Agenda for Congress: Regulation

CEI’s new Agenda for Congress is out now. Each chapter contains pro-market policy recommendations in areas where CEI has expertise. Here are four principles of effective reforms from the chapter on regulatory reform:

1. Institutions matter. Getting rid of specific regulations is not enough. Congress must also reform the systems that create those regulations.
2. Congress needs to be involved in reform. Use legislation, not just Executive Orders.
3. Congress should require agencies to be more transparent about the regulations they issue and their cost.
4. Remember that regulations are made and enforced by the real-world government we have, not the ideal government we want.

The chapter opens with the problem of just how much regulation there is. It closes by looking at specific reform bills. We’ll have a lot more to say on those in the months to come.

This post focuses on the middle bit, on principles for reform. Without principles, you can’t navigate the road from problem to solution.

First, lasting regulatory reform focuses on institutions, not just individual rules. The current rulemaking system generates about 3,000 new regulations every year. Getting that number down requires changing the rulemaking process itself.

Second, Congress needs to rediscover the separation of powers. The last tranche of regulatory reforms in 2017 didn’t last because they were done via Executive Order. These can be rescinded every time there is a change in power. Congressional legislation is much harder to overturn. The time for reform is now, and Congress need to lead the way, not the president. Congress has all legislative power given by the Constitution, and the president has none.

Third, agencies need to be more transparent about the burdens they impose. This will take institution-level changes in the way the government does cost-benefit analysis. It also means requiring agencies to issue regulations through the proper notice-and-comment process, rather than dodging it by using guidance documents, memoranda, and other “regulatory dark matter.”

Fourth, remember that government failure is a real problem, even when your side is in power. Be humble about what regulation can and cannot accomplish. One way to have fewer regulatory problems is to create fewer regulations in the first place.

The full chapter on regulatory reform is here. The full text of Free to Prosper: A Pro-Growth Agenda for the 119th Congress, with chapters on inflation, trade, energy, finance, and other issues, is here. See also Wayne Crews’s annual Ten Thousand Commandments report.