Ten Thousand Commandments 2020

Ten Thousand Commandments is the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s annual survey of the size, scope, and cost of federal regulations, and how they affect American consumers, businesses, and the U.S. economy at large. Written by CEI Vice President for Policy Wayne Crews, it shines a light on the large and under-appreciated “hidden tax” of America’s regulatory state. The current edition marks 26 years since the first report was published as part of the Journal of Regulation and Social Costs in 1993. Federal government spending, deficits, and the national debt are staggering, but so is the impact of federal regulations. Unfortunately, the financial impact of these rules gets little attention in policy debates because, unlike spending and taxes, they are unbudgeted and difficult to quantify. By making Washington’s rules and mandates more comprehensible, Crews underscores the need for more review, transparency, and accountability for new and existing federal regulations. The 2020 report urges Congress to take responsibility by reviewing, debating, and voting on the most costly regulations. Specific reforms include: Executive Orders to permanently repeal recently waived regulations that were harming the coronavirus response, sunset dates for regulations, annual regulatory report cards with standardized, searchable information on existing and upcoming rules, and an independent regulatory reform commission to review existing regulations and recommend which ones to repeal. LINK

Highlights from the 2020 edition include:

• The aggregate cost of federal regulation remains more than $1.9 TRILLION annually – and that is a conservative estimate based on publicly available data from government, academia, and industry and the inherent unknowability of such costs
• The cost of federal regulation to each U.S. household exceeds $14,000 annually, on average. For perspective, that equals about one-fifth (18 percent) of the average pre-tax household budget and is the second-biggest budget item after housing.
• The $1.9 trillion regulatory burden is almost equivalent to the $2.5 trillion COVID-19 Phase 3 stimulus bill Congress passed in April 2020. COVID stimulus cost taxpayers $2.5 trillion, but regulations impose a more hidden cost of $1.9 trillion – ouch!
• The $1.9 trillion regulatory burden is equivalent to more than 40 percent of total federal spending, which was $4.447 trillion in 2019.
• The $1.9 trillion “hidden tax” of regulation exceeds the corporate and personal income taxes combined.
• The cost of regulation ($1.9 trillion) + the cost of spending ($4.4 trillion) is equivalent to 30 percent of the economy (GDP $21.43 trillion). In other words, the cost of regulation combined with spending effectively negated 30 percent of what the US economy produced last year.
• The number of new, final rules is way down under Trump: 9611 total over three years.
• The number of pages in the Federal Register – one sort of measure of regulation - are fewer under President Trump compared to his predecessor. Trump has averaged 66,490 pages per year, compared to President Obama’s annual average of 80,420 pages per year.
• For the first time, in fiscal year 2019, the administration did not meet the one-in, two-out goals as prescribed by Executive Order 13771. Instead of “one-in, two-out,” the ratio was 1.7 to one.
• The “Unconstitutionality Index”—the ratio of rules issued by agencies relative to laws passed by Congress and signed by the president — underscores the rise of the administrative state over the Constitution. There were 28 rules for every law in 2019 (there had been 11 in 2018, see Figure 23).

 Read the full report here

You have to wonder what the full cost of federal, state and local reg's and rules would be!

Ten Thousand Commandments 2017

Ten Thousand Commandments is the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s annual survey of the size, scope, and cost of federal regulations, and how the U.S. regulatory burden affects American consumers, businesses, and the economy. Authored by CEI Vice President for Policy Clyde Wayne Crews, Jr., it shines a light on the large and growing “hidden tax” of America’s regulatory state.
Federal government spending, deficits, and the national debt are staggering, but so is the impact of federal regulations. Unfortunately, regulations get little attention in policy debates because, unlike taxes, they are unbudgeted, difficult to quantify, and their effects are often indirect. By making Washington’s rules and mandates more comprehensible, Crews underscores the need for more review, transparency, and accountability for new and existing federal regulations. The 2017 edition of Ten Thousand Commandments is unique and will serve as a benchmark to measure President Trump’s efforts to cut red tape against those of his predecessors. President Obama’s final year in office showed a regulatory surge. Will Trump keep his promise and slam the breaks on overregulation?

View the complete report here. A fact sheet is here. A link to this intro + highlights is here.

EPA asked the public which regulations to gut — and got an earful about leaving them alone

By Brady Dennis

Last month, the Environmental Protection Agency put out a call for comments about what regulations are in need of repeal, replacement or modification. The effort stemmed from an executive order issued by President Trump earlier this year instructing agencies to reexamine regulations that “eliminate jobs, or inhibit job creation” and/or “impose costs that exceed benefits.” More than 55,100 responses rolled in by the time the comment period closed on Monday — but they were full of Americans sharing their experiences of growing up with dirty air and water, and with pleas for the agency not to undo safeguards that could return the country to more a more polluted era. “Know your history or you’ll be doomed to repeat it,” one person wrote. “Environmental regulations came about for a reason. There is scientific reasoning behind the need for it. It is not a conspiracy to harm corporations. It’s an attempt to make the people’s lives better.” “Have we failed to learn from history, and forgotten the harm done to our air, water, and wetlands?” wrote Karen Sonnessa from New York. “If anything, regulations need to be more stringent. I remember the days of smog, pollution, and rivers spontaneously combusting. EPA is for the people.” Some respondents made moral and religious arguments. “Reducing our dependency on fossil fuels and limiting the effects of climate change is one of the greatest moral challenges of our time,” the Rev. John D. Paarlberg wrote, defending the Obama-era Clean Power Plan, an effort to regulate carbon emissions from power plants that the Trump administration has vowed to roll back. “For the sake of the most vulnerable among us, for the sake of future generations, for the sake of the planet, please do not undermine the Clean Power Plan and other critical environmental protections.”...more

