If you’re a small government conservative who is generally unhappy with President Trump, there’s a silver lining to his presidency.
There were fewer new regulations created during his first year in office than any year since the National Archives first started tracking this regulatory metric in 1976, Reason magazine reported this week, citing data compiled by the libertarian Competitive Enterprise Institute.
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This isn’t to say that the Trump administration is regulation-free (if only). On the contrary, it created an estimated 3,200 new regulations in 2017. Though that number may be a bit high for some, it is still far lower than in previous years.
Speaking of deregulation, the Trump administration is responsible for delaying or outright repealing at least 1,500 Obama-era rules, including one that gave the federal government more authority in land use decisions and one that would’ve given the Social Security Administration the power to regulate firearm purchases.
The slowdown also means the White House is making good on the president’s campaign promise to remove two regulations for each new one.
CEI’s vice president for policy, Clyde Wayne Crews, cheered the current administration for cutting back on red tape and for reducing the pace of new regulations. Still, he told Reason, there’s a lot of work to be done.
“These are good things, but there are warning signs,” Crews said. “President Trump’s own apparent affinity for strong antitrust enforcement and protectionist trade policies threaten to undermine the economic gains from his regulatory reform efforts.”
That said, if you’re the deregulating type, there’s also a lot to cheer in CEI’s new report.
“You can literally see how Trump stacks up against previous presidents by printing out the full length of the Federal Register, that annual behemoth that publishes every new rule issued by a federal department or agency,” Reason notes. “In 2016, Obama’s final year in office, the register ran to a record length of 95,000 pages—far ahead of the previous record, set just one year before, of 80,000 pages. Thirteen of the 15 longest registers in American history were authored by Trump’s two immediate predecessors.”
It adds, “Trump’s 2017 register? A mere 61,308 pages, the lowest count since 1993.”
Far be it from me to pooh-pooh a good stanching, but let’s not lose focus here: Real regulation reform goes beyond the executive. If this is to last, it’ll require lasting support from Congress. For small-government types, it’s great that the current administration appears dedicated to the mission of regulatory slowdowns and returning these issues to the states, but regulatory reforms will be temporary so long as the legislative branch isn’t on board.
As Crews told Reason, “Ultimately, permanent regulatory streamlining will require Congress to act.”
(h/t Shoshana Weissmann)
