In a Sept. 10 CNSNews.com article, Penny Starr asserts that “the bound edition of the Code of Federal Regulations has increased by 11,327 pages – a 7.4 percent increase from Jan. 1, 2009 to Dec. 31, 2011.” She adds:
Randy Johnson, senior vice president of labor, immigration and employee benefits at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, distributed a handout of a Congressional Research Service analysis of a 2008 study commissioned by the Small Business Administration that estimated the annual compliance price for all federal regulations at $1.7 trillion that year.
In fact, that study has been criticized for flawed methodology and cherry-picked data. The Economic Policy Institute said the study “should not be used either as a valid measure of the costs of regulation or as a guide for policy.”
Further, as Media Matters points out, the Office of Management and Budget has found that the benefits of regulations significantly outweigh their costs.