U.S. manufacturers have advised the Trump administration to target the Environmental Protection Agency for regulatory rollback aimed at boosting domestic manufacturing in comments submitted to the Department of Commerce.
Trump ordered the Commerce Department in January to seek feedback from businesses regarding which federal agencies hamper their operations the most, with the goal of determining which regulations should be prioritized for roll back. Nearly half of the 168 comments submitted by the manufacturers advised the administration to focus on rolling back EPA regulations, reports The Washington Post.
EPA “emerged as the primary target in these comments, accounting for nearly half, with the Labor Department in second place as the subject of more than one-fifth,” WaPo reported based on a Commerce Department analysis of the comments.
Seventy-nine of the comments businesses submitted mentioned EPA, while 38 mentioned the Department of Labor. Businesses fingered the Clean Air Act as the most problematic law for regulations followed by EPA’s new source rules and Clean Water Act rules.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce told WaPo the Obama administration’s regulations cost its members $70 billion a year.
Trump promised to eliminate “job-killing” restrictions on energy production, including a slew of Obama-era regulations aimed to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Trump put Obama’s “Climate Action Plan” in his crosshairs within hours of being sworn in. He ordered EPA in March to review the Clean Power Plan, which limits carbon dioxide emissions from new and existing power plants. Trump also ordered EPA and the Department of the Interior to review rules on methane emissions from oil and natural gas drilling.
Under former President Barack Obama, the EPA imposed nearly $344 billion in costs from just 177 regulations, according to data compiled by the right-leaning American Action Forum. Those rules imposed nearly 33 million hours worth of paperwork.
Former Obama administration officials opposed rolling back regulations they spent years working on.
“The culture of the trade associations in Washington is to attack any new regulation as burdensome, even though the empirical evidence is that they’re easily met, they’re not burdensome and they save lives,” David Michaels, the former head of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, told WaPo.
“But injured workers don’t have a voice in Washington,” Michaels said. “Trade associations do.”
Follow Michael on Facebook and Twitter
All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.