What do you do when you don’t have Congress? Keep the regulations coming.

The Obama administration is preparing another active year of executive action in 2015, pumping out new rules and enforcing others for the first time — setting tougher standards on everything from air pollution to overtime pay to net neutrality, food safety, commercial drones, a college ratings plan and a crackdown on for-profit colleges that don’t prepare their students for well-paying jobs. There’s even going to be the first draft of a rule for organic pet food.


And, of course, there will be more executive actions to move forward on other initiatives as well — like the new measures President Barack Obama is set to announce on Friday to help more people go to college.

The rules and regulations will set up more confrontation with a newly unified Republican Congress, which will use all of the tools at its disposal to try to stop individual policies and blast the Obama administration for being too rule-happy in general. The new rules will get merged, generally, with the GOP’s complaints about about Obama’s executive actions on immigration — their view that he’s a go-it-alone president who’s ready to fire off executive actions on whatever he wants without listening to Congress.

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Most of the administration’s agenda for 2015 doesn’t rise to that level. It’s more about keeping the regular stream of regulations coming on initiatives that have been underway for years. But even that will give the Republicans plenty of ammunition — they’ll talk a lot about how, in their view, Obama is indifferent to the economic impact of all of his regulations.

“The president doesn’t seem to care about the impact of these regulations on families,” said John Barrasso of Wyoming, the chairman of the Senate Republican Policy Committee, adding that the administration is showing “a complete neglect of the economic impact” of the load of new rules.

Not so, Obama administration officials say. They insist there are also lots of economic benefits to the rules, and they’re ready to fire back with numbers they say the Republicans aren’t considering. And they’re sticking with Obama’s script for moving his agenda forward: When you can’t do it through Congress, do what you can through the executive branch.

“The administration is committed to a regulatory strategy that maintains a balance between protecting the health, welfare, and safety of Americans and promoting economic growth, job creation, competitiveness and innovation,” said Emily Cain, a spokeswoman for the Office of Management and Budget. “From putting in place lifesaving protections for America’s families, to eliminating tens of millions of hours of paperwork burdens for our nation’s citizens and businesses, this administration has shown that it can foster strong economic growth without sacrificing health, safety and environmental standards.”

The battles in 2015 won’t all be about regulations. There will be plenty of fights in Congress and the courts, too. Obamacare faces more repeal votes with a Republican Senate, as well as a Supreme Court case that could knock out a central piece of the law — the subsidies to help people in most states buy health insurance. The Defense Department will be pushing to avoid the return of sequestration in October. On the bright side for the administration, Senate Republicans may be willing to give Obama fast-track authority to get trade deals approved.

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But the active regulatory agenda of the Obama administration will be a constant presence in the policy debate, and it will generate new fights with Republicans in Congress even as they’re still scrambling to respond to the rules that have already been announced. They’re likely to use all of the leverage they can find, including legislation to block some rules, appropriations riders to cut off funds for others, and oversight hearings to force the Obama administration to justify the stream of regulations.

Incoming Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has already said he’ll do everything he can to stop the Environmental Protection Agency’s rule to limit carbon dioxide emissions from coal plants and other facilities, which is supposed to come out in final form this summer. And Barrasso says the Senate might also target another regulation, the ozone pollution rule the administration announced in November, by passing legislation postponing the rule until companies come into better compliance with the earlier, less strict ozone standard imposed by the George W. Bush administration.

There would be “significant bipartisan support” for legislation that says, “let’s get to where we were supposed to be in 2008 before the president unilaterally forces the country to take this very expensive step,” Barrasso said.

On the House side, Jason Chaffetz of Utah, the incoming chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, has created a new panel — the Health Care, Benefits, and Administrative Rules subcommittee — that will look broadly at the Obama administration’s regulations and the economic impact they’ve created. It will be led by Jim Jordan of Ohio, a combative lawmaker who used to be the chairman of the conservative Republican Study Committee.

House Republicans say the numbers prove the Obama administration already has gone overboard on regulations. They point to a Congressional Research Service report that says the administration put out 331 “major” rules during Obama’s first term — regulations that have an economic impact of at least $100 million a year. By contrast, they say, the Bush administration only put out 500 major rules during his entire eight years in office.

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Obama administration officials, however, say there’s nothing out of the ordinary about the total number of rules in the pipeline — and they insist the Bush administration actually had more final rules at this point in his presidency than the Obama administration does. They also say the Republicans are ignoring the economic benefits of the rules, which they estimate at $200 billion in saved money, prevented injuries and saved lives.

Here are the main areas to watch on policy in 2015:

Energy: The EPA is going to stay active throughout the year, with new rules expected in January to reduce methane pollution from oil and gas operations. The big event, though, will be the final carbon dioxide emissions rule for existing coal and natural gas-fired power plants, which is expected to be released by the summer. That’s the centerpiece of Obama’s climate change agenda, and it’s the one that’s likely to provoke the biggest fight from McConnell and other coal-state lawmakers. There’s also supposed to be a separate carbon dioxide rule that would cover future power plants, but its status is less clear and it could be released as late as June.

