Obama’s “regulation” czar

In January, President Obama announced that, perhaps, the federal government had too many regulations that, perhaps, could be stifling business, and, in the process, costing lots of money.  So, he appointed a “regulation” czar to cull through the gabillions of federal regulations, and make recommendations about what regulations were unnecessary, and should be rescinded.

This was happening at about the same time that the EPA decided that milk spills in dairy farms were truly very hazardous, and needed the federal government, not the barn cats, to deal this with horrific situation.  Thus, per the EPA, all dairy farmers were required to “develop” a government approved plan to deal with this toxic situation. We told you about this here.

Here is the good news.

Thanks to the “regulation” czar, Cass Sunstein, the EPA has decided that spilled milk isn’t all that hazardous after all, and this regulation now has been rescinded.  Funny thing here, Lisa Jackson blasted the Wall Street Journal (who told us about this nonsense) at a Congressional hearing.  Apparently, the “regulation” czar convinced her otherwise.

On to the bad news…

The federal government, through the Small Business Administration, sponsored an investigation into the costs, basically to all Americans, of complying with the myriad of federal regulations. Here is what the federal government’s sponsored study found…Americans spend more that $1.7 trillion annually to comply with federal regulations.

And,

…there are more than 4,000 new regulations now in the pipeline, and…in 2010 the bureaucrats set an all-time record by churning out 81,405 pages in the Federal Register, where new and proposed regulations are published.

Adding to that, of course, we still have to look forward to the regulations “needed” under Obamacare and the Dodd-Frank financial “reform” legislation.  For Dodd-Frank alone, 243 new regulations are required.

Federal agencies are supossed to estimate the cost of any proposed regulation, but, recently we learned that those estimates aren’t exactly accurate.   In a report issued by the Inspector General of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, we learned that,

For the four rules we examined, the cost-benefit analyses were drafted by Commission staff in divisions other than the Office of the Chief Economist…In one case, the lawyers even insisted that the only costs they needed to count were what a company would have to spend to find out if a rule applied to it, but not the costs of actually complying with the rule.

This truly is an administration run amok.

I wish Mr. Sunstein all the luck in the world…he will need it.

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SoundOffSister

The Sound Off Sister was an Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, and special trial attorney for the Department of Justice, Criminal Division; a partner in the Florida law firm of Shutts & Bowen, and an adjunct professor at the University of Miami, School of Law. The Sound Off Sister offers frequent commentary concerning legislation making its way through Congress, including the health reform legislation passed in early 2010.

12 Comments

  1. Linda Mae on June 1, 2011 at 12:02 am

    Hello,
    My brother Karl just returned from the Insurance Convention held in Miami.? He raved about one of the speakers (I think Dona Shalala – not too sure about the name – ) who had served with either Clinton or Bush.? She claimed that the admin just bought off the companies .? Perhaps you can google the convention info and get a transcript of her speech.? Karl has been on the insurance board in our town representing the Firefighters Union for @ 25 years and has seen ideas come and go.? He has myasthenia gravis – another auto immune disease – so I’ve carefully watched this issue because of him.? As you know, brothers are pretty neat people. 🙂



  2. Linda Mae on June 1, 2011 at 12:43 am

    Barbara- the conference was NCPERS.org. It was in Miami @ Fontainebleau
    .
    Donna was the keynote – she lists Miami U as where she works.
    ?



  3. Plainvillian on June 1, 2011 at 7:34 am

    $1.7 trillion annually?? 81,000 pages in 2010?
    We went to war over taxes that totaled about 14% and the concept of taxation without representation.? Who represents us against the regulators?
    Americans today are a lot more patient than than those 240 years ago.? Had George III mandated a nanny state, he might have had peaceful, compliant colonist sheeple instead of rebels.? Post Marxist totalitarians have learned well.



  4. Dimsdale on June 1, 2011 at 8:13 am

    Regulations are just the micromanaging that precedes a full descent into total socialism.? Big brother, aka your friendly neighborhood civil “servant”, know best, or better than you, anyway.? They know better than businesses, insurance companies, hospitals, grocers, scientists etc., etc., etc. how to run things.? And let us not forget: regulation of the regulation minutiae requires more and more petty bureaucrats, aka friends, family and partners (thank you Barney Frank) to “help” us run things.
    ?
    Did that $1.7 trillion include the costs of complying with the burdensome tax code?



  5. PatRiot on June 1, 2011 at 11:37 am

    The Ten Commandments, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights are tough?standards to live up to.? Yet easily carried around for quick reference.? Even the Book of Levitcus stopped at 600+ laws.
    I see no support for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness coming from Washington.
    And if you think Cass Sunstein is going to fix this, you better do your homework on the guy.
    A?wolf in sheep’s clothing says I.



  6. Tim-in-Alabama on June 1, 2011 at 12:37 pm

    After estimating it would cost me $37.45 to reply to this post, I decided not to comment.



  7. Eric on June 1, 2011 at 9:05 pm

    Honestly, I don’t ?know how to respond to these clowns anymore. When their lips are moving , they’re lying. When we can’t hear them speak, they’re thinking about lying, and when they’re not lying, they’re getting ready to lie.



  8. Dimsdale on June 2, 2011 at 7:59 am

    And after they lied, they are thinking about how they could have lied better!



  9. WagTheDog on June 2, 2011 at 10:41 am

    One czar to rule the environment
    One czar to rule the economy
    One czar to rule the education
    One czar to rule the drugs
    One czar to rule the security
    and One czar to rule them ALL!
    PBO IS Saroman!



  10. Political Entropy on June 2, 2011 at 11:18 am

    ?
    Obama’s matryoshka-doll approach to government.



  11. Shared Sacrifice on June 2, 2011 at 10:17 pm

    We’ve got 22.5 million people working for the government and just? 11.5 million working in manufacturing.? More Americans work for the government than work in construction, farming, fishing, forestry, manufacturing, mining and utilities combined…? http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704050204576219073867182108.html
    USA is the world’s #1 jailer- we’ve got more people in prison than Russia, China…?? And Obama is the man who said we need a “civilian national security force- just as powerful, just as strong, and just as well funded…” as our military!?? What the hell for?
    Obama montage:? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIJSsBVAk0E&feature=related



  12. Dimsdale on June 3, 2011 at 8:37 am

    Part of the problem is that we have people in our prisons that should be in prison in Russia, China, Mexico etc….



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