President Trump is winning on one key campaign promise, cutting regulations and virtually eliminating the release of new ones.

In fact, he has cut the output of costly regulations so deeply that a group that charts the federal government's output of rules has called the shift "historic."

American Action Forum told Secrets that Trump has cut the output of regulations to just 8 percent of the averages under former President Obama and other recent administrations.



What's more, the cost of the new regulations has dropped from an average of $26 billion to $33 million, or just 0.12 of the past average for the first five months of the year.

Sam Batkins, the director of regulatory policy for AAF, said in his report that "the ‘Regulatory Freeze' that took effect on day one of the administration has persisted for roughly the first four months of President Trump's term. By virtually any measure, dating back through two Democratic presidents and one Republican president, the lack of regulatory output is historic."



In office, Trump ordered agencies to kill two old regulations for every one his team issued. But the new figures suggest that the administration has gone further. Departments like Interior and the Environmental Protection Agency have led the way.



Batkins based his study on the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) recording of cabinet-level regulatory output from 1994 to 2017.

"Across the board, the results indicate a significant diminution in the number of regulations approved and a notable uptick in the number of withdrawn measures (previous rules from the Obama Administration no longer under consideration). For instance, during the period covered, the average administration reviewed 190 rules; the Trump administration reviewed 39. In the average year, there were 33 economically significant reviews; the Trump administration reviewed just 16. On average, there were 30.8 significant rules approved, not just reviewed; this administration has released 10," said his AAF study.

Batkins concluded, "Regardless of the metric employed, there is little doubt regulatory output is at historic lows. The regulatory freeze has not been temporary, but relatively permanent." Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner's "Washington Secrets" columnist, can be contacted at pbedard@washingtonexaminer.com