President Donald Trump signs a memorandum on Orderly Liquidation Authority, Friday, April 21, 2017, at the Treasury Department in Washington. Trump signed an executive order to review tax regulations set last year by his predecessor, as well as two memos to potentially reconsider major elements of the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reforms passed in the wake of the Great Recession. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
The Trump administration is making good on its promise to limit new regulations and kill old ones, setting a record low for issuing rules, a pace at just one-twentieth of former President Obama.
What’s more, a new regulatory report card said that the administration has proposed 6 million fewer hours of regulatory paperwork than the Obama administration did in its first 200 days.
And when it comes to eliminating regulations, the Trump administration has nearly equaled former President George Bush’s record setting pace while towering over rules withdrawn by the Obama administration, according to the report provided to Secrets by the American Action Forum.
“The results are substantial: new regulatory burdens are a fraction of those established under President Obama’s first six months; overall regulatory volume has slowed to historically low levels; and a number of notable deregulatory measures have been initiated,” said AAF’s Dan Goldbeck.
The report reviewed the first 200 days of regulatory actions by the Obama and Trump administration:
- Total final rule costs: $24.4 billion for Obama vs. $1.2 billion for Trump.
- Annual final rule costs: $4.2 billion for Obama vs. $378 million for Trump.
- Paperwork burden: 6,803,249 hours for Obama vs. 848,239 for Trump.
“Compared to the Obama administration, the Trump administration has imposed: 1/20th of the lifetime costs, 1/11th of the annual costs, and 1/8th of the paperwork. With nearly 6 million fewer paperwork burden hours, that amounts to the workload savings of roughly 3,000 full-time employees,” said the AAF report.
Goldbeck also found that the number of costly rules imposed by Trump are very low.
“In terms of both overall rulemakings and only those designated as ‘economically significant’ (an annual economic impact of more than $100 million), the Trump administration has set record lows in overall rulemaking volume. Only 41 rules,” said the report, adding, “For perspective, the next-lowest amounts for either measure were 180 and 28, respectively (both in 2001). The highest amount for either measure was 460 (in 1994) and 80 (in 2016), respectively.”
Trump has also promised to cut rules, and so far has slashed 16 for every one imposed, far more than his campaign promise to cut two current regulations for every new one imposed. The report said that the administration is reviewing rules that cost $55 billion.
“Many of the original rulemakings on this list took years for the previous administration to promulgate, and thus will likely take years to revise or repeal. But there is already movement on some of them. During the last week of July – just beyond the first 6 months window – agencies published proposals to roll back the Obama-era rules on ‘Waters of the United States’ and hydraulic fracturing (commonly known as ‘fracking’) that could collectively save nearly $350 million annually. Additionally, according to its first Unified Agenda, the administration sees the potential for up to $13.5 billion in annual savings from deregulatory actions in the pipeline,” said he report.
SOURCE: Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner‘s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at pbedard@washingtonexaminer.com
About Oklahoma Minerals Founder GIB KNIGHT
Gib Knight is a private oil and gas investor and consultant, providing clients advanced analytics and building innovative visual business intelligence solutions to visualize the results, across a broad spectrum of regulatory filings and production data in Oklahoma and Texas. He is the founder of OklahomaMinerals.com, an online resource designed for mineral owners in Oklahoma.
