While Secretary of Energy Stephen Chu was giving himself an A- grade on gas prices, the White House was rolling out a new rule that would ostensibly require federal agencies to weigh the cumulative effects of energy regulations. It’s a laudable idea in theory, but then again, so was President Obama’s executive order to cut down on regulatory red tape last year. And apparently that was such a runaway success that the White House needed to announce another rule a year later intended to do basically the same thing:
Agencies now will consult stakeholders and the public on how a new rule might interact with existing rules — and whether, for example, a string of upcoming rules on one industry would create an undue burden. Officials will also consider the cumulative effects of rules in their cost-and-benefit analysis, a process that currently weighs the costs against the benefits of each individual rule.