Labor: The highlight from the Department of Labor will be the release of the new overtime rule, expected sometime in February. It’s being drafted at the request of Obama, who called for an update to the current regulations in a March memorandum. The idea is to make millions of low-wage workers eligible for overtime pay by tightening the “white collar” exemptions, and it’s likely to raise the income threshold below which all workers must be given the extra pay, since that threshold has fallen below the poverty line for a family of four. Business groups are opposed, but Obama is pitching it as part of his agenda for helping the middle class.

Health care: The Senate will take a vote to repeal Obamacare, but since it may not even get enough votes to break a filibuster — much less win Obama’s signature — Republicans will turn to a piecemeal strategy of trying to knock out parts of the law with Democratic votes. The biggest threat to the law, however, is the Supreme Court lawsuit that could overturn the subsidies in the federal health insurance exchange, which serves 37 states. It’s the most dangerous lawsuit since the court’s 2012 ruling that upheld the law, and it’s likely to give Republicans an incentive to speed up their work on replacement plans — just in case they need them.

Education: The biggest higher education issue will be the Obama administration’s controversial, still-vague proposal to rate more than 4,000 colleges and universities based on how many low-income students they have, how affordable they are, and how they do on outcome measures like graduation rates. Education Department officials recently released a “draft framework” of the plan that underwhelmed higher ed wonks due to its lack of specifics. Obama wants a fully explained ratings system by spring of next year, with institutional ratings published before the start of the 2015-16 academic year. There’s also a fight over the Education Department’s “gainful employment regulation,” which would crack down on for-profit colleges starting July 1 if they leave students with few job options and unlivable wages. The Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities successfully sued over the administration’s first go at a rule in 2012, and says it’s even more confident that the latest iteration won’t hold up in court.

Technology: Once again, the Obama administration is about to get into a fight over net neutrality. The Federal Communications Commission is racing to write rules that require Internet service providers to treat all Web traffic equally, and Republicans and telecom companies are preparing to push back against what they’re convinced will be burdensome new regulations. John Thune of South Dakota, who’s about to become chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, has even suggested that the Senate might try to preempt any FCC move to give Obama the kind of rules he wants — which are based on the idea of treating broadband service like a utility.

Agriculture: A new series of food safety rules is coming from the FDA in August — it has to put out final rules to spell out safety standards at both human and animal food facilities. But that’s just one of several new rules to watch. In April, the EPA is supposed to put out the final version of its Waters of the United States rule, which is supposed to clarify which lakes and rivers fall under its jurisdiction. Opponents are already calling it an example of big-government overreach, saying it would let the agency regulate everything from ditches that are dry most of the year to low lying areas of fields that collect standing water. And yes, there are organic pet food standards on the way — the Department of Agriculture is expected to release a proposed rule in April. (Nothing’s going to be final until August 2016.)

Transportation: Congress will have to come up with a new extension of the Highway Trust Fund early in 2015. The fund that pays for road, bridge and transit work will go insolvent by May, and lawmakers would like to come up with something more than another short-term patch. But there will also be some important new regulations as well, including a Department of Transportation rule due out early in 2015 that would address the recent series of oil train accidents by setting new standards for the tank cars. And the Federal Aviation Administration could put out a new rule on commercial drones to address the safety hazards if they get too close to large passenger planes.

Defense: The Defense Department is about to go through a major transition as Ash Carter prepares to move into the defense secretary job, assuming he gets confirmed by the Senate. His major task will be to work with Congress to try to prevent the return of sequestration on Oct. 1. But he’ll also have to convince Congress to accept cost-cutting reforms that lawmakers have resisted in the past, including base closures and changes to military pay and benefits. Otherwise, defense experts are worried that the military will have to keep absorbing budget cuts that could leave it unprepared for the next war.

Trade: The Obama administration will try to wrap up a big Asia-Pacific trade deal in 2015, and the path to approval could be easier with Republicans in the Senate, since they’re more likely to give Obama the “trade promotion authority” legislation he wants — allowing faster approval of the Asia-Pacific trade pact and others. Obama will still need Democratic votes to get that authority, but the job will be easier with McConnell as majority leader than it was with Harry Reid, who didn’t want to make Democrats take a difficult vote on it before the midterm elections.

Tax: The administration is expected to try again to draft rules to rein in social welfare groups — from small tea party groups to Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS — that engage in too much “candidate-related political activity.” The government is weighing the pivotal question of how much political activity pushes such 501(c)(4) groups over the edge and out of tax-exempt territory. Confusing statutory and regulatory language allows political groups wide latitude to keep their tax breaks, confusing IRS agents, critics say. Republicans charge the administration with trying to curb political speech and are gearing up for a fight. The Treasury department is also issuing rules on so-called tax inversions — like the move Burger King made when it purchased Canadian company Tim Hortons and moved its official headquarters there to secure a lower tax rate.

Bob King, Allie Grasgreen, Jason Huffman, Jenny Hopkinson, Tony Romm, Jennifer Haberkorn, Adam Snider, Kim Dixon and Adam Behsudi contributed to this report.