In 2023 alone, more than $745 billion in regulations were promulgated by the Biden administration, adding to a huge financial burden the White House is placing on the country.
This information was provided to the Daily Caller News Foundation recently by the American Action Forum, a government watchdog group focussed on regulations.
For 2023, the Biden administration has far exceeded the number of regulations that were passed during both the Obama and Trump administrations. According to the AAF data, the Biden administration has added 743 new rules in the last two years.
Dan Goldbeck, an analyst at the AAF, commented to the DCNF:
“Since January 1 (2023), the federal government has published $745.2 billion in total net costs (with $129.2 billion in new costs from finalized rules) and 251.3 million hours of net annual paperwork burden increases (with 60.5 million hours in coming from final rules). [T]he Biden Administration heads into 2024 with to-date final rule cost and paperwork totals exceeding those of the Obama Administration by $173.7 billion and 91.4 million hours, respectively.”
The 743 rules that have been published by the Biden administration have a face-value of $447 billion, according to Goldbeck. They’ve also necessitated 277 million hours of paperwork.
Over his four years in office, former President Donald Trump published a total of 847 rules with a face-value of only $25 billion, with a paperwork burden of 65 million hours. The Obama administration published 1,095 rules at a face-value cost of $273 billion – and that was over eight years.
Goldbeck added that the Biden administration didn’t take any time off for the holidays in 2023, either. In just the last work week of the year – which was shorter because of Christmas Day – the White House added $45.6 billion more in total costs, adding 43.4 million annual paperwork burden hours in the process.
Among the regulations that were finalized late in the year came from the Department of Energy. The rule will establish new standards for energy efficiency that residential fridges and freezers must abide by.
The changes fall in line with the White House’s overall commitments to fighting climate change.
In a press release that announced the finalization of this rule, the agency wrote:
“DOE also estimates that these standards, once finalized, will cumulatively reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2.5 billion metric tons or more – an amount roughly equivalent to the emissions of 18 million gas-powered cars, 22 coal-fired power plants, or 10.5 million homes over 30 years.”
Yet, as with many of the Biden administration regulations, there is an undue burden that’s being placed on everyday Americans, at a time when many people are facing enough challenges as it is.
Republican Senator Katie Britt from Alabama called the Biden administration out on this last week, writing on the social media platform X:
“President Biden is eager to crack down on hardworking American families’ household appliances. This Administration’s agenda is backwards at every turn.”
