Reg's - Obama administration skirts congressional review

The Obama administration is skirting congressional review of some major federal regulations by failing to designate the rules as economically significant, according to a study being released Tuesday by a Washington advocacy group. The American Action Forum, a center-right nonprofit group, said it found at least eight administration regulations that have an annual economic impact of $100 million or more, but which were not designated as “major” rules and therefore don’t fall under the Congressional Review Act. The regulations include the individual and employer mandates of the Affordable Care Act. “In total, these eight regulations have imposed more than $1.4 billion in costs and 8.7 million paperwork burden hours, but Congress has little oversight power if the administration ignores important aspects of the CRA,” the group said in its report, adding that the omissions “raise troubling issues of regulatory transparency and accountability.” The administration often has been a target of complaints by business groups and Republican lawmakers for imposing too many new regulations. A report by the Congressional Research Service last year found that there was a sharp increase in regulations during the first three years of Mr. Obama’s first term, followed by a drop in 2012...more