On June 24, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) released its annual report on the costs and benefits of major federal regulations (those with an annual effect of $100 million or more on the economy) reviewed by OMB over the last ten years. OMB issued the 2011 Report to Congress on the Benefits and Costs of Federal Regulations and Unfunded Mandates on State, Local, and Tribal Entities in compliance with the Regulatory-Right-to-Know Act, which requires OMB to submit to Congress an annual report on the costs and benefits of federal regulations for the previous year.

The U. S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) proposed rule to limit toxic chemical emissions from power plants will create between 28,000 and 158,000 jobs in the next four years, according to a new study by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI).

Environmental standards finalized under the Obama administration are expected to yield extraordinary benefits while imposing relatively small costs on businesses, according to a new paper by the Economic Policy Institute. “The combined annual benefits from all final rules exceed their costs by $32 billion to $142 billion a year,” the paper, Tallying up the Impact of New EPA Rules, concludes.

Last week, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) had a bit of a kerfuffle over a regulatory reform bill Snowe is pushing that would burden regulatory agencies with more paperwork and make it more difficult for them to protect the public. Snowe is trying to attach her bill as an amendment to a small business aid bill.