Thursday, February 7, 2013

Report: New Wave Of Regulations From Obama Admin Could Cost Billions




---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

BY: 
President Barack Obama’s administration is unleashing a host of new regulations that are expected to add billions in compliance costs for American small businesses, according to a new report.
Regulations issued in January and February following Obama’s reelection could add more than $25 billion to the costs of regulatory compliance for American businesses, according to the yet-to-be-released report by Sam Batkins, the director of regulatory policy at the American Action Forum.
“If the current trend continues, the federal government will add more than $138 billion in regulations in 2013,” Batkins concludes. “It is no surprise then, that businesses view new rules as a major obstacle to economic growth and job creation.”
Batkins told the Free Beacon the flood of new regulations lends credence to concerns the administration waited until after the 2012 election to issue them to avoid a political backlash.
Batkins cited the time it took last year for rules to be approved by the White House.
The White House waited more than 90 days to sign off on 84 percent of new rules in 2012—a rate Batkins says is 50 percent higher than in 2011.
A group of House Republicans, including Oversight Committee chairman Darrell Issa (Calif.), then-Judiciary Committee chairman Lamar Smith (Texas), and the chairs of both committees’ regulatory panels noted in October that the administration had not submitted its 2013 regulatory agendas, as required by law.
“Due to the impending election, it does raise concerns that the administration is holding back this information for fear it will be met with dissatisfaction by the public, or even worse, perceived as breaking the administration’s promise of regulatory reform,” the lawmakers wrote in an Oct. 26 letter to the White House Office of Management and Budget.
The flood of new regulations primarily deals with implementation of Obamacare, the Dodd-Frank financial regulation package, and new Environmental Protection Agency measures.