Unified Agenda of Federal Regulation Reflects Biden’s Campaign Against Transparency for the Administrative State

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The Biden Administration today released the Spring 2021 Unified Agenda of Federal Regulation, the first regulatory agenda for President Joe Biden.

CEI Vice President for Policy Wayne Crews said:

“The Biden Administration’s new Unified Agenda of Federal Regulations not only underlines his plans to significantly increase the amount of red tape Americans must contend with but doubles down on his campaign against transparency and accountability for the administrative state. The new Agenda reflects Biden’s revocation of important reforms from the last administration to inform the public about whether rules are ‘regulatory’ or ‘deregulatory’ – a tremendous blow to public disclosure whatever one thinks of using the administrative state as a means of governance.

“Overall, the Biden Administration’s rule flow as reflected in the Federal Register has been arguably less than alarming. However, the ‘active’ and ‘long term’ actions imply more to come, as the rule count in this new agenda contains 107 more than the final Agenda of the Trump Administration released in December 2020. That agenda also deemed 653 rules ‘deregulatory’ under its more transparent format, but thanks to anti-transparency policies from the Biden Administration we can’t make a direct comparison.

“There should be bipartisan support for re-instating transparency measures like the regulatory/deregulatory designations. The American people deserve transparency about the regulations with which they are expected to comply.”
Read more:

Crews: Why Biden Cannot Simply Revoke Trump’s Executive Order 13891 Requiring the Discipline of Guidance Documents