Republicans prepare to repeal regulations as Obama racks up record

The Washington Times discusses a regulatory record set by the Obama administration with Wayne Crews. 

The president is piling up the red tape just as fast as conservatives are plotting to cut it after he departs. The Federal Register, the government’s official book of proposed rules and regulations, grew a record 83,106 pages on Friday, with six weeks remaining in the year.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Clyde Wayne Crews of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, who tracks federal rule-making. “The Federal Register jumped up over 1,400 pages in one day [Thursday]. I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see this year finish out at well over 90,000 pages. [Mr. Obama] has not slowed anything down.”

While the number of overall federal rules tends to remain steady around 3,400 per year, Mr. Crews said, Mr. Obama has issued far more “economically significant” rules — those with projected economic impacts of $100 million or more.

…

Mr. Crews said he hopes the Republican-led Congress and incoming Republican presidential administration will use the opportunity to confront the rationale for rule-making across the federal government rather than attacking only individual regulations from the Obama era.

“They shouldn’t just be trimming back these agencies without questioning the categories of regulation — the idea that the federal government knows best what to do about privacy or cybersecurity or communications under the FCC,” Mr. Crews said. “It’s about criticizing the agencies themselves. They need to question that, too, not just the 150 rules that happen to be on the cusp between two administrations. What better chance has there ever been to try to do something like that?”

Read the full article at The Washington Times.