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White House Budget Director Mick Mulvaney accused the Obama administration Thursday of keeping a secret list of proposed regulations during Mr. Obamas eight-year regulatory onslaught against businesses, and touted President Trumps rollback of more than 800 Obama-era rules and proposals.

Of the 860 rules or proposed rules that the Trump administration has killed, 179 came from what he called Mr. Obamas secret list. As Trump aides combed through the books, they found pending proposals that included rules on hardwood plywood research and new requirements for contamination control in cattle slaughter operations.

They had a bunch of things that they wanted to regulate, Mr. Mulvaney said of the Obama administrations first term. They just didnt want to tell you about it. They thought it would be bad for their re-election prospects in 2012, so they created a secret list of regs that were not disclosed to you folks. We are disclosing it.

When Trump officials threatened to disclose the list, Mr. Mulvaney said, bureaucrats in various Cabinet agencies came up with those 860 things that we got rid of.

There will be no more of that, said the Office of Management and Budget director. We will not have a secret list. We will not have a hidden list of regulations that were thinking about doing but were not going to tell you about. Thats going to end effective immediately. In fact, it already has ended.

Cass Sunstein, who headed Mr. Obamas office of regulatory affairs in his first term, did not respond to a request for comment.

Even as the Trump administration was accusing its predecessor of a hidden agenda, a government watchdog group faulted the Trump White House for acting with unprecedented secrecy in its first six months.

Our conclusion on the Trump administrations record on open government at six months is inescapable: This is a secretive administration, allergic to transparency, ethically compromised and hostile to the essential role that journalism plays in a democracy, said a report by the Sunlight Foundation.

During Mr. Trumps first six months in office, he has eliminated 16 major regulations that had cost businesses at least $100 million per year each. He has introduced only one major regulation, pertaining to mercury in wastewater.

At a White House event to showcase advances in U.S. pharmaceutical packaging, Mr. Trump said the drug industry and patients will soon benefit from fewer regulations at the Food and Drug Administration.

Amazing things are happening there, and I think were going to be announcing some of them over the next two months, the president said. Were going to be streamlining, as we have in other industries, regulations so that advancements can reach patients quickly.

A recent study by the conservative American Action Forum found that Mr. Trump has released 8 percent of the historical average of rules issued by Presidents Obama, George W. Bush and Clinton.

Holding up a stack of paper of Obama regulations with both hands, Mr. Mulvaney challenged reporters at the White House, Were you healthy and safe before this came out? Yes. And youll be healthy and safe when its gone.

Cutting regulations is a pillar of Mr. Trumps economic program as he seeks to return the U.S. economy to an annual growth rate of 3 percent or more, a number that hasnt been reached in 10 years.

Federal agencies under Mr. Trump have withdrawn 469 proposed regulations from a report last fall under Mr. Obama. Another 391 proposed regulations have been delayed for further evaluation.

Trump officials said the Obama administration introduced rules in the last six months of 2016 that would have imposed $6.8 billion in annual costs on the economy, while the new rules during Mr. Trumps first five months have imposed no costs.

We had zero, Mr. Mulvaney said.

He said the previous administration often fudged the numbers when it proposed regulations.

They either overstated the benefit or understated the cost, Mr. Mulvaney said.

When Mr. Trump took office, he issued a two-for-one directive to set the tone of his war on regulation: For every proposed regulation, two others were to be cut.

The regulatory rollback has provided Mr. Trump with one of his smoothest areas of cooperation with congressional Republicans, who aided the push early in his term by deploying the seldom-used Congressional Review Act to repeal Obama-era rules.

Weve seen the largest regulatory rollback since Ronald Reagan, and theres much more to come, said Sen. David Perdue, Georgia Republican.

Among Mr. Trumps future easing of regulations, the Interior Department plans to reduce paperwork for outdoorsmen and fish restoration programs, and the Labor Department is planning to streamline the approval process for new apprenticeship programs.

Mr. Mulvaney said most of the actions are not headline-grabbing but the impact of cutting red tape improves the business climate and the lives of average Americans.

