The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is not only costing heavy industries billions of dollars a year, the agency is also forcing companies to spend 188 million hours every year filing paperwork to comply with federal rules.
To comply with EPA’s paperwork burden “it would take more than 94,200 employees working full-time (2,000 hours a year) to complete one year of EPA paperwork,” according to Sam Batkins, the director of regulatory policy at the American Action Forum (AAF).
“Year after year of new regulatory costs have not only translated into shuttered power plants, but also new reporting and recordkeeping requirements. EPA’s paperwork burden now stands at 188 million hours,” Batkins wrote in a report on how much paperwork it takes to comply with EPA rules.
“The agency’s burden has surged 23 percent since 2009 and 34 percent since 2002. See graph below,” he wrote.
What’s ironic is the increase in the amount of paperwork it takes to comply with EPA rules comes as the Obama administration works to “streamline” the regulatory process. EPA paperwork requirements shot up 51.5 million hours for just twelve rules.
