Free Republic

Rules: The day before Memorial Day, the Obama administration released its list of regulations in the pipeline for the next year. Given the price tag involved, it's no surprise that they didn't want anyone to notice it.

After already socking the public, business and the economy with costly regulations, President Obama added another $110 billion in the last half year and is rushing to finish his second term with even more costly environmental rules, according to a taxpayer watchdog."The administration's time in office is coming to a close, so regulators will surely rush to finish its greenhouse gas and ozone standards before the next administration takes power," warned American Action Forum in a new analysis of the administration's latest report of new regulations.Sam Batkins, director of regulatory policy at the Forum, studied the twice-yearly released list of...

Since President Barack Obama took office on Jan. 20, 2009, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has issued 3,373 new final regulations, equaling 29,770 pages in the Federal Register and totaling approximately 29,770,000 words, according to a count of the regulations published in the Federal Register. The Gutenberg Bible is only 1,282 pages and 646,128 words. This means the new EPA regulations issued by the Obama Administration contain 23 times as many pages as the Bible and 46 times as many words. The Federal Register publishes documents, including proposed rules, notices, interim rules, corrections, drafts of final rules and final rules....

Obama To Circumvent Congress With ‘Gag Order’ On Firearm Coverage by AWR Hawkins 7 Jun 2015 On June 1 Breitbart News reported on Obama’s Spring 2015 “Unified Agenda.” The gun control measures contained therein which were to be passed by executive fiat. Since that time Representatives like Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY-4th) have placed riders on a DOJ appropriations bill to stop portions of the executive gun control push in its tracks. Now the NRA-ILA is revealing that the Obama administration is working behind the scenes to stifle reporting on firearms. From the NRA-ILA: Even as news reports have been highlighting...

The bill has arrived for all of President Obama's initiatives, from Obamacare to Dodd-Frank banking regulations to school lunches, and state and local governments are choking on the costs and paperwork mandated to comply with new laws, according to a new analysis. The tab: $35 billion in unfunded regulatory costs and at least 75 million hours of paperwork, according to American Action Forum, the center-right policy institute headed by former Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Holtz-Eakin. Obamacare is the biggest pain to state and local governments. The report said that just one element of the health "reform" costs states 27.1...

Michigan law is tilted so much in favor of traditional auto dealers that the staff of the Federal Trade Commission considers it anti-competitive, and has now said so in writing. Earlier this year, Sen. Darwin Booher, R-Evart, introduced Senate Bill 268, which would slightly dent a state-imposed prohibition against direct-to-consumer sales of motor vehicles by allowing autocycle manufacturers to sell new vehicles directly to consumers. Seeking input on the measure, Booher contacted the FTC and asked for comment. In response, the staff of the FTC’s Office of Policy Planning, Bureau of Competition, and Bureau of Economics, said that Senate Bill...

Companies in the United States are now facing more than twice as much litigation as companies in other countries. That’s the disturbing finding of a survey recently conducted by the third-largest law firm in the world. The firm, Norton Rose Fulbright, which happens to be the largest law firm in the world based outside the US, conducted a poll of more than 800 corporate counsel representing companies across 26 countries, and the results are not good for American companies or the job seekers who would like to work for them. While the survey is performed to identify litigation trends across...

Monday's edition of the Federal Register contains new rules for government-sponsored school meal programs, disclosing the compensation of senior executives at certain banks, and acquisitions regulations for government agencies. Here's what is happening: Global warming: The Obama administration is proposing new acquisitions regulations for the Department of Defense, General Services Administration and National Aeronautics and Space Administration. These federal agencies will try to procure materials that do not contain high global warming potential hydrofluorocarbons. "This will allow agencies to better meet the greenhouse gas emission reduction goals and reporting requirements," the agencies wrote. The public has 60 days to comment....

“The rights of private persons amongst democratic nations are commonly of small importance…the consequence is, that they are often sacrificed without regret, and almost always violated without remorse. But it happens that, at the same period and amongst the same nations in which men conceive a natural contempt for the rights of private persons, the rights of society at large are naturally extended and consolidated”, wrote Alexis De Tocqueville in Democracy In America. “In other words”, writes Tocqueville, “men become less attached to private rights just when it is most necessary to retain and defend what little remains of them.”...

I used to think if we had five Nino [Antonin] Scalias or five Clarence Thomases on the [Supreme] Court that we could make a lot of progress. And I have been disabused of that notion for the following reason: There were a series of four or five Supreme Court decisions from 1937 to 1943 which changed — well, changed isn’t the right word — unleashed the government from the constrictions of the Constitution. It unleashed them from being stuck with the enumerated powers, it redefined the Commerce Clause to mean manufacturing and agriculture even if it only has indirect effects...

