President Joe Biden’s administrative state in recent weeks unleashed a barrage of economic red tape before a deadline that renders them difficult to undo by a potential Trump administration.
The scheme could possibly hamstring a potential Trump administration from revitalizing the economy.
The term “administrative state” specifically describes the phenomenon of unaccountable and unelected administrative agencies, including the national security apparatus, exercising power to create and enforce their own rules. The administrative state uses its rule-making ability to essentially usurp the separation of powers between the three branches of government by creating a so-called fourth branch of government not formed by the Constitution.
The administrative state implemented 66 significant rules in April alone, a number that is greater than any month since the Reagan administration, a Regulatory Studies Center analysis found. Biden’s administrative state published 111 more regulations than Trump implemented at the same point in his term, Axios reported.
The Associated Press reported a list of many of the rules:
- Limiting auto tailpipe emissions
- Forcing power plants to cut carbon dioxide emissions
- Restricting new oil and gas leases on 13 million acres of a petroleum reserve in Alaska
- Required oil and gas companies to pay more to drill on federal lands
- Forcing oil companies to meet stronger requirements to clean up old or abandoned wells
- Reinstating or strengthening more than 100 Green New Deal-type regulations that Trump weakened or eliminated
“The rules are safe in this Congress,″ Michael Gerrard, who teaches environmental law at Columbia Law School, told the Associated Press. “All bets are off” if Republicans take over Congress and the White House.
Gerrard’s comment was a reference to rules implemented before a “lookback period.” Any rules put into action before the deadline cannot be reversed by a potential Trump administration via the Congressional Review Act. When the “lookback period” begins is murky, but Axios reported Biden’s deadline to range between this week and September.
The new economic-related rules come while Americans suffer from increased costs. Those costs are closely associated with Biden’s war on American energy. Biden drove up the cost of energy via regulations, executive orders, and other means, causing more reliance on foreign energy.
On Biden’s first day in office, he canceled the completion of the Keystone XL Pipeline. He suspended oil and gas leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) and in New Mexico. Biden’s EPA restricted domestic energy production. In March, the Biden administration began blocking new exports of liquid natural gas.
FLASHBACK: Ted Cruz Grills Pete Buttigieg on Biden Killing ‘Thousands’ of Keystone XL Jobs
Former President Donald Trump, who pledged to curtail the administrative state, told reporters this week that Biden’s war on American energy caused costs to soar.
“He’s unable to drill properly,” Trump said. “He’s destroyed everything we had. We were energy independent. We were shortly going to be energy dominant, and now we have to go into what’s called the strategic reserves.”
“Inflation is really rapidly moving at a level that people have not seen. … What’s happening?” Trump questioned. “He started with energy.”
Wendell Husebo is a political reporter with Breitbart News and a former GOP War Room Analyst. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality. Follow Wendell on “X” @WendellHusebø or on Truth Social @WendellHusebo.
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