The Obama administration grew the Federal Register to a record number of pages in 2015, according to the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI). The Federal Register, which is the official publication for the federal government's rules, proposed rules and notices, contained 81,611 pages as of Wednesday.
"That's higher than last year at 77,687 pages and higher than it's ever been at 81,405 in 2010," wrote Clyde Wayne Crews, the vice president for policy at CEI, a libertarian think tank. "The presidential 'pen and phone' have been hyperactive. In fact, six of the seven record-high Federal Register annual page counts are attributable to President Barack Obama."
President Obama has issued 29 executive orders and 31 executive memoranda this year, including directives to expand paid family and medical leave as well as overtime pay, according to The Hill. Those are in addition to the 3,378 final rules issued by various agencies, such as the Environmental Protection Agency's Clean Power Plan and Waters of the United States rule, as well as the Federal Communications Commission's net neutrality rule. Of those final rules, Crews says 545 effect small businesses.
Another 2,334 regulations were proposed in 2015 and are still under consideration, many of which are expected to be finalized in the coming months.
But regulation "no longer stops with the rules we can readily count in the Federal Register," Crews said, referring to "Regulatory Dark Matter" such as guidelines and other documents, which can also impact the economy, reports The Daily Caller.
"There are several hundred guidances in effect acknowledged to be 'significant,'" Crews wrote. "And the Federal Register this year contains 23,901 'notices.' Most are insignificant, but lots of stuff gets buried there, and still more doesn't even appear in the Federal Register at all."
"No one even knows where to find all the agency 'guidance' that's out there. This problem cannot be ignored. Regulatory reform must address what happens outside the official, democratic lawmaking process," Crews added.
Crews said that in order to cut back on the number of regulations, Congress should repeal certain statutes, require congressional approval for major rules and enforce maximum requirements laid out in the Administrative Procedure Act.
"The House of Representatives passed the REINS Act (Regulations from the Executive In Need of Scrutiny) to do that, but the Senate seems disinclined to pass it and force President Obama's promised veto," he wrote. "If Congress isn't willing to force Obama to explain why unelected should make laws, it must be because the Republican Congress isn't willing to end over-delegation."
