A Smarter Approach to Regulation

Since taking office, President Obama has been committed to eliminating red tape and ensuring that when rules are issued to protect safety and health, they are sensitive to the economic situation and attuned to the importance of job creation and economic growth.

As this White House White Board shows, the net benefits, or the benefits minus the costs, of regulations issued through the third fiscal year of the Obama Administration have exceeded $91 billion. This amount, including not only monetary savings but also thousands of lives saved and tens of thousands of illnesses and injuries prevented, is over 25 times the net benefits through the third fiscal year of the previous Administration. What are the ingredients of these benefits? Part of the answer lies in the reduction of regulatory costs. President Obama has created an unprecedented government-wide regulatory “lookback,” designed to revisit rules on the books to see if they really make sense. Government agencies have identified over 580 reform proposals and already acted on over 100 of them. Just a very small fraction of those reforms, already finalized or proposed to the public, will save over $10 billion over the next five years and eliminate tens of millions of hours of paperwork requirements. This is just a beginning. As the reforms continue, we expect to be able to produce far greater savings.