President-elect Donald Trump, along with Congress' Republican majorities, could repeal at least 48 government regulations that cost $42 billion and 53 million hours of paperwork, according to the American Action Forum.
Republicans in Congress have posed regulatory reform bills in recent years, but President Barack Obama vetoed them all, the forum said. Now congressional officials and anti-regulation groups are adding up the regulations that the incoming president could eliminate, the Washington Examiner reports.
Trump, during his presidential campaign, called for a reduction of 70 to 80 percent in federal regulations. He is expected to focus on regulations that target Wall Street, energy, and healthcare, the Examiner's Paul Bedard said.
The American Action Forum's Sam Batkins and Dan Goldbeck noted the most costly regulations that could be cut. Among them:
- Head Start Performance Standards, which would save $5.632 billion and 1,019,473 million paperwork hours.
- Food Labeling: Revision of the Nutrition and Supplement Facts Labels, which would save $4.3 billion and over 2 million paperwork hours.
- Food Labeling: Serving Sizes of Foods That Can Reasonably Be Consumed, which would save $4.3 billion and 673,600 paperwork hours.
- The Overtime Rule, which would save $2.925 billion and 2,507,338 paperwork hours.
"Republicans have the opportunity to enact regulatory reform on a scale not witnessed since President Reagan … Although it is unlikely that Congress will cash in all its political capital to this end, several high-profile major rules — and their sizable burdens — could go by the wayside in 2017," Batkins and Goldbeck said.
CNBC reported that Republican Sen. Rand Paul said the GOP is ready to start cutting regulations. "You're going to find that we are going to repeal a half dozen or more regulations in the first week of Congress. And I'm excited about it because I think the regulations have been killing our jobs and making us less competitive with the world."