Dynamic Analysis, Welfare, and Implications for Tax Reform

From: The White House

Jason Furman, Chairman, Council of Economic Advisers

National Bureau of Economic Research Tax Policy and the Economy Conference

Washington, DC | September 22, 2016

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Administration’s Last “Regulatory Review” Adds $22 Billion in Costs

From: American Action Forum

President Obama signed executive orders (13,563 and 13,610) as part of an effort to “eliminate red tape.” The president told federal agencies to “modify, streamline, expand, or repeal” existing regulations. The final set of “retrospective reports” from the administration, released recently, reveal that executive agencies have added more than $22 billion in costs, up from $16 billion in the January 2016 update, and $14.7 billion in the July 2015 update. In addition to these net costs from an ostensibly deregulatory exercise, paperwork increased by 17.1 million hours.

Auer Deference Inside the Regulatory State: Some Preliminary Findings

From: Notice & Comment | A Blog from the Yale Journal on Regulation and the ABA Section of Administrative Law & Regulatory Practice

by Chris Walker

Yesterday we had three terrific posts on whether Auer deference actually makes a difference in the federal courts of appeals. In other words, do agencies win more when courts apply Auer deference (also known as Seminole Rock deference) to give an agency’s regulatory interpretation “controlling weight unless it is plainly erroneous or inconsistent with the regulation”—as opposed to de novo review or under the less-deferential Skidmore standard.

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Charting Midnight Regulation Before Dawn: August

From: American Action Forum

The administration approved 49 regulations last month. Total regulatory costs hit $8.9 billion, with $1.3 billion in annual burdens, and more than 26 million paperwork burden hours. Despite this output, there does not appear to be a surge in regulation thus far.

In our series tracking regulation in the final year of the Obama Administration, this month once again proved the administration is on a record pace to issue significant regulation. Last month, the administration approved 15 significant rules and that figure declined to 12 in August, but it was still more than any comparable period in the past 20 years.

OMB’s Resource Management Offices and Agency Policy Control

Editor’s Note: For additional insights into Professor Pasachoff’s research, please see here.

From: RegBlog | Penn Program on Regulation

The Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), part of the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB), is often called “the most important government office you’ve never heard of,” for its vast but secretive oversight over agencies’ regulations.

Rewards and Risks of a Federal Regulatory Budget

Editor’s Note: Below is the Part 4 of the Wayne Crews’ series of articles on regulatory budgeting. The earlier parts may be found here, here, and here. CRE’s website dedicated the implementation of a regulatory is available here.

From: Competitive Enterprise Institute

This week I began by making the case for a regulatory cost budget but wanted to spend time exploring looming pitfalls and political traps that could derail it or easily make it not worth supporting, or even rendering it something to actively oppose.