From: lessgovt@gmail.com   
      
   Regulators Gone Wild   
   By The Editorial Board, Aug. 14, 2023, WSJ   
   The Supreme Court has reined in some of the Biden Administration’s   
   regulatory excesses, but the federal bureaucracy is relentless. And now the   
   White House is quietly changing its analytical methods to make it easier to   
   impose new rules while disguising    
   their cost. If you think regulation has been running amok in the last two   
   years, buckle up.   
      
   That’s the meaning of the update to what Beltway wonks call the   
   “circular,” which is guidance from the White House Office of Management   
   and Budget (OMB) that tells federal agencies how to calculate regulatory   
   costs. The guidance is meant to protect    
   taxpayers by requiring that any proposed regulation justify its cost, based on   
   standard criteria. OMB’s regulatory shop was established to be a check on   
   agencies that want to extend their power willy-nilly regardless of cost.   
      
   Now even that guardrail is coming off. In April President Biden issued an   
   executive order instructing OMB to “modernize the regulatory process.” By   
   “modernize” he means remove restraints.   
      
   Under Mr. Biden’s order, a “significant regulatory action” is redefined   
   as one expected to have a $200 million annual economic cost, up from $100   
   million currently. The cost side is then subjected to accounting gimmickry   
   that reduces the apparent    
   impact on the U.S. economy and society.   
      
   OMB also tips the benefit side of the cost-benefit ledger by allowing   
   consideration of the “global effects of the regulation,” not merely how   
   new rules affect Americans. That’s right. A perceived benefit for the world   
   can figure into the analysis    
   of a new rule as much as the cost to the people of, say, East Palestine, Ohio.   
   This is intended to be a particular green light for new climate regulation.   
      
   All of this doesn’t make headlines but it will have a bigger impact than   
   nearly everything Congress does. One of the casualties will be the states that   
   are the subject of rules, and the guidance rewrite is drawing fire from 26   
   state Attorneys General    
   who say the revision “turns federalism on its head.” In a letter to OMB,   
   the AGs write that the new rule will “decrease the utility of cost-benefit   
   analysis while increasing the power and flexibility of federal regulators.”   
      
   The letter says the revisions will also “encroach on traditional areas of   
   State concern” by claiming that State governments are not “effectively   
   addressing the issues at hand.” The Administration is “attempting to   
   manipulate the regulatory    
   process,” the AGs add, by “adjusting the discount rate and adjusting the   
   time horizon of regulatory analysis” so the presumed benefits of progressive   
   regulations seem to trump costs.   
      
   By lowering the discount rate, the Administration can make hoped-for benefits   
   that might occur years in the future weigh more heavily against the present   
   regulatory costs. The new draft would also grant the executive branch wider   
   authority for    
   regulations “promoting distributional fairness and advancing equity.”   
      
   The Biden Administration has already unleashed more regulatory costs on the   
   economy than any in recent memory—even the Obama Administration. Mr. Biden   
   first repealed the Trump Administration rule that for every new regulation,   
   two had to be repealed.   
      
   Then his regulators went wild. Casey Mulligan, a University of Chicago   
   economist, recently looked at the Biden rules through 2022 and said the   
   overall cost is $5,019 per household. That’s 15% more than the $4,353 cost   
   per household during a comparable    
   period in the Obama Administration. The Trump Administration had reduced   
   regulatory costs by $2,636.   
      
   According to the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Clyde Wayne Crews, the   
   Biden Administration has 297 “economically significant” regulations in the   
   pipeline, and his average has been 97 per year compared to an average of 69 a   
   year for Mr. Obama    
   and 49 for George W. Bush. That number will appear to fall if Mr. Biden raises   
   the bar for economically significant regulations to $200 million, which is   
   part of the point.   
      
   But don’t be fooled. Mr. Biden is setting new records as the super regulator   
   in chief, and all of us will pay for it.   
      
   https://www.wsj.com/articles/white-house-office-of-management-an   
   -budget-regulations-state-attorneys-general-980c0c2a   
      
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