None of them are very sexy, he said of the 860 rules. I describe them as a slow cancer that can come from regulatory burdens that we put on our people. Its not going to change the world, but when you do that 860 times in the first six months, it can have a benefit.

The conservative Competitiveness Enterprise Institute predicted this week that Mr. Trump would cut red tape this year on a significant scale. The group said that under Mr. Obama, typically 97,000 pages were printed annually in the Federal Register, a level that is likely to be cut by a third under Mr. Trump.

Regulatory analyst Clyde Wayne Crews at CEI said this week that regulatory compliance costs about $2 trillion annually and that some regulations he calls regulatory dark matter are imposed without adequate public review.

Federal requirements of publishing a notice of proposed rule-making and allowing public comment do not apply to interpretative rules, general statements of policy, or rules of agency organization, procedure or practice, Mr. Crews said in a blog post. Further, most regulations costs and benefits are unknown. Regulatory dark matter such as agency and presidential memoranda, guidance documents, notices, bulletins, directives, news releases, letters and even blog posts may enact or influence policy while flouting the [federal] public notice and comment requirements for legislative rules.

Mr. Mulvaney said cutting red tape is urgently needed to make economic growth of 3 percent sustainable.

Our fear is that if we dont get back there quickly, there will be people who never know what 3 percent means, he said. And I dont think it should come as a surprise that there are some people who dont want you to remember what 3 percent growth would be like because it would be a tremendous sort of damnation of what happened in the previous administration.

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Trump axes 860 Obama regulations, 179 from 'secret' list - Washington Times

On Friday, just after President Trump offered Wall Street financier Anthony Scaramucci the position of White House communications director, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer resigned in protest. Spicer apparently ardently disagreed with Scaramucci's hiring and believed he could not do the job, NBC News' Katy Tur reports.

But perhaps it is more surprising Scaramucci wanted the job in the first place, given the way he talked about then-candidate Trump in an August 2015 appearance on Fox Business. "He's a hack politician," Scaramucci declared. "I'll tell you who he's gonna be president of, you can tell Donald I said this: the Queens County Bullies Association."

Scaramucci further hammered Trump on his outer borough roots. "You're an inherited money dude from Queens County," Scaramucci said, seizing on the president's notorious insecurity about fitting in with the Manhattan elite when he was a real estate mogul. Scaramucci also knocked Trump for "the way he talks about women" and for his "big mouth."

Now, Scaramucci will be in charge of massaging the messaging that comes from that "big mouth." Watch his appearance below. Kimberly Alters

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Trump's new communications director donated $2300 to Obama in 2008 - The Week Magazine

The Department of Justice announced Thursday that it had dropped a requirement that Harley-Davidson spend $3 million to fight air pollution as part of a settlement reached with the Obama administration.

The Milwaukee-based company will remain responsible for $12 million in fines for selling illegal Screamin' Eagle motorcycle tuners. But it will no longer be compelled to pay $3 million to an American Lung Association project promoting cleaner-burning cook stoves, according to the notice from the Justice Department.

Certain new developments led the United States and the defendant to agree to revise the consent decree in this manner, the announcement said. The original consent decree would have required defendants to pay a non-governmental third-party organization to carry out the mitigation project. Questions exist as to whether this mitigation project is consistent with the new policy.

It was the first time the Justice Department had put into place a Trump administration policy overturning Obama-era penalties intended to offer redress such as funding an antipollution initiative.

The settlement agreement withHarley-Davidson dates from August 2016and involves the manufacture and sale of around 340,000 illegalmotorcycle tuners.

The devices generate a higher amount of air pollutants. In addition, the company had alsoproduced andcommercialized over12,000 motorcycles without certification from the Environmental Protection Agency.

Under the agreement with the EPA, Harley-Davidson agreed to halt the selling of the engine super tuners, buy them back and destroy them, as well as cover a penalty for violating air pollution laws and sell only models of these devices that are certified to meet Clean Air Act emissions standards, a statement from the EPAsaid at the time.

Obama administration officials said it was a landmark enforcement action.

