Obama to issue $44B in ‘midnight regulations,’ study finds

President Obama plans to unleash more than $44 billion in midnight regulations before the ink in his pen runs out, according to a review of the administration’s rulemaking agenda.

This last-ditch effort to regulate before President-elect Donald Trump takes over in January will cap off an eight-year period marked by a historic pace of rulemaking from the Obama administration.

{mosads}Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton was expected to maintain many of the same regulatory policies as Obama, but after Trump’s surprising victory in the 2016 election and his promise to institute a moratorium on new rules, federal agencies are scrambling put the finishing touches on their most important rules.

“It is unlikely regulators in the Obama Administration will have the opportunity to enact the full slate,” said Sam Batkins, director of regulatory policy at the business-friendly American Action Forum.

The AAF spotted 20 economically-significant rules totaling more than $44 billion in compliance costs that regulators plan to release before Obama exits the White House.

These rules include efficiency standards from the Energy Department, public transportation safety plans, requirements for truck drivers and a smoking ban in low-income homes, among others.

But many of these midnight regulations could “vanish just as quickly” once Trump becomes president, Batkins said, because he has promised to overturn costly rules like these.

There are also a number of rules scheduled to drop after Trump becomes president, which are even less likely to survive, Batkins said.

The federal agencies “know too well that everything not yet final could come under scrutiny from President-elect Trump and the Republican Congress next year,” said Batkins.

“The fate of many of these measures lies with the next Congress and the incoming administration,” he added.