Oversight Committee Releases Staff Report Detailing the Biden-Harris Administration’s Suffocating Regulatory Blitz

WASHINGTON—Today, House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) and Subcommittee on Economic Growth, Energy Policy, and Regulatory Affairs Chairman Pat Fallon (R-Texas) released a staff report titled “Death by a Thousand Regulations: The Biden-Harris Administration’s Campaign to Bury America in Red Tape.” The report documents the historic surge in federal regulations under the Biden-Harris Administration and details how these new bureaucratic hurdles have placed American households and small businesses under economic harm.

“To cement radical left-wing priorities, the Biden-Harris Administration spared no expense and pushed a whole-of-government regulatory blitz on American businesses and consumers. Today’s report shows the Biden-Harris Administration imposed a historic $1.7 trillion in new federal regulatory costs to fundamentally change American life. We know what these new regulatory hurdles mean for the United States: higher costs of doing business, higher prices, and fewer choices in the marketplace. This economy simply can’t afford to be tied down with red tape or buried under heaps of federal paperwork. Economic prosperity comes with economic opportunity, but the Biden-Harris Administration’s extreme regulatory overreach has only suffocated the American dream,” said Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.).

“Perhaps no other administration has gone as far as the Biden-Harris Administration has to unleash an avalanche of costly regulatory burdens. The Biden-Harris Administration has dramatically expanded Executive Branch power and morphed itself into a ‘red tape regime’ backed by radical activists. These regulatory burdens jeopardize Americans’ ability to secure quality jobs, raise costs on American households, and hurt small businesses. In the Oversight Committee’s staff report, we have exposed the Biden-Harris Administration’s extreme regulatory overreach and its negative affect on American taxpayers’ daily lives. Americans need to be brought back to the commonsense, cost-saving regulatory reforms of the Trump-era,” said Subcommittee Chairman Pat Fallon (R-Texas).

Below are key findings from the report:

As of August 30, 2024, the Biden-Harris Administration has imposed an estimated $1.7 trillion in cumulative regulatory costs on the economy, surpassing all predecessors. The Administration also has imposed over three hundred million regulatory paperwork hours, placing enormous compliance burdens on businesses and consumers.

Consumers continue to struggle under economic pressures—including drastically higher prices for essential goods and housing. The Biden-Harris Administration’s crushing regulatory burdens only make it harder for America’s households and small businesses to thrive. The regressive nature of overregulation will impact low-income households even more significantly.

The most egregious contributor to these astronomical costs is the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which alone has imposed an estimated $1.3 trillion in costs. One regulation alone—EPA’s electric vehicle mandate for light- and medium-duty vehicles—accounted for nearly $900 billion in costs with substantial economic ramifications across the economy.

The Trump Administration made significant strides to rein in the out-of-control regulatory state by rescinding outdated regulations and imposing an annual regulatory cost cap. These reforms resulted in fewer new regulatory actions as well as fewer costs imposed on consumers and businesses—and they contributed substantially to the robust economy enjoyed during the Trump Administration.

Throughout the 118th Congress, the Committee on Oversight and Accountability has shed light on the Biden-Harris Administration’s regulatory overreach and advanced legislative solutions to many of the growing problems. The Committee’s oversight has focused on agencies at the heart of the Administration’s extreme and ideologically driven excesses. Key Committee legislation would prevent Biden-Harris-style abuse in the future, making it easier for America’s households and job creators to prosper.

Read the report here.