BREAK THE ADMINISTRATIVE STATE:
How major rules are surging under the Biden administration (Clyde Wayne Crews • 07/15/2024, Competitive Enterprise Institute)
We’ve taken a look at the total numbers of significant regulations issued this year in the Biden administration as well as at the subsets of those rules affecting small business and state/local governments.
We have also pondered implications of the Congressional Review Act and the pressure it placed upon the administration to issue its costliest and most ambitious rules before late summer.
Waiting too late would render rules vulnerable to being overturned by a Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution of disapproval should there be a change in administrations in 2025. That’s because the CRA stipulates that rules not finalized before the final 60 legislative days of the 118th Congress would be candidates for overturn.
Against this backdrop, on July 5, the day after Independence Day, the White House released the Spring edition of the twice-yearly Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions depicting agency rulemaking priorities.
The new Agenda depicts 3,698 rules in the pipeline from more than 60 departments, agencies and commissions. These rules are comprised of those at the pre-rule, active (proposed and final) and long-term stages, as well as rules completed over approximately the past six months (that is, since the Fall 2023 Agenda).
Among the 3,698, there are 287 “Sec. 3(f)(1) Significant” (S3F1) rules in the new Spring Agenda.