Given Harley-Davidsons prominence in the industry, this is a very significant step toward our goal of stopping the sale of illegal aftermarket defeat devices that cause harmful pollution on our roads and in our communities, Assistant Attorney General John C. Cruden, head of the Justice Departments Environment and Natural Resources Division, said in a statement in August 2016.

Anyone else who manufactures, sells, or installs these types of illegal products should take heed of Harley-Davidsons corrective actions and immediately stop violating the law.

Harley-Davidson also agreed to pay an additional $3 million to the American Lung Association for a project to replace conventional wood stoves with cleaner-burning stoves in northeastern communities.

Thursdays decision reverses an Obama administration practice of having banks and companies donate money to outside groups as part of settlement agreements with the federal government.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the policy last month.

When the federal government settles a case against a corporate wrongdoer, any settlement funds should go first to the victims and then to the American people not to bankroll third-party special interest groups or the political friends of whoever is in power, Sessions said in a statement.

But Eric Schaeffer, executive director of the Environmental Integrity Project and former director of the EPAs Office of Civil Enforcement, said such third-party payments were justified.

Once these companies are caught, you cant turn the clock back to undo the damage theyve done to public health or the environment, so getting part of the settlement to support actions to reduce that damage going forward helps to make the environment whole, which isnt accomplished just by paying penalties or returning to compliance, he said in an interview.

The American Lung Association said it was not informed in advance of the decision and would be forced to drop the program.

The Justice Department and Harley-Davidson declined further comment.

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Trump DOJ gives Harley-Davidson $3 million discount on Obama-era pollution fine - Washington Post

Rarely has a president taken office so focused on undoing his predecessors works as Donald Trump. Six months in, he has little to show.

Monday brought twin blows. Not only did the Affordable Care Act survive another Republican repeal effort, maintaining President Obamas signature domestic achievement, but Trump was forced to certify that Iran continues to comply with the nuclear deal that was the biggest foreign policy accomplishment of Obamas second term.

Beyond those two headlines, Obamas program to shield some 750,000 so-called Dreamers from deportation continues intact, much to the frustration of some of Trumps most ardent backers. The tax hikes on upper-income earners which were among the hardest-won battles of Obamas first term remain in effect. U.S. relations with Cuba remain open, following Obamas normalization policy, despite Trumps public show last month of tightening some travel and trade restrictions. And the sharp increases in U.S. use of solar, wind and other forms of renewable energy, largely at the expense of coal, continues, Trumps rhetoric notwithstanding.

None of that means Trump has failed. Halfway through his first year, Trump has achieved some of his goals, although his repeated boast that he has signed more bills and Im talking about through the legislature than any president, ever, is untrue no matter how one counts.

His announcement that the U.S. will withdraw from the Paris climate accord in 2020 has been the best known part of a concerted administration effort to roll back Obama-era environmental initiatives.

And even before his election, Trumps campaign against trade agreements roused opposition that helped kill Obamas proposed 12-nation Pacific trade pact and slow the expansion of global trade deals. Trump formally withdrew the U.S. from the by-then-moribund Trans-Pacific Partnership on his first workday after his inauguration.

But Trumps unusual concentration on repealing what his predecessor did, rather than putting forward initiatives of his own, has also hampered his effectiveness to a remarkable degree.

One of the truisms of American government as Trump is now learning to his dismay is that taking away a benefit is generally harder than starting something new.

Thats one reason why presidents typically prefer to push their own agendas, rather than focus to the extent Trump has on uprooting their predecessors actions.

Presidents Eisenhower and Nixon did not, for example, undo the New Deal or Great Society programs of, respectively, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lyndon B. Johnson. President Reagan moved quickly to repeal the Jimmy Carter administrations regulations on oil and natural gas production. But his administrations chief focus was on its own plans for tax cuts and a military buildup.

President Clinton devoted his first couple of years in office to winning a tax increase on high-income Americans, a healthcare plan which failed, the North American Free Trade Agreement (another Trump target, as it happens) and two major gun control measures. George W. Bushs first year seemed set to be built around tax cuts and his No Child Left Behind school reform plan until the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks redefined his presidency. Obamas opening year centered on efforts to recover from an economic crisis, re-regulate Wall Street and, of course, pass what became the Affordable Care Act.