Government: The private economy might be moribund, but the regulatory economy is doing quite well, thank you very much. Could it be that the two are somehow related?

Original headline-Report: Cost of Federal Regulation Reached $1.88 Trillion in 2014 U.S. debt exceeds the size of China’s economy The cost of federal regulation neared $2 trillion in 2014, according to a new report by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI). Ten Thousand Commandments: An Annual Snapshot of the Federal Regulatory State, a report by Clyde Wayne Crews, CEI’s vice president for policy, also reveals that the U.S. debt now exceeds the size of China’s economy. “Federal regulation and intervention cost American consumers and businesses an estimated $1.88 trillion in 2014 in lost economic productivity and higher prices,” amounting to roughly...

Energy and environmental regulations finalized by the Obama administration in the past five years come with a hefty price tag of $460.5 billion, according to data compiled by a center-right think tank. The American Action Forum’s Regulation Rodeo database shows that the Obama administration finalized 275 energy and environment regulations between 2009 and 2014, with the price tag of each regulation averaging $1.75 billion. And that doesn’t even consider the paperwork companies will have to complete. AAF data shows that Obama’s energy regulations have burdened Americans with 24.3 million paperwork hours. That means every year, Americans have to complete an...

When I came to Washington years ago, I had a revolutionary glimmer in my eye. I hated big government and I wanted to join a political movement to dismantle it. That was a long time ago, yet sometimes that rage kicks in when I read about the creeping socialism that is slowly destroying America.The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) put out a study today titled “Ten Thousand Commandments – An Annual Snapshot of the Federal Regulatory State.” The results will make you spitting mad.The author Wayne Crews, Vice President for Policy at CEI, found that federal regulation cost $1.88 trillion in...

resident Obama’s promise “to rescue the economy” and “[lay] a new foundation for lasting economic growth” in 2009 has rung hollow for the millions of young Americans still struggling five years into the economic recovery. Millennials are the first modern generation to have their potential for success obstructed by government policies, a little-discussed topic analyzed in “Disinherited: How Washington Is Betraying America’s Young,” a forthcoming book by the Manhattan Institute’s Diana Furchtgott-Roth and Jared Meyer. The authors credit the bleak prospects of millennials to the decades-long trend in Washington of expanding regulations and benefits that favor older generations while disregarding...

At the end of the process, we will have a large number of regulations that meet the criteria for being pointless, stupid or tyrannical. Let’s just ignore them and go on about our lives as if they didn’t exist. I propose two frameworks for implementing this strategy. The first would be a legal foundation functioning much as the Legal Services Corporation does for the poor, except that its money will come from private donors, not the government. ... The other framework would be occupational defense funds. Let’s take advantage of professional expertise and pride of vocation to drive standards of...

In late March, Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker issued Executive Order NO.562 to enforce regulatory pause and review by the Executive Department in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. As a result, Massachusetts will benefit from greater government accountability and a more business friendly environment. Executive Order NO.562 implements a one-year review of state regulations in an effort to eliminate those that are overly complex, costly and burdensome. The order declares that no state regulation may exceed federal requirements and only regulations essential for the public health, safety, environment or welfare may be left in place. Furthermore, the executive order states that agencies...

People who are trying to do good for their families and the planet by living a simple life based on traditional skills are facing yet another assault. Artisanal soap makers say new regulations, proposed by Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-California) and Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine), will put them out of business. Many soap makers are rural “kitchen table” operations that rely on the income to fund their simple living lifestyle. Some use milk from goats they raise and ingredients they harvest from the land. The Handmade Cosmetic Alliance posted this form on its website that can be used to reach out...

HSBC, Europe’s biggest bank, has ordered a review into whether it should move its headquarters out of Britain and potentially back to its former home in Hong Kong, threatening London’s reputation as a global hub for finance and investment. The announcement from HSBC, founded in Asia but a key part of the British establishment, prompted a warm response from Hong Kong, where it is revered as “The Bank”, and silence from the British government. The commitment to the review comes less than two weeks before British parliamentary elections on May 7 and poses challenges for both Prime Minister David Cameron...

The Federal Communications Commission recently adopted a plan to regulate the Internet like the phone companies of the 1930s. The decision is wrong for countless reasons, including an imminent reduction in investment and innovation. To undo these burdensome regulations, Congress should work together in the coming months to pass a law that both ensures the desired consumer protections everyone favors but forgoes the antiquated 1930s-style public-utility regulations. Let's take a step back. The FCC initially proposed last year to adopt a simpler set of rules guaranteeing that the Internet remains open and available to all users. This type of regulation...