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Regulatory Agency Funding Increases in Federal Budgets

Capitol Building (A. Kotok)

(A. Kotok)

A new report from researchers at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri and George Washington University in Washington, DC describe increases in funding and staff at federal regulatory agencies over the two most recent fiscal years. Fiscal Stalemate Reflected in Regulators Budget: An Analysis of the U.S. Budget for Fiscal Years 2011 and 2012, by Susan Dudley and Melinda Warren is the 33rd annual edition of this report.

The report indicates that the budgets of federal regulatory agencies are increasing in both 2011 and 2012. The estimated cost of running regulatory agencies in 2011 is $54.9 billion, a 4.3 percent increase over 2010 spending. The President’s budget requests an additional increase of 3.0 percent in 2012, for a total regulators’ budget of $57.3 billion.

The study lists the regulatory agencies with the largest budget requests for 2012 that include the Patent and Trademark Office, the Food and Drug Administration, the Department of Homeland Security, and financial regulatory agencies, including the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Comptroller of the Currency. The Patent and Trademark Office, however, generates its own income through patent application fees.

Looking at broad functions, the authors note that economic regulation is taking up a larger slice of the regulatory budget for the first time since the 1960s. The portion of the regulators’ budget for economic regulation is 17 percent in 2012, compared to around 15 percent over the last decade.

Dudley and Warren say the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (health care bill) and the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, both of which will generate new regulatory activity, are not completely captured in the data, which may increase the percentage for economic regulation further.

The report shows that number of staff employed on regulatory matters is expected to increase at a rate of about 10,000 new regulatory employees per year in 2011 and 2012.  However, additional staffing at the Department of Homeland Security makes up about two-thirds (65%) of this total staff increase. The number of full time regulatory employees is expected to reach an all-time high of nearly 291,700 in 2012.

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