Published
February 14, 2017
After years of talk, Washington is actually starting to tame the regulatory leviathan.
Over the last few days, The Washington Post’s Juliet Eilperin has written stories about efforts at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue to roll back regulations:
For instance, Congress has used the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to disapprove a number of energy and federal contractor regulations.
At the White House, Eilperin reports, the administration has taken steps to reduce red tape:
This is in contrast with the previous administration putting out billion-dollar regulations on a regular basis.
With regulatory reform top of mind in Washington, D.C., now is the time to seriously think about how federal regulations get made. While the Constitution requires a lot of effort to write a new law, over the decades it’s become relatively easy for federal agencies to write regulations that have the full weight of law. At the same time, federal courts have given agencies tremendous deference to their rules.
There is a way to fix our broken the regulatory process—a way to make federal agencies more accountable to the public, more transparent about why and how they regulate, and increase the levels of public participation as regulations are developed.
The Regulatory Accountability Act (RAA) modernizes the process and targets the rules that have the biggest effects on the economy and job creation. As a letter from 616 business groups to Senate leadership explains:
If the Senate follows the House in passing the RAA, and with President Trump’s signature, small companies along with their larger counterparts would see a great weight lifted off them, and find it easier to grow their businesses and create more jobs.
About the authors
Sean Hackbarth
Sean writes about public policies affecting businesses including energy, health care, and regulations. When not battling those making it harder for free enterprise to succeed, he raves about all things Wisconsin (his home state) and religiously follows the Green Bay Packers.