Some uncertainty surrounds Trump regulation-cutting order

...Dave Warner, a spokesman for the National Pork Producers Council, told Agri-Pulse that NPPC is generally supportive of the order as a means to make sure farmers, ranchers, and business owners “aren’t overburdened.” “While there’s constantly new regulations added, there’s never any taken away,” Warner said. “At some point, something’s got to give.” In the legislative process, bills passed by Congress commonly require rulemaking by executive branch agencies. Warner says that rulemaking can get to such a point where regulations might be duplicative or outside the intent of Congress. NPPC isn’t necessarily trying to slice current regulations to a lower quota, Warner said, but NPPC members think a healthy look at what’s on the books could be a good thing. But others aren’t so sure. “It’s unworkable,” Ferd Hoefner, senior strategic adviser with the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, said in an interview with Agri-Pulse. He pointed to how the provision could hit agriculture’s chief legislative priority – the upcoming farm bill – and keep it from being fully implemented. “Essentially, Congress would pass a new farm bill in 2018, and USDA would have to pick and choose a couple of things to implement because they (only) have a handful of things that they can get rid of,” Hoefner added. There’s also confusion about how the withdrawal of regulations would work. If a new regulation is produced by the Agriculture Department, would two USDA regulations need to go or would regulations from another department also be up for grabs? What about rulemaking that updates programs but is not a completely new regulation such as annual blending targets for the Renewable Fuel Standard?...more

This reminds me of a Will Rogers story:

 In 1914 the Germans were sinking U.S. ships in the North Atlantic. It was a turkey shoot because the Germans had the U-boat and we didn't. Somebody asked the American folk philosopher Will Rogers what we ought to do about it. He thought about it a moment and said, "Well, I think you should boil the ocean." The man was incredulous. "Boil the ocean?" "Yes," said Rogers. "I think if you heated up the Atlantic ocean, the submarines would rise to the surface and you could capture them." "But how do you boil an ocean?" the man asked. Rogers responded, "I've given you the solution. It's up to you to work out the details." 

Trump is making policy, and will let others work out the details.

Live by executive action, die by executive action

By Robert Romano

Whatever can be done with executive action can be undone by executive action.

That was one of the messages outgoing President Barack Obama had for his successor, President-elect Donald Trump in an interview with NPR, where Obama said, correctly, that “If he wants to reverse some of those rules, that’s part of the democratic process. That’s, you know, why I tell people to vote — because it turns out elections mean something.”

So, suddenly, upon assuming office, Trump could start immediately rescinding controversial executive actions, whether Obama’s executive amnesty for millions of illegal immigrants with U.S.-born children, or his decision to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility.

In total, Obama has issued 260 executive orders. Those could all be rescinded on day one, as there is no legal requirement they be retained.

There’s also a bevy of regulations, including the 2009 Carbon Endangerment Finding by the Environmental Protection Agency and its corollaries, the new and existing power plant rules, that constituted the agency’s expansive war on coal electricity.

...Those could be rescinded by the agencies that issued them, through the process under the Administrative Procedures Act, which could take a couple of years. Best to get started right away.

There is also the Congressional Review Act (CRA), which gives Congress the power to roll back with simple majorities regulations within 60 legislative days of being implemented. That goes back to June, and according to the Heritage Foundation, includes “many dozens of major rules [that] could be vulnerable to a CRA challenge. These include, among others: Rules under the Dodd–Frank financial regulation law, Sick leave for federal contractors, Offshore drilling rules, and Energy mandates for home appliances.”

...Then there is Obama’s executive action to indefinitely seal off much of the outer continental shelf in the Atlantic and Arctic Oceans from oil and gas drilling. Obama officials are bragging that this is one action that cannot be undone by executive action, although there is a clear process under the law for issuing new offshore drilling leases.

But even if an attempt to undo Obama’s action to block drilling via executive action got caught up in federal court, Congress could always just defund it or pass new legislation repealing the provision he invoked.

Speaking of which, Congress could always defund, or prohibit the use of funds to implement regulations and any other executive action. So, where all else fails — if for example litigants manage to preserve certain regulations and other actions via federal court mandates — there is always the budget and the power of the purse where Congress can intervene.

With that in mind, Congress could act preemptively, and defund what it can in the April continuing resolution, particularly controversial items the left is likely to sue over, to strengthen the President’s hand.

READ ENTIRE COLUMN

Robert Romano is the senior editor of Americans for Limited Government.

Report: Obama officials issued $216 billion in regulations last year

The Obama administration issued $236 billion worth of new regulations last year, according to a report from a conservative think tank. The analysis from the American Action Forum, led by former Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Holtz-Eakin, found that the administration added $216 billion in rules and more than $20 billion in regulatory proposals in 2012. Complying with those rules will require an additional 87 million hours of paperwork, the report said. The group put the total price tag from regulations during Obama’s first term at more than $518 billion. American Action Forum credited the administration for erasing $2.5 billion in regulatory costs last year, but said that paled in comparison to $34 billion in regulatory compliance costs reported by top companies since 2009...more