Biden's Record-Breaking Regulatory Run
In four years, Biden issued regulations costing an estimated $1.8 trillion, by far the highest total in American history.
The fourth and final year of the Biden administration included record levels of federal regulations—including more than a dozen new rules finalized in the last hours before Inauguration Day.
Former President Joe Biden's final year in office "set a blistering pace," writes Clyde Wayne Crews, a fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), in a piece for Forbes. During 2024, the Biden administration created 3,248 new rules, by Crews' count, and finished out the year by publishing 107,262 pages in the Federal Register, the weekly publication that lists all new rules, proposed rules, and other public notices.
The number of pages in the Federal Register is a blunt, imperfect way to track the activities of the administrative state. Still, it offers a useful view of historical regulatory trends, and Biden's output in 2024 is the highest total ever recorded.
But the Biden administration didn't stop when the new year hit. In the first three weeks of 2025, Crews notes in a blog post for CEI, the outgoing administration issued 243 new rules across 7,641 pages of the Federal Register. That includes 15 final rules and 23 proposed rules that weren't published until Tuesday, January 21—the day after Trump was sworn into office—because they'd been wrapped up over the previous weekend.
That final flurry of regulatory activity cemented "Biden's legacy as a prolific regulator," writes Crews.
Not only did the number of regulations approved by Biden set new records, but the costs associated with those rules soared to new heights too. His administration issued $1.8 trillion in cumulative regulatory costs over four years, according to an analysis by the American Action Forum (AAF), which tracks the estimated regulatory costs published in the Federal Register.
That shatters the previous record, set by the Obama administration, which over eight years pushed through regulations costing $493.6 billion.
The biggest single regulation issued by the Biden administration was the new tailpipe emissions for automobiles that are scheduled to take effect in 2027. That alone will cost more than $870 billion. Even without that big hit, however, the Biden administration would have easily landed in first place.
The Trump administration has already rolled back some Biden-era rules and has signaled its intent to do more. In an executive order signed on Inauguration Day, for example, President Donald Trump ordered executive branch agencies to identify regulations that "impose an undue burden" on "consumer choice of vehicles." That doesn't undo Biden's costly tailpipe emissions rule, but it suggests an effort to loosen or remove them could be coming down the, well, pipeline.
Congress also has an opportunity to push back. As Crews notes, the Congressional Review Act allows lawmakers to rescind rules finalized within the past 60 legislative days—that is, days when Congress is in session. That could put many of Biden's last-minute regulations on the chopping block.
The Biden administration may be remembered first and foremost for its mishandling of inflation and the scandalous attempt at hiding the president's fading mental and physical abilities. Its aggressive expansion of the federal regulatory state—a record that will hopefully not be surpassed for a long time—deserves recognition too, and not in a good way.
