In the 1970s, under presidents, Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter, there was an explosion of regulations that put burdens on the people and delayed progress of innovation. The explosion of regulations brought with it an explosion of regulators and lobbyists to influence those regulators. Nixon introduced the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the Clean Water Act, and the Environmental Protection Agency. Carter followed up with the Department of Energy, the National Energy Act, and the Endangered American Wilderness Act. Then in 1980, Carter had his biggest wins ever, giving the EPA the funds and responsibility to clean up abandoned toxic waste dumps, and the passage of the Alaskan National interest Lands Conservation Act (more than 100 million acres were reserved). These acts are among many that put President Carter in the list of the five most environmentally friendly presidents in U.S. History.
But these regulations came at significant cost to our economy. According to one study from the Mercatus Center. Federal regulations over a 40 year period from 1980 to 2012 caused a reduction in our economy by 25%. But, in 1981, President Ronald Reagan did not need a 40 year study to know the impact of these regulations. By 1980, the Federal Register, the publication which lists regulations was about 73,000 pages long. The highest it had ever been before 1980. In Reagan's first annual address, he promised action in his first Joint address to Congress. First, Reagan created a Cabinet-level Task Force on Regulatory Relief to be headed by Vice president George Bush. Reagan also signed Executive Order 12291 requiring a cost-benefit analysis to be used as an aid to efficient decision making. While critics, argued that it required assigning dollar values to things which are essentially not quantifiable such as human life or the beauty of a forest, supporters insisted that it would expose the enormous waste of government dollars. Here are the words Reagan spoke on the subject in his first Joint address to Congress.
"American society experienced a virtual explosion in government regulation during the past decade. Between 1970 and 1979, expenditures for the major regulatory agencies quadrupled. The number of pages published annually in the Federal Register nearly tripled, and the number of pages in the Code of Federal Regulations increased by nearly two-thirds. The result has been higher prices, higher unemployment, and lower productivity growth. Overregulation causes small and independent business men and women, as well as large businesses to defer or terminate plans for expansion. And since they're responsible for most of the new jobs, those new jobs just aren't created.Four years later, Reagan issued Executive Order 12498, requiring regulators seeking to reduce health and safety risks to base their assessment on scientific risk assessments. Only those risks that were identified as "real and significant" can be considered. By time Reagan left office, the number of pages in the Federal Register was reduced to 53,000. Reagan cut out 34,000 pages of regulation. In addition Reagan cut the number of federal employees by about 15% from 121,000 down to 104,360.
Now, we have no intention of dismantling the regulatory agencies, especially those necessary to protect environment and assure the public health and safety. However, we must come to grips with inefficient and burdensome regulations, eliminate those we can and reform the others.
I have asked Vice President Bush to head a Cabinet-level Task Force on Regulatory Relief. Second, I asked each member of my Cabinet to postpone the effective dates of the hundreds of new regulations which have not yet been implemented. Third, in coordination with the Task Force, many of the agency heads have already taken prompt action to review and rescind existing burdensome regulations. And finally, just yesterday I signed an Executive order that for the first time provides for effective and coordinated management of the regulatory process.
Much has been accomplished, but it's only a beginning. We will eliminate those regulations that are unproductive and unnecessary by Executive order where possible and cooperate fully with you on those that require legislation."
Unfortunately, under the helms of President George Bush who had headed Reagan's task force on regulatory relief, regulation reform took a back seat, and from 1988 to 1992 14,700 more pages of regulations were added. Furthermore, by 1992 the number of Federal employees reached an all-time high of 124,994. According heritage.org, this rebound of regulations was having a weakening and debilitating affect on the American economy, harming both consumers and businessmen. In 1992, they found that unlike direct taxes, regulations go unnoticed, and are a silent killer that kills the growth of business. Regulations were being administered in a very arbitrary manner, creating laws with no real connections to purposes they were supposed to serve. Regulations were becoming so voluminous, no business, individual or even the regulators know exactly what they need to comply with. By 1992, it seemed the words and actions of Ronald Reagan were lost, and since 1992 the federal regulations continued to grow. Although the number of pages in the Federal Registry may be an crude way to measure the growth of regulations, it is noteworthy that under President Obama, the Federal Registry reach an all-time high of 81,405, and at the end of 2015 it remained at 80,260 pages. Except for 2008 under President George W. Bush, the Obama administration holds the title for highest number of pages in the Federal Registry 6 out of the top 7 years.
In 2017, 36 years later, a business man, by the name of Donald J. Trump reached back into Ronald Reagan's playbook. On January 30, 2017 President Trump signed Executive Order 13771 entitled “Reducing Regulation and Controlling Regulatory Costs", The order stated "that for every one new regulation issued, at least two prior regulations be identified for elimination" and that there is no incremental costs between all new and repealed regulations. It is still very early in the Trump administration, but many Americans will be watching the page count of the Federal Register to see if Trump 's actions will follow Reagan like his words have.
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=43425
http://www.nytimes.com/1981/11/07/us/reagan-order-on-cost-benefit-analysis-stirs-economic-and-political-debate.html
http://www.stateoftheunionhistory.com/2015/11/1970-richard-nixon-clean-air-act.html
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/primary-resources/carter-energy/
http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2016/05/12/technological-progress-stagnation-regulatory-explosion-1970s-column/84225066/
http://scribol.com/uncategorized/the-5-most-environmentally-friendly-presidents-in-u-s-history/
http://www.heritage.org/government-regulation/report/the-re-regulation-explosion-costs-and-consequences
https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/01/30/presidential-executive-order-reducing-regulation-and-controlling
https://cei.org/10KC/Chapter-2
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