The fiscal year for the federal government ends at midnight tonight, which brings an end to the Trump Administration’s regulatory budget year as well. In a projection of the year’s final tallies, AAF’s Director of Regulatory Policy Dan Bosch and Senior Regulatory Policy Analyst Dan Goldbeck find that the administration achieved its highest total of regulatory savings yet, and more than doubled its regulatory budget savings goal. The administration only met its savings target, however, because of one extraordinary deregulatory measure and due to several pandemic-related and national security-related rules being exempted from the budget.

Their central points:

• A review of the 179 federal rules subject to the regulatory budget that were finalized between October 1, 2019, and September 30, 2020, shows that covered agencies have saved an estimated net present value of $171.7 billion;
• The totality of the savings comes from the Safer, Affordable Fuel-Efficient Vehicles rule, which has an estimated savings of $199.5 billion;
• The agencies with the most savings finalized, by a wide margin, are the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Transportation, while the agencies with the most costs finalized are the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Health and Human Services; and
• A number of expensive regulations that would have significantly cut into the administration’s savings total were exempted from the regulatory budget total due to national security exemptions and the COVID-19 health emergency.

Read the analysis.