ONE WITNESS NOTES RECENT SUBSTANTIAL INCREASE IN REGULATIONS COSTING $100 MILLION OR MORE
 

Washington, Jun 3 -

“Although regulations do serve the public interest, given that the Federal Register is at an all-time high of over 81,000 pages, it is essential to identify those regulations that can be pared back or eliminated to promote job creation and economic growth, which is a top priority of mine,” stated Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL), Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations.  Stearns today concluded his hearing on getting an update on the Administration’s regulatory reform agenda as a follow up on his January hearing with the White House’s regulation “czar” Cass Sunstein, Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), who testified again today with other witnesses.

During this hearing, Stearns learned that OIRA’s reviews are shorter in duration than those under previous administrations.  This is important because of the growing number of significant regulations.  William Kovacs with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce testified, “[D]espite a relatively stable number of new general regulations issued annually, the number of economically significant regulations – i.e., those costing the regulated community more than $100 million – has increased substantially.”  A chart by the Chamber indicated that a record 224 economically significant regulations were made in 2010 alone.

The hearing also uncovered that regulations were not opened to public comment or that those comments were largely ignored, even though the President’s executive order on conducting regulatory reviews requires seeking greater input from the public and stakeholders.  Stearns asked Sunstein if he knew that Health and Human Services Secretary Sebelius had published end of life rules under Medicare without public comment.  “I was not aware of that,” responded Sunstein.

Watch Stearns ask about End of Life rules under Medicare HERE

Stearns also noted, “The Environmental Council of the States, a group that represents the secretaries of state environmental agencies, identified more than 30 groups of regulations for review.  These are not big business leader – these are the state officials that…undertake about 90 percent of the enforcement actions.  Unfortunately, after reviewing the plan, it appears as though EPA officials in Washington overwhelming disagreed with, or ignored, the folks that actually implement the regulations they have identified as burdensome.”