Group claims White House delaying regs report until after election

A libertarian think tank is claiming that the Obama administration is delaying an annual regulatory report until after the election.

In a blog post Monday, the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) said this is the latest the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has ever taken to release its draft “Report to Congress on the benefits and Costs of Federal Regulations.”

{mosads}The CEI raised questions about whether the White House might be waiting until after the election to disclose the overall annual costs and benefits of the rules it has created. 

“The final 2015 report we got March 10 of this year covers rules up to September 30, 2014,” Clyde Wayne Crews, CEI’s vice president of policy, wrote in the post.

“What this means is that, at the moment, we only have official word on regulations from the White House for a period that ended nearly two years ago, before the 114th Congress was even elected; and now, we’re about to elect a new Congress to walk into an even greater unknown.”  

The CEI said the new annual report will present a 10-year look back covering Oct. 1, 2005, to Sept. 30, 2015, as well as details on the most recent fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2015.

Last year’s draft was released Oct. 16. Since 2002, CEI said the report has mostly been released in March.

The OMB did not immediately respond to requests for comment.