Senators, protect us from the EPA

According Wayne Crews of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, President Obama issued 953 “major regulations” (meaning regulations with a cost of $100 million or more, or an impact the federal government deems otherwise significant) in his first three years, while President George W. Bush issued 30 such regulations during the similar period. According to the federal government, 3,807 new final rules were issued in 2011, and 4,128 more rules are now in the pipeline. Take just one agency, the Environmental Protection Agency. In 2010, EPA rules accounted for $23 billion in federal regulatory costs. Once just a peripheral source of pesky but absorbable costs, the EPA is now ground zero for regulatory damage. Seven of the 10 House bills now in Senate limbo aim to restrain the EPA.