Do federal regulations save lives, protect the environment and establish uniform rules nationwide? Or do they burden commerce, hike costs for consumers and choke off hiring?

A decades-long and highly partisan debate raged anew between the Obama administration and congressional Republicans Tuesday when the president advised John Boehner, in response to an inquiry from the House speaker, that the government is considering seven new regulations that could collectively cost the economy from tens of billions of dollars to more than $100 billion per year.

In fact, a tally of regulatory cost ranges identified by Obama has a high-end total of $105 billion for four rules administered by the Environmental Protection Agency, and another $5 billion for regulations that would be administered by the Department of Transportation. The most expensive regulation on Obama’s list, dealing with health hazards from smog, is estimated to cost the economy between $19 billion and $90 billion.

Boehner responded immediately Tuesday, telling the president by letter that Republicans, listening to the business community and eager to fight regulatory burdens, now want Obama to provide cost estimates for 212 other economically significant regulatory actions in the federal pipeline.

The skirmish over regulations bubbled to the surface as Obama prepared to unveil what the White House says will be a collection of job-creation proposals next week. House Republicans are championing their own plan in advance of the president’s speech. That plan, barely 10 pages long (including graphics), asserts that “total regulatory costs amount to $1.75 trillion annually -- enough money for businesses to provide 17.5 million private sector jobs with an average salary of $100,000.”

On Tuesday, Boehner said federal requirements are “misguided” if they cost the private sector too much and stifle hiring as a result.

“We know from the administration’s own disclosures that there are 212 other regulatory actions in the works, each with an estimated cost to our economy of more than $100 million,” Boehner wrote. “At a time like this, with our economy struggling to create jobs, it’s misguided for the federal government to be imposing so many new rules with such enormous costs, even when some of those rules may be well-intentioned.”

The president stressed that all major regulations are considered by the executive branch after extensive public input, and some are modified or even scrapped before they become final. He said potential compliance costs are often imprecise in the early going. All proposed federal regulations are the brass-tacks implementations of legislation passed by Congress and signed into law by presidents. The most controversial and expensive federal requirements -- the Clean Air Act is one example -- eventually are tested in the courts on grounds of constitutionality and conformance with congressional intent. Many of the Bush-era challenges by conservatives that put the EPA and the Clean Air Act in the cross-hairs were unsuccessful, and the Obama administration transitioned to an EPA compelled by the courts to comply with the law.

With the advent of divided government this year, Obama anticipated that congressional Republicans and the business community would again protest federal regulatory burdens. Federal rulemaking and the EPA are regular targets for Republican presidential candidates who want to argue that government is too big, too intrusive and has run amok under the Obama administration.