The Administration’s current regulatory agenda has 4,257 new regulatory actions. At least 219 will have an economic impact of $100 million or more

Regulating us into Economic Destruction

- Dr. Ileana Johnson Paugh
Saturday, August 27, 2011

In accordance with the law, the Executive Branch must document annually the number of new regulatory actions it plans for the coming year. The Administration’s current regulatory agenda has 4,257 new regulatory actions. At least 219 will have an economic impact of $100 million or more. That is an increase of nearly 15 percent over last year when it had 191. Americans have heard the Administration stating that some of these new economically significant regulations will have an economic impact of tens of billions of dollars.

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) sent a letter today, August 26, 2011, to President Obama, asking the White House to provide Congress before it returns this fall, with a list of all regulatory actions that would have an economic impact of $1 billion or more. Boehner sent a similar request for information last August 16, 2010 when he was the House Republican leader. The requested data was never provided.

Dudley says in Politico, “Some activity is required by new legislative mandates – particularly [Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform/Consumer Protection Act and Obamacare]. Others, including EPA’s regulation of greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act, are based on new judicial interpretation of statutes passed 20 or more years ago – and do not necessarily reflect the priorities of any recent Congress. But some are discretionary actions, like EPA’s pending decision to tighten ozone standards. That is likely to slow economic growth in thousands of counties across the nation and impose costs of $20 billion to $90 billion per year, according to the agency’s own estimates.â€