Obama budget office insists ‘no regulatory tsunami’ on the way

There will be no “regulatory tsunami” from President Obama’s administration next year, the White House budget office insisted on Friday.

The claim came as the Office of Management and Budget released its annual regulatory agenda, which sets regulatory priorities for the upcoming year and announces rules that each agency plans to consider.

{mosads}The new regulatory book actually includes “fewer economically significant active rulemakings from executive agencies compared to the previous two agendas,” a senior administration official insisted.

This is despite pending rules included in the agenda that come from the president’s healthcare and financial reform laws.

The statistic “makes clear that there is no ‘regulatory tsunami’ coming from this administration,” the senior administration official said in a written statement.

Tom Donohue, the president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, coined the “regulatory tsunami” in a speech last year. He singled out the healthcare and Wall Street reform measures as being threats to the U.S. economy.

Business groups complain a backlog of old regulations still in the administration pipeline combined with new regulations on the way from two of Obama’s biggest first-term legislative achievements threaten to keep the nation’s economic recovery sluggish.

Executive agencies have only finalized 43 out of 132 “economically significant” regulations included in last year’s agenda. A pending regulation is considered economically significant if it would have a financial impact of at least $100 million on the economy.

The Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) has a maximum of 90 days to review each regulation dropped on its desk, but may file for extensions.

The administration argues it is paying careful attention to cutting regulatory red tape, ensuring cost efficiency and working to eliminate unnecessary regulations.

The official noted that Obama launched a review of regulations in 2011 intended to cut regulations that no longer made sense. Obama made the move months after Republicans won back the House as he made an effort to get closer to business.

“The administration is changing the regulatory culture to ensure smart, cost-effective regulations and to fix or eliminate out-of-date and ineffective regulations that needlessly burden American businesses and consumers,” the senior administration official said.

The official also argued that regulations issued just in the third fiscal year by the administration have had a net benefit of more than $91 billion, a figure that includes monetary savings and lives saved and injuries prevented.