Trumps campaign did feature elements of what could form the basis of a distinctive first-year agenda. He talked about a massive plan to rebuild the nations roads, bridges and airports. He called for wholesale renegotiation of trade agreements. He advocated a sharp reduction in the number of legal immigrants allowed into the country. He endorsed a multibillion-dollar plan to give tax money to families to pay tuition for private or religious schools. And he touted a complete rewrite of the tax code, along with deep tax cuts.

He has not delivered concrete proposals on any of those ideas.

In part, that failure to follow through on those ideas stems from the reality that each of them, with the possible exception of tax reform, deeply divides the GOP. Some of Trumps proposals, such as those on trade, divide his own administration. Whether Trumps ideas on taxes fit those of his party remains unknown because -- as with health insurance he has never specified what he has in mind.

Compounding the problem of a divided party is Trumps clear lack of interest in developing policy and his slowness in choosing people for top government jobs. Together, those deficits have left his administration hamstrung in efforts to define an agenda of its own. By default, thats left Trump with the agenda the Republicans developed during the Obama years one built around opposition to the party then in the White House.

The administrations weakness on policy advocacy has been glaring over the last week as the effort to repeal and replace Obamacare dangled in the Senate. Trump made no concerted effort to win over public opinion no extended speeches laying out a case for the Republican bill, no news conference to answer questions about his position.

On his preferred method of communication, Twitter, Trump sent more than 60 messages in the week leading up to the collapse of the GOP Obamacare repeal effort Monday night. Only six concerned healthcare fewer than his tweets about the Womens Open golf tournament that was held at the country club he owns in New Jersey. None of the tweets defended the plans controversial elements; instead they simply demanded that senators act.

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Trump set out to uproot Obama's legacy. So far, that's failed ...

But Friday also marks two years since the conclusion of one of the most successful deals in modern diplomacy -- the negotiation of the Iran nuclear agreement. And this anniversary serves as a reminder of what the United States can achieve through diplomacy and engagement, when the president, the secretary of state, the secretary of defense, and the secretary of energy work together with civil and foreign service officers who are on the front lines of diplomacy around the world.

I was at the State Department when the negotiations began and at the White House when the deal finally passed, and for the months following the negotiation, Washington was focused on a largely partisan battle over the final details of the deal. Still, there was skepticism from members of both parties about whether Iran would hold up their end of the bargain. And a bitter battle was waged by high-powered lobbying groups trying to kill the deal with additional sanctions. It had several near-death experiences.

No one is saying the Iran deal is perfect. Diplomatic negotiations rarely end with a feeling of perfection on either end. Diplomacy includes making concessions that move all sides toward our ultimate goal; in the case of the Iran deal we clearly would have preferred to get additional concessions from the Iranians about ballistic missile development and other activities, but in order to keep our coalition together we had to be focused and deliberate.

As we face an aggressive nuclear weapons state in North Korea today, we know exactly what the consequences are when diplomatic efforts fade away. No administration should invite this most serious threat to Americans and our allies and partners. Vigorous support for the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or JCPOA (the Iran Nuclear Deal's official name) is the best way to fend off nuclear proliferation in the Middle East.

Politics should not be a driver of decisions on this issue, or on our foreign policy. The JCPOA provides a feasible path forward, for the Trump team, on one of the trickiest international challenges we face.

On this second anniversary of the deal, let us look ahead to where it can take us. In addition to the tangible, quantifiable advances in global secrity made possible by the deal -- the reductions in centrifuges, the limits on the amount of highly enriched uranium permitted to be held in Iran, and the intense inspections regime, for example -- the Iran deal provides opportunities. In particular, opportunities for US leadership in the world as we try to battle terrorism and seek a path forward for Syria without the potential threat of Iran pursuing nuclear weapons or the ensuing arms race in the Middle East. This is an area in which leaders from both parties have said they want to continue to lead the world. Remaining committed to the Iran deal is how we do that.

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Obama's gift to Trump: A lasting deal on Iran's nuclear ...