President Joe Biden’s eagerness to change America through agency regulations is setting new records, and he’s already catching up to what his ex-boss, former President Barack Obama, did in two terms.
With little hope of pushing its agenda through a politically divided Congress, the White House has stepped up plans to unleash regulations on energy, trucks, and several financial products that could drive up costs.
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His plans are spelled out in the newly released “Unified Agenda of Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions,” the book of coming regulations put out by administrations.
Dan Goldbeck, the director of regulatory policy at the American Action Forum, reviewed it and found it includes a wave of hefty new rules.
“For perspective, as of last week, the Biden-era final rule cost total stood at $375 billion. If the final versions of the administration’s climate rules largely match the proposed versions, the Biden first-term cost total will be at a minimum $600 billion — essentially two-thirds of the total for both Obama terms,” Goldbeck told Secrets.
In his report, Goldbeck added, “While it appears at first glance that the overall regulatory flow associated with the report aligns with similar regulatory output trends over the past few years, a deeper look reveals that the 280 ‘major rules’ and 1,326 ‘significant rules’ included within represent high-water marks for both categories across the past decade.”
Biden signaled he would govern through executive orders and regulations on day one. He immediately erased a Trump-era policy of killing two regulations for every one put into place and suspended former President Donald Trump’s campaign to bring transparency to regulations coughed up by the “swamp.”
The government report highlights many of the new rules in the pipeline, especially those that will have a big economic impact on businesses and regular people. Goldbeck warned, “The Biden administration is anticipating more and more big-ticket regulatory items as it heads into 2024.”
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While Trump was no slouch in proposing his expensive regulations, he offered up about 200 in his last year. Biden is already at 280.
“These totals represent the highest levels across this 10-year period,” Goldbeck reported, adding, “This latest portrait shows that the Biden administration is putting forward its most consequential actions at an increasingly higher rate and that the implications of the timing involved in taking a regulation from the proposed to final stage likely plays some role in that dynamic.”
