Before joining FDA in 2003, Lutter was a resident scholar with the American Enterprise Institute and a fellow with the AEI-Brookings Joint Center for Regulatory Studies, where he wrote extensively on the economics of regulating health, safety, and environmental risks, covering air pollution including greenhouse gases, threats from mercury and lead, and food safety. From 1991 to 1997 he served at the Office of Management and Budget in the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, and from 1997 to 1998 he was senior economist for regulation and the environment at the President’s Council of Economic Advisers.