“The Trump administration said [on October 16, 2018] it cut more than four times as many major regulations as it created in fiscal year 2018, delivering regulatory cost savings it contends total $23 billion.
The administration eliminated 57 regulations considered ‘significant’ — those with impacts of more than $100 million over the last year — while writing just 14 new significant rules, according to a senior administration official. Overall, 176 regulations, including smaller rules, were cut, with net benefits of $23 billion, the official said.
‘We’re not eliminating regulations that are working, we’re only eliminating regulation where benefits of doing that outweigh the costs,’ said the official.
Critics have argued that similar claims of major savings in the past have been exaggerated or reflect the Trump administration counting regulations that had been planned by the Obama administration but never implemented by President Donald Trump. The administration has also changed key calculations that can downplay benefits, such as for environmental rules that count the climate change cost of carbon emissions, which it has significantly reduced in several environmental regulations.
The official argued that reducing regulatory burdens on businesses provides net benefits to the American people, even when the public might have to deal with more pollution or other costs as a result.”
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