The latest analysis by Open The Books (OTB) shows that new environmental regulations by the Biden administration will cost Floridians and U.S taxpayers $1 trillion dollars in 2024. All of this comes through the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
In the past, regulations have been up and down during certain administrations. During the Obama years, there was around 100,000 pages of regulation, under former President Trump that was cut down to 62,000 pages.
“In 2023 and into 2024 environmental and energy regulations were the number one category when compared to other governmental agencies,” said Open the Book CEO Adam Andrzejewski.
Some of the statistics By OTN show the EPA is writing more regulations to combat climate change, with over $100 billion more dollars in federal funds allocated to the EPA to spend in new grants.
Most of the funding came through Biden spending bills that U.S. Congress passed, including:
- American Rescue Plan of 2021: $100 million
- Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021: $60 billion
- Inflation Reduction Act of 2022: $40 billion
Another area of more regulations on the horizon is from “environmental justice.”
The Biden White House has pushed through new executive orders, a new Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights, where billions of dollars in new funding will be directed towards environmental justice-related goals.
Grant spending specifically tagged with the words “environmental justice” went from about $5.6 million in FY 2021 to over $14 million in FY 2022, but Biden administration executive orders have made clear the entire agency must be oriented around environmental justice.
And with all the money coming from big spending items from Biden, the EPA’s own Inspector General said in a congressional hearing that the agency had so much new funding that they couldn’t do a proper audit.
The growth in the EPA continues to grow under the Biden administration. In 2021 the EPA announced a “hiring spree” bringing staffing levels to over 15,000 from about 14,700. For FY 2024 the EPA’s budget proposal asks for over 17,000 full-time equivalent staff.
OTB says the EPA employs 223 public affairs officers, costing taxpayers over $100 million since 2018. The average EPA salary in FY 2022 was $124,252, with a total compensation for all 15,043 employees of $1.9 billion, and the six highest-paid EPA employees each make over $250,000 in FY 2022.
The EPA has its own police force for bringing environmental criminals to justice. In FY 2023, the Criminal Enforcement Program appropriations were $70.7 million.
Between 2018 and 2022, the EPA spent $618,602 on items categorized as “Small Arms” or “Small Arms Ammunition.”
Open the Books says that in 2023, 236 regulations took effect, but Biden has already proposed 365 regulations. It will be the most expensive year ever on record in 2024 for federal regulation.”
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