WASHINGTON – On June 14, the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability held a hearing titled “Death by a Thousand Regulations: The Biden Administration’s Campaign to Bury America in Red Tape.” At the hearing, members and witnesses highlighted how the Biden Administration’s sweeping executive orders and unchecked regulations have jeopardized economic opportunities, raised costs on Americans, and hurt small businesses still attempting to recover from the pandemic. Members stressed that President Biden’s radical, costly, and burdensome regulatory agenda is a dramatic expansion of Executive Branch power and will cost American taxpayers at least $1.5 trillion dollars over the next decade. Members noted that the Biden Administration has also targeted the Trump Administration’s many meaningful, necessary, and cost-saving deregulatory actions. They concluded that America’s small businesses, workers and communities should be provided tools to achieve economic success and the committee will pursue legislative solutions to ensure commonsense regulatory reform.

 Key Takeaways:

The Biden Administration has morphed into a red tape regime that jeopardizes Americans’ ability to secure quality jobs, costs families more of their hard-earned money, and hurts small businesses.

• Mr. Casey Mulligan, Professor, University of Chicago: “The most notorious cost of regulation is the paperwork, sometimes known as ‘red tape.’ The federal executive branch alone issues thousands of new regulations each year that add to the 200,000 pages of federal rules already in place. One finding is that the rules finalized by the Biden Administration through the end of 2022 impose costs of nearly $10,000 per household, which is $1,300 more than the burden of the Obama Administration rules during the comparable timeframe.”
• Mr. Anthony Campau, Principal, Clark Hill Public Strategies: “The U.S. federal government is now issuing more rules at a higher price tag and a faster clip than ever before. According to one study, at its halfway point, the current administration had already imposed $318 billion in total regulatory costs and 218 million hours of annual paperwork burdens, as compared with the $208.7 billion of regulatory costs and 131 million hours of paperwork the Obama Administration had imposed over that same period.”

The Biden Administration’s regulatory overreach subverts Congress, aims to derail effective Trump Administration reforms, and will cost American taxpayers trillions of dollars over the next decade.

• Mr. Casey Mulligan, Professor, University of Chicago: “The Biden Administration has so far been adding regulatory costs at a rate of $617 billion per year of rulemaking, not counting regulatory costs created by statutes and other non-rule regulatory actions. President Trump’s approach not only avoided adding costs, but subtracted them. The cost savings from eight years of President Trump’s approach compared to President Biden’s is up to $80,000 per household.”
• Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.): “It is estimated that just three of the Biden Administration’s rules will cause $1.5 trillion to be spent over the next decade. We know what that means for businesses and consumers: higher costs of doing business, higher prices, and fewer choices in the marketplace. And we know that this overreach will only continue the expansion of Executive Branch power at the expense of the American people.”

Congress has a responsibility to ensure a commonsense, efficient, and results-driven regulatory system. The Oversight Committee will continue to hold the Biden Administration accountable for its extreme regulatory overreach and pursue legislative solutions to ensure commonsense regulatory reform.  

• Mr. Adam White, Senior Fellow, American Enterprise Institute: “Congress could legislate binding procedures and standards for the agencies’ regulatory impact analyses, ensuring quality and consistency across presidencies, through amendments to the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act. Congress could also consider requiring agencies to regularly undertake ‘retrospective review’ of existing rules, which could spur agencies to reform outdated or unjustifiable regulations, and at the very least would improve agencies’ evaluation of new rules going forward.
• Mr. Anthony Campau, Principal, Clark Hill Public Strategies: “The basic practices and procedures of the regulatory development process should not seesaw back and forth. Congress should step in and make the common-sense regulatory process reforms of the Trump Administration permanent.”

Member Highlights:

Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) emphasized that successful regulatory reforms implemented under the Trump Administration are being tossed aside in favor of a radical, excessive regulatory agenda. He stressed the importance of limiting bureaucratic regulations to help Americans and small businesses create, innovate, and thrive.  

Original source can be found here