Trump signed laws; savings not yet realized

President Donald Trump “has signed more laws cutting through federal red tape than any president in American history and has already saved businesses and families up to $18 billion in red tape costs every year.” — Mike Pence on July 18 in a speech

Vice President Mike Pence says that when it comes to deregulation, President Donald Trump’s record is historic.

But it’s not so easy to quantify laws that cut red tape. Experts we spoke with said that other presidents have cut through more red tape than Trump so far, citing the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, Regulatory Flexibility Act of 1980, and the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act of 1995, as well as President Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan’s deregulation of such previously heavily regulated industries as air travel, trucking, banking and telecommunications.

However, many of these measures were taken through federal agencies, or constituted a single law, whereas Pence cited a record number of laws passed. Pence’s spokesman Marc Lotter said Trump had signed 14 Congressional Review Act measures compared with one previously. He’s right.

President Bill Clinton signed the Congressional Review Act in 1994, and it allows lawmakers to overturn regulations by federal agencies within 60 legislative days of their issue dates.

“Pence’s office is clearly,

unambiguously correct when it comes to Trump signing 14 Congressional Review Act resolutions to just one for all previous presidents — though do note that it is called the Congressional Review Act, and really it would be more fair to say that Congress initiated those actions, and Trump was in a position to ratify their choices,” said Philip Wallach, a senior fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution.

Lotter directed us to research by the right-leaning policy group American Action Forum, which calculated $1.1 billion in savings, using the Federal Register’s estimated costs of regulations issued by the Obama administration that were repealed by Congressional Review Act measures. An updated AAF post places this estimate closer to $21.8 billion.

The $1.1 billion saved by the historic CRA measures checks out with the Federal Register data. What doesn’t check out is Pence’s statement that these dollars have already been saved. Trump was able to roll back these rules because they had been put in place at the end of the previous administration, which also means many of them hadn’t yet taken effect.

Take the Disclosure of Payments by Resource Extraction Issuers, a rule that would require energy companies to report to the Federal Exchange Committee payments made to foreign governments. The AAF calculated its rollback would save $590.7 million annually, but those savings would only begin on Sept. 30, 2018, the required compliance date.

We then went on to look at the larger chunk of costs the AAF analyzed to come up with total annual savings from executive actions (not just Congressional Review Act measures). These potential savings were calculated using the costs estimated by the Federal Register at the time the legislation was put in place.

Taking these cost estimates as full savings assumes the Trump administration will be able to fully annul rules that experts expect would take years to achieve. For example, the executive action to dismantle the Clean Power Act would theoretically save $8.4 billion annually, but it will take a years-long rulemaking process to complete. The executive order to roll back the Gainful Employment Rule, estimated to save $433 million annually, will be delayed due to a court challenge.

The last chunk of the $21.8 billion estimate came from rule delays, which brings us back to our concern with saying the administration has saved the costs from future regulations cut by CRA measures. These costs weren’t straining families and businesses to begin with, because they were not yet in effect.

The Office of Management and Budget’s latest calculation of the Trump administration’s annualized cost savings estimated these at $22 million, significantly lower than Pence’s $18 billion figure. We repeatedly reached out to the OMB for more details on their projections but did not hear back.

Our ruling

Trump did sign a record number of laws rolling back regulations under the Congressional Review Act, but that’s not the only way to count deregulatory action. Also, Pence is counting eggs before they hatch in using an $18 billion estimate of total savings. The deadlines for compliance for most of the measures he annulled had yet to go into effect.

We rate this statement Half True.

Vice President Mike Pence