorable David A. Kessler
Commissioner, Food and Drug Administration, 1990-1997; Professor, University of California – San Francisco School of Medicine

Eric Kimmel
Senior Advisor, Regulatory Operations & Economics, The Alberta Energy Regulator

Howard Kunreuther
Co-Director, Risk Management and Decision Processes Center, Wharton Risk Management and Decision Processes Center

Matt Lepore
Director, Colorado Oil & Gas Conservation Commission

David Levi-Faur
Professor, Hebrew University

Shelly Metzenbaum
President, The Volcker Alliance

David Mitchell
President & CEO, Public Policy Forum

Donald Moynihan
Professor of Public Affairs, La Follette School of Public Affairs, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Paul Noe
Vice President, Public Policy, American Forest & Paper Association

Marcus Peacock
Visiting Scholar, Regulatory Studies Center, George Washington University

Adam Peltz
Attorney, Environmental Defense Fund

Dean Wendell Pritchett
Interim Dean and Presidential Professor

Theodore Ruger
Professor of Law; Deputy Dean; Dean-designate

Chris Severson-Baker
Managing Director, Pembina Institute

Shari Shapiro
Research Affiliate, Penn Program on Regulation, University of Pennsylvania Law School; President, Calliope Communications

Michael Silverstein
Clinical Professor of Environmental and Occupational Health, University of Washington School of Public Health

Harris Sokoloff
Faculty Director, Penn Project on Civic Engagement, University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education

Gaurav Vasisht
Former Director, Financial Regulation, The Volcker Alliance

David Vogel
Professor, Haas School of Business, Department of Political Science, University of California, Berkeley

Wendy Wagner
Joe A. Worsham Centennial Professor, University of Texas School of Law

Dan Walters
Regulation Fellow, Penn Program on Regulation, University of Pennsylvania Law School

Peter Watson
Chair and CEO, National Energy Board

Additional Participants from Penn

Kaiya Arroyo

University of Pennsylvania Law School

Valerie Baron

University of Pennsylvania Law School

Alan Barstow

Director, Academics and Collaboration, Organizational Dynamics, University of Pennsylvania

Angus Corbett

Research Fellow, Health Care Quality, Organizational Governance, University of Pennsylvania

Elise Harrington

Kleinman Center for Energy Policy, University of Pennsylvania

Mark Alan Hughes

Professor of Practice, Penn Design, Faculty Director, Kleinman Center for Energy Policy, University of Pennsylvania

Matthew McCabe

University of Pennsylvania Law School

Eric Orts

Guardsmark Professor, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

Susan Phillips

Professor, Research Fellow, Carleton University, Visiting Fellow, University of Pennsylvania

Miriam Posner

Kleinman Center for Energy Policy, University of Pennsylvania

Andrew Schlossberg

University of Pennsylvania Law School

Zach Sinemus

University of Pennsylvania Law School

Discussion Papers

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