Free Republic

Fixing The Economy: It's been widely reported, both here and elsewhere, that President Obama is now engaged in a dramatic, last-minute regulatory binge that will require the efforts of both incoming President-elect Donald Trump and Congress to undo. What hasn't been reported is the cost: As Trump might say, it's yuuuge. It's funny how such things as the actual costs of new rules get lost in the shuffle. But those costs are significant... ...At 80,000 pages and growing, the Federal Register, the government's regulatory bible, has become a bewildering maze of rules, requirements and impositions on business that require accountants...

Billionaire investor Carl Icahn is expected to be named special adviser to the president on overhauling federal regulations, according to people familiar with the matter. Mr. Icahn, who has spent the past four decades battling big companies as an activist investor, already has been wielding influence in President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team. He is playing a central role in selecting the next chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, the people said. Interested candidates have reached out to him, and he is interviewing others at the request of Mr. Trump, the people said.

President-elect Trump's pledge to "drain the swamp" in Washington struck a chord with millions of Americans ... Clean Power Plan: After failing to pass cap-and-trade legislation through Congress, Obama had his political appointees at the EPA slap coal-fired power plants with greenhouse-gas-emission limits they knew the industry couldn't meet ... In doing so, EPA usurped the states' role in regulating electricity markets within their boundaries, and even commandeered the states to enforce its new policy. ... Paris Climate Change Agreement .. entails a substantial transfer of wealth from American taxpayers into the waiting hands of Third World potentates ... Waters...

2016 will go down in history as the year when the world finally saw sense. Nowhere will this be more apparent than in America’s bold and brilliant decision to elect Donald Trump who, in my view, is set fair to be one of the truly great U.S. presidents. I realise that this isn’t obvious to some people—even those who claim to be on the conservative side of the political argument. But after a recent trip to D.C. for some private briefings, both with his transition teams and with key members of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy, I came away more confident...

At virtually the last possible moment, the Obama administration on Monday rolled out new regulations making it even more difficult and more costly to mine coal in the U.S., a final shot against the already beleaguered coal industry as the president leaves office. The Interior Department’s Stream Protection Rule will go into effect 30 after its official release and publication in the federal register, meaning it likely will be implemented Jan. 19 — one day before President-elect Donald Trump takes office. Mr. Trump has vowed to undo much of his predecessor’s environmental regulations, including rules that target coal mining. The...

The Obama administration will leave behind a host of disputed recent actions and unfinished business on the environment — from shelved energy leases and blocked mining projects to pollution restrictions and decisions on hundreds of potentially imperiled species.

Safety: Shortly after the Surgeon General denounced e-cigarettes as a terrible public health threat to young people, a national survey showed that his fears are misguided, and his proposed "remedies" could cause more harm than good. The definitive Monitoring the Future survey found that "vaping" rates among teenagers dropped sharply between 2015 — the first year the survey asked about e-cigarette use — and last year. The share of high school seniors who reported vaping in the previous month, for example, went from 16.3% to 12.5%. At the same time, smoking rates among teens continue to fall. Just 10% of...

Is it any wonder the economy is flailing and the job market is down?   People and businesses are saddled under the financial burden of all these regulations!The Washington Free Beacon reports – The Obama administration has put forth 25 so-called “midnight” regulations, which will cost the economy $44.1 billion, according to a report from the American Action Forum.Midnight regulations are rules that are published after Election Day and before the next president is inaugurated in January 2017. Earlier this year, the administration estimated that there would be $5.2 billion in regulatory costs incurred during that time.The $44.1 billion in regulatory...

Regulations: Donald Trump will have a busy first day if he plans to undo much of the damage inflicted on the economy by President Obama. Nevertheless, here's one more item to add to his list: Overturn $1.7 billion in Dodd-Frank rules. The Dodd-Frank financial "reform," passed by Democrats and signed into law by President Obama in 2010, is arguably the most misguided and economically harmful piece of legislation ever imposed on the country (the second, arguably, is ObamaCare). As we've noted in this space before, one of the main reasons the economy has been stuck in neutral for the past...

