Trump has paused Obama-era regulations from taking effect. $181 billion in regulations have been frozen and have not taken effect.
On his first day in office, President Trump instructed Chief of Staff, Reince Priebus, to send a memo to all executive agencies imposing a regulatory moratorium that effectively froze all pending rules and regulations proposed by the Obama administration on their way out of Washington D.C. Now, accorded to a new study from the American Action Forum, that simple one-page memo from Priebus potentially saved Americans $180 billion.
According to American Action Forum (AAF) research, this memo put a hold on $181 billion in total regulatory costs, including $17 billion in annual costs, and 5.5 million hours of paperwork. This moratorium freezes 22 rulemakings with annual costs above $100 million and 16 measures with more than $1 billion in long-term costs.
From vehicle-to-vehicle communications to efficiency standards for air conditioners and furnaces, Obama’s parting regulations ran the gamut.
The largest rules subject to the moratorium are a mix of those still in the proposed stage, recently finalized, and concluded but not yet published. Below are the top five rules likely subject to the regulatory freeze:
- Vehicle-to-Vehicle Communications: $108 billion in total costs
- Efficiency Standards for Air Conditioners: $12.3 billion in total costs
- Efficiency Standards for Furnaces: $9.2 billion in total costs
- Hospital and Critical Access Reform: $5.7 billion in total costs
- Efficiency Standards for Uninterruptible Power Supplies: $4.6 billion in total costs