The Biden Administration Power Grab Nobody Is Talking About

[Geee]

Real Clear Policy

You don’t have to be a business owner to feel the effects of a growing regulatory state.  If you’re a homeowner, for instance, you might have tried getting your A/C replaced, wanted to buy a new gas stove, or get a dishwasher that actually washes dishes.  Or you’ve gone into your local deli for breakfast wanting something hot off the griddle and been told that they can’t do that anymore, that they can only microwave the eggs or bacon for your sandwich.

Or you’ve seen the prices for consumer goods skyrocket, not just because of monetary inflation but because regulatory costs have accelerated, and those costs have been passed on to you.

 

 

 

Regulatory costs matter, and because of that, agencies are supposed to measure those costs using objective tools like “cost benefit analysis” (CBA).  But a new proposal from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) wants to fundamentally change how those costs are assessed.  Right now, open for public comment (due June 6), is a proceeding at the OMB to revise “Circular A-4”, the executive branch’s standards for such reviews.  Instead of objective, transparent measurements, the Biden administration is calling for greater subjectivity in such analyses—to justify ever more marginal regulatory burdens and grow the regulatory state even more.

It is a massive power grab, and one nobody is talking about.

Worse, though never mentioned in their proposal, OMB’s call for “weighting” the distributional impacts of regulation in analyses is essentially a way of implementing environmental and social governance (ESG) wholesale in the regulatory process, without being upfront about it or letting Congress weigh in.

As described by OMB in their proposal, distributional weights apply to the costs and benefits of different groups based on various demographic parameters such as income, race, sex, disability, etc. The intent is, allegedly, to account for the diminishing marginal utility of goods when aggregating benefits and costs, thereby theoretically creating a more “equitable” regulatory environment. However, upon closer examination, it becomes evident that this approach carries significant pitfalls and should be reconsidered .