Sept. 10 (Bloomberg) -- Cass Sunstein won Senate confirmation as President Barack Obama’s director of regulatory affairs, taking on the role of chief arbiter of debates on whether federal regulations are worth the cost.

The Senate today approved Sunstein’s nomination by a vote of 57-40.

“He will be fair, and not anti-business,” Senator Joseph Lieberman, a Connecticut independent, said during the Senate debate.

Some environmentalists had expressed concern after Sunstein’s nomination in April that his support for cost-benefit analysis would undermine regulations on climate change. In the Senate, opposition today was led by Republicans who said Sunstein’s writings, especially on animal rights, put him on the political fringe.

Arizona Republican Senator Jon Kyl said that Sunstein’s writings are “outside the mainstream” and suggest he supports giving animals lawyers to defend their rights, as well as public policies that value younger people over senior citizens.

The American Conservative Union, an Alexandria, Virginia- based public policy group, is sponsoring a Web site that calls Sunstein a “radical anti-hunting, anti-gun, animals rights law professor.”

Hunters Concerned

Lieberman said that hunters were concerned about Sunstein’s position on gun rights. Sunstein has offered assurances that he supports the individual right to arms and will take no steps to promote litigation on behalf of animals, Lieberman said.

“He is extraordinarily well-qualified for this position,” Lieberman said.

Some Senate Democrats from southern states, including Mark Pryor and Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas and Jim Webb of Virginia joined the Republican opposition to his confirmation.

The choice of Sunstein, a Harvard Law School professor and friend of Obama’s, concerned environmentalists because he backs weighing the cost of proposed rules against the benefits to health and safety.

“We hope that he won’t be an impediment, based on his past emphasis on cost-benefit analysis to the exclusion of other values,” said Frank O’Donnell, president of Clean Air Watch, a Washington-based environmental group. “We hope he will look at other values, such as protecting the environment.”

Former President George W. Bush’s appointees to the regulatory office supported cost-benefit analysis, as did the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a business lobbying organization.

“Progressives have expressed concern because Professor Sunstein’s long track record on regulatory issues is decidedly conservative,” seven law professors wrote in a paper earlier this year published by the Center for Progressive Reform, an Edgewater, Maryland, academic policy research organization.

Behavioral Law

Sunstein has focused on behavioral law and economics and wrote a book titled “The Cost-Benefit State: The Future of Regulatory Protection,” according to Harvard’s Web site. He co- wrote “Nudge” last year, which advocates that the government prod citizens into better and healthier decisions.

Sunstein told lawmakers at his nomination hearing in May that his approach to cost-benefit analysis is “inclusive and humanized.”

Michael Livermore, executive director of the Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University, said that cost-benefit analysis, “when done right, can help make the case for strong environmental protections.”

Sunstein is “a strong believer in good regulation,” Livermore said.

Sunstein’s wife, Samantha Power, a Harvard human rights scholar, resigned from Obama’s presidential campaign in March 2008 after calling his rival, Hillary Clinton, a “monster.” She later joined Obama’s administration as a national-security aide and is coordinating U.S. efforts to help Iraqi refugees

To contact the reporter on this story: Holly Rosenkrantz in Washington at hrosenkrantz@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: September 10, 2009 17:30 EDT