Issa asks: ‘Where are the bad regulations?’

In the letter, Issa (R-Calif.) wrote that 43 major new regulations announced by federal agencies in the 2010 fiscal year had cost roughly $28 billion, according to Obama administration estimates. The letter was first reported by Politico. 

“The anti-business policies of the past have hurt job creators, small and large,” Kurt Bardella, an Issa spokesman, said in a statement. “It’s in the interest of every American that we create a regulatory environment that fosters economic growth and makes U.S. companies globally competitive.”

Democrats quickly pounced on the letter, saying it showed who Republicans were really trying to protect.

“This is even more evidence that House Republicans are in the business of protecting corporate special interests instead of creating middle income jobs,” the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee said in a statement. 

The news of Mr. Issa’s survey comes after key business leaders have complained about the level of regulation in the country and amid chatter over how the White House will use regulations in the coming months. 

Last month, news media reports detailed how the Obama administration was implementing both a policy on end-of-life planning and one that looks to designate more public lands as wilderness through regulation.

After those moves, Charles Krauthammer, the conservative columnist, wrote that the moves signaled that the president “will stage his ideological fights in yawn-inducing regulatory hearings rather than in the dramatic spotlight of congressional debate.” And even before that, Tom Donohue, the chief executive of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, had commented that what he called the “regulatory tsunami” was threatening job creation.