Reject Biden’s Regulatory Push

W ith few policy wins and growing pressure from his party to score a significant win before the midterms, Biden took executive actions on climate change.

These orders are the latest example of the Biden administration circumventing Congress to reach policy goals. Since taking office in January 2021, Biden has pursued a laundry list of regulations aimed at everything from financial services to the environment to railroads. In fact, a new report finds the Biden administration has implemented more regulations in its first year in office than any other administration in history.

Back in February, the Wall Street Journal reported growing anxiety and pushback from the business community, concerned about the negative impact that a rush to regulate will have on the fragile economy. The White House responded that nothing is being rushed, and that “standard rule-making” processes are being followed. Perhaps that is the problem.

The Regulatory Studies Center at George Washington University tracks the number of “significant” rules and regulations that take effect each year — the ones that create contradictions with other rules, have major budget effects, or alter Americans’ rights or responsibilities under the law. These are not your homeowner-association’s rules about mailbox color — these are significant regulations that have a substantial impact on the way Americans live and conduct business. Aside from the early years of the Trump administration, new significant regulations amount to hundreds every year going back to the early 1990s.

While Congress, elected and held accountable by the people, must pass laws that give agencies the authority to make rules, it has no input on the specifics of the regulations after delegating authority. Career bureaucrats and political appointees, however, create hundreds of laws each year that dictate what Americans can do and must pay for. Despite their broad power, bureaucrats still manage to overstep constitutional boundaries, as recently ruled by the Supreme Court in West Virginia v. EPA.

Proponents of an administrative state argue that agency staff have more time to tackle the detailed writing of regulations and, if left to Congress, little would get done. But slow-moving legislation is a feature, not a bug, of American governance. State Policy Network’s recent polling shows 53 percent of voters believe our system was designed to make change slowly, and that is a good thing. Furthermore, three-fifths of American voters, including a majority of Democrats, believe too many laws are made by appointed federal-government officials. And just 14 percent of voters have a high level of trust in government agency officials, a number actually lower than Gallup’s most recent congressional approval rating.

Governing by regulation also creates uncertainty that undermines the stability that Americans, and especially American businesses, need to plan for the future. It is now common practice for the incoming president’s chief of staff to issue an Inauguration Day memo halting the regulatory process until the new administration can review and align would-be regulations with their policy goals. Years of policy can disappear overnight — creating disruption and untold wasted resources of those preparing to comply.

Some agencies are considering restoring regulations originally created by the Obama administration and repealed in the Trump years. This highlights the wastefulness, confusion, and games now typical to circumvent Congress, which (in theory) has the sole authority to enact legislation.

There is no doubt the White House could use some policy wins after Biden’s 18 months in office. But using the agency rule-making process to pursue a policy agenda that should be debated and voted on by Congress is a troublesome, last-ditch effort to deliver on campaign promises. The Biden administration should lead by convincing Congress and the American people of the benefits of its policies, instead of trying to sneak them through a regulatory back door.