Last week, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ruled that existing emissions limits for passenger cars for 2022 through 2025 should remain in place. It's a decision that is already opposed by lobbyists representing the auto industry, and possibly by the incoming Trump Administration. Sure enough, one automaker says it has already begun talks with President-elect Donald Trump that include a request for lower emissions targets.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) announced new workplace regulations requiring employers to accommodate the languages spoken by prospective hires and current employees or “face sanctions including fines and/or revocation of permission to operate.” Oddly, the EEOC cited “the growing diversity of the nation’s workforce as the justification for the new rule.” Under the new regulations requiring employees to speak or understand English is now deemed unlawful discrimination. “Employees have the right to communicate in a language of their own choosing,” EEOC Chairperson Jenny Yang argued. “It is the employer’s responsibility to learn the language of his employees or hire...

The new implementation of EPA rules on heavy trucks has boosted the 10-year regulatory burden on America past $1 trillion, 75 percent of which have been imposed by the Obama administration. That amounts to a one-time charge of $3,080 per person, or an annual cost of $540 ... each year every person, regardless of age, in the nation is responsible for paying roughly $540 in regulatory costs. These burdens might take the form of higher prices, fewer jobs, or reduced wages," said AAF's Sam Batkins ... The staggering amount is likely to surge even higher as President Obama scrambles to...

President Obama plans to unleash more than $44 billion in midnight regulations before the ink in his pen runs out, according to a review of the administration’s rulemaking agenda. This last-ditch effort to regulate before President-elect Donald Trumptakes over in January will cap off an eight-year period marked by a historic pace of rulemaking from the Obama administration. Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton was expected to maintain many of the same regulatory policies as Obama, but after Trump’s surprising victory in the 2016 election and his promise to institute a moratorium on new rules, federal agencies are scrambling put the...

Well, look what’s back: the instantly compelling and ultimately confounding parlor game of “What do we do about flag burning?” Dormant for years, largely because this is something virtually no one ever does, the flag burning issue is back. You could hear it knocking lightly when several idiotic pro athletes decided to lodge their concerns over policing issues by showing public disdain for the flag that is a symbol of the nation that has made them free and wealthy. Throw in the Donald Trump victory, which has dredged up some of the most hateful and juvenile reactions in election history,...

Tue Nov 15, 2016 Exclusive: Billionaire Green Activist Steyer Vows To Battle Trump, Says Money Not An Issue By Richard Valdmanis BOSTON Billionaire environmental activist Tom Steyer, who has spent more than $140 million on fighting climate change, said on Tuesday he will spend whatever it takes to fight President-elect Donald Trump's pro-drilling and anti-regulation agenda. The former hedge fund manager from California is putting together a strategy that will "engage voters and citizens to fight back" once Trump takes the White House in January, he told Reuters in an interview. However, he stressed he was not planning to fight...

Billionaire investor and Trump supporter Carl Icahn speaks with Fox Business Network's Neil Cavuto about the president-elect's proposals to reduce regulations on business and the energy industry, why working people supported Donald Trump, and whether or not he would consider taking a role in the Trump administration. About Trump's appeal to working people, Icahn said: "The pundits all wonder what happened, but I think it was extremely simple... Think of a middle-class guy working out in the middle west. The real question is not why did he vote for [Trump], but why wouldn't he vote for him?" "I said to...

That's how you defang the oligarchic beast!

Few states pay closer attention to food than California. We are the cradle of the Central Valley and almond milk lattes, the home of of Full Belly Farms and Alice Waters and Ikeda markets, the state that introduced America to soda taxes and tomatoes to die for and cage-free hens.

President-elect Donald Trump said throughout his campaign for the White House that he wants major investments in U.S. infrastructure, calling for $1 trillion on infrastructure projects during his presidency.He reiterated the point in his victory speech last Wednesday. “We’re going to fix our inner cities and rebuild our highways, bridges, tunnels, airports, schools, hospitals,” Mr. Trump said. “We’re going to rebuild our infrastructure, which will become, by the way, second to none.”However, major infrastructure bills are challenging pieces of legislation to pass, especially since Congress changed little in the election, says Todd Spencer, executive vice president of the Owner-Operator Independent...

Obama sets new record for regulations, 527 pages in just one day By @SecretsBedard) • 11/17/16 12:14 PM President Obama has just set a new record for rules and regulations, his administration spitting out 527 pages worth in just one day, as he races to put his fingerprint on virtually every corner of American life and business. According to the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the administration has just shattered the old record for pages of regulations and rules published by the in-house journal, the Federal Register. At 81,640 total pages for 2016, it ranks first and 235 pages more than all...