Former President Obama made good on his effort to tie President Trump's hands with new regulations, adding $157 billion in new rules from Election Day to Inauguration Day alone.

A new report from American Action Forum, which charts regulations, said that the administration published a full year's worth of new rules in just two months.



"Throughout 2016, the administration averaged roughly 45 rules per month, including final and proposed measures. Then in November 2016, the administration managed to produce 57 rulemakings, an increase, but not statistically significant. By December, however, the administration approved more regulations (99) in that month than for any December since 1993. In other words, the Obama Administration more than doubled regulatory output in the month after the election," said Sam Batkins, director of regulatory policy at the American Action Forum.

Trump on Monday, his first full working day in office, suggested that he will repeal 75 percent of Obama's regulations.

Batkins list the new rules here, and concludes:

There is little doubt politics motivated some of the historic midnight surge from the Obama Administration. Publishing a year's worth of regulatory burdens in less than three months is no easy task and yet the final gasps of the White House's domestic agenda managed to produce $41 billion in final rule costs. Some successfully predicted this historic midnight output, but now Congress must move from these estimates to hard reality. Congress has the power to examine billions in regulatory costs and dozens of controversial measures. The Obama Administration's historic regulatory output of 2016 could soon turn into historic regulatory modernization in 2017.

Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner's "Washington Secrets" columnist, can be contacted at pbedard@washingtonexaminer.com