Obama Reveals Final Regulatory Agenda

President Obama has released the regulatory agenda for the final months of his administration. This plan, known as the Unified Agenda, is an overview of the proposed rules and regulations federal bureaucrats plan to issue before the newly elected administration takes over in January 2017.

The report contains plans from federal regulatory agencies. This month, regulatory agencies have rushed to release a flood of proposed rules in an eleventh-hour effort to enact midnight regulations under the Obama administration.

Here’s a look at a few overreaching regulations in the works:

• The Food and Drug Administration’s e-cigarette rule would subject manufacturers and small businesses to harmful regulations. These restrictions are justified by yet another FDA myth. Like most regulations, the cost of the FDA e-cigarette rule would be passed down to the consumer.

• The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s anti-arbitration rule would effectively prohibit arbitration agreements and force consumers to settle disputes through a class action suit. This regulation would pad the pockets of class action lawyers with millions while denying consumers the justice they deserve. The anti-arbitration rule is heavily criticized as an assault on the very people the CFPB is designed to protect.

• The Department of Labor’s fiduciary rule is yet another overreaching disguised as consumer protection. The rule would make it difficult for elderly Americans to get retirement investment advice and would hurt the small businesses and individuals who provide this investment advice. If enacted, the Labor Department rule would harm average Americans and make retirement investment advice only available to the wealthy.

• The six-agency proposed rule on incentive-based compensation would defer over half of Wall Street executives’ bonuses for a period of up to four years. The rule would apply to not only top executives at big banks but to anyone deemed a “significant risk taker”, a designation subject to the discretion of regulatory agencies. This proposed rule is one of the latest Dodd-Frank atrocities in which government bureaucrats invade private sector businesses.

• The FCC set-top box rule would make cable providers “open” their set-top boxes to allow third-parties access to the designs and programming, essentially allowing them to compete in the set-top box market. Companies such as Comcast and Samsung have taken measures to circumvent the FCC set-top box rule. The administration finalized the rule this week.

• The SEC has proposed revisions to business and financial disclosure requirements in Regulation S-K. With this proposal, the SEC is demanding a great deal of time and information from business owners. Areas of disclosure reform include reporting frequency, third-party data aggregation, EDGAR reporting, market adaptation, risk factors, risk management, information presentation, SEC industry guides, public policy and sustainability, and management’s discussion and analysis.