Biden Administration Adds $10 Billion in Red Tape in Under a Week

A new report determined that the Biden Administration added another $10 billion worth of bureaucratic “red tape” in less than one week.

As the Daily Caller reports, the study from the American Action Forum (AAF) shows that federal agencies collectively announced $9.4 billion worth of regulatory costs in a four-day span, from January 16th to January 19th, despite that Monday being a federal holiday.

Overall, the Biden Administration has added approximately $454.2 billion in regulations since Biden first took power in January of 2021; that amount is double the cost added in the first four years of the Obama Administration, and 15 times more than the costs implemented by the first term of the Trump Administration.

The plurality of the new costs come from the Department of Energy (DOE), which added $3.2 billion to the “Energy Conservation Standards for Fans and Blowers” program, which seeks to promote “air circulating fans.” Last week, the DOE enacted another $5 billion worth of costs for its “Energy Conservation Standards for Refrigerators, Refrigerator-Freezers, and Freezers” initiative.

In addition to the $454.2 billion, the total amount of regulations has amounted to at least 279.9 million hours worth of paperwork loads, compared to just $28.6 billion and 65 million paperwork hours under Trump.

As the DOE’s latest expenditures suggest, a significant portion of new federal regulations revolve around Biden’s “green energy” agenda to combat so-called “global warming.” Another major agenda item that has increased costs is Biden’s attempt to cancel student loan debt, although he has faced resistance from the Supreme Court over the legality of such a program on a nationwide scale.