Fear the regulatory cliff, too.

• Author: Dudley, Susan

MUCH ATTENTION has been focused on the economic risks posed by the approaching fiscal cliff. Yet fiscal policies are not the only way the federal government diverts private-sector resources to achieve its own goals. Regulations, which dictate what employers, workers, and consumers can and cannot do, can have as large an effect on the economy as taxation and spending. Americans should be aware that we are headed for a regulatory cliff as well.

As Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) highlighted in an August op-ed piece for The Wall Street Journal, the Obama administration has explicitly postponed several multibillion-dollar regulatory decisions until after the election. These include environmental regulations tightening ozone air quality standards and cooling water intake standards at electric utilities, Department of Labor rules on investment advice, Department of Transportation regulations requiring rearview cameras in new vehicles, and numerous regulations resulting from the Dodd-Frank and Affordable Care acts.

The Obama administration published a record-setting average of 63 final rules with impacts of $100 million or more annually in its first two years. The 2010 midterm elections seem to have imposed some restraint on its regulatory agenda, with the pace slowing to an annual average of 44 major rules since then. (That is about the same as the average of 45 major rules per year issued by Presidents George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George H.W. Bush, although much higher than President Reagan's 23.)

The recent restraint is just the calm before the storm, however. The Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA),which reviews all significant executive branch regulations before they are...