Donald Trump is far outpacing his promise to cut two regulations for every new one implemented. In fact, to the delight of fiscal conservatives across the country, he’s running circles around it to the tune of 16 regulations eliminated for each new one proposed.
The 16-to-1 ratio comes via numbers presented in a report this week from the Office of Management and Budget that shows the administration is holding true to its vow to be business-friendly, as opposed to the Obama administration which churned out regulations at a jaw-dropping pace. In Obama’s final year in office, the Federal Register, which lists the proposed and final regulations of federal agencies, set the record for the highest page-count ever: 81,640 pages.
As Reuters explains, the report issued by the White House Thursday shows that the administration has withdrawn or made inactive a total of 800 proposed regulations that were carry-overs from the Obama administration. The administration has also identified “nearly 300 regulations related to energy production and environmental protection it plans to rescind, review or delay across three agencies — the Environmental Protection Agency and the Interior and Energy Departments.”
The Washington Examiner‘s Paul Bedard provides some highlights from the OMB’s numbers that demonstrate the dramatic difference between the two administrations, including Trump “eliminating 16 old rules for every new one” and reducing, rather than greatly adding to, annual costs for businesses:
-In the last five months of fiscal year 2016, the Obama administration imposed $6.8 billion in annualized costs from economically significant rules. By contrast, the Trump administration has imposed less than $0 in regulatory costs during its first five months.
-Comparing Obama’s first five months in office to Trump’s, Obama imposed $3.1 billion in costs. Trump has cut regulations, realizing an annualized cost saving of $22 million.
-The administration is “ahead of schedule” on the 2-for-1 regulatory cut, banking 16 regulatory actions, including 12 cut by Congress.
The new administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Neomi Rao, made clear in a briefing with reporters this week that the new administration is just getting cranked up.
“It’s really the beginning of a kind of fundamental regulatory reform and a reorientation of where we’re going with regulation,” said Rao. “It’s a beginning … you’re going to see a rollback of regulations.”
Rao said that the real total of regulations that have been withdrawn or made inactive is around 860, with plans to cut by half those regulations that impact the economy by $100 million or more and reduce all others by 40%.
More from The Daily Wire on Trump’s deregulation agenda: