Can the Ideas in the RNC Platform Help Reform Regulation?

The Republican Party’s new platform, which contains planks on such pressing issues as “Protection Against an Electromagnetic Pulse (p. 54),” also has a lot to say about regulation. But will a GOP-controlled Congress act on them? That remains to be seen.

It is not enough to reform this or that financial or environmental regulation. The rulemaking process itself must be geared towards limiting the damage new rules can do, while regularly getting rid of obsolete, redundant, or ineffective regulations. After all, if you want better results, you need better rules. Here’s what the GOP platform proposes on that front:

• A “bipartisan presidential commission to purge the [U.S.] Code and the [Code of Federal Regulations] of old ‘crimes,’” which is similar to the SCRUB Act that recently passed the House.
• Occupational licensing reform—an issue where the GOP and President Obama agree. Maybe they can pass something before the next administration takes power.
• Limit the executive branch’s power to issue regulations through executive order and other “dark matter” methods. CEI’s Wayne Crews wrote about this problem in a recent paper.
• The REINS Act (though without mentioning it by name). REINS would require Congress to vote on all new major regulations before they can take effect. This would help to ensure agencies don’t go rogue, as the EPA did with cap-and-trade and the FCC did with net neutrality.
• The Regulation Freedom Amendment, under which two thirds of states could vote to repeal federal regulations.
• A regulatory budget, similar to the government’s annual spending budget. Wayne has also written on this reform.
• A “one-in, one out” rule, under new agency regulations must be offset by repealing an equivalent dollar amount of old regulations.

All in all, not a bad list. And several of the planks have already passed the House. The trouble is that the Senate is unlikely to act on them, and the administration has issued veto threats on the REINS and SCRUB Acts. The Senate should pass them anyway to force the White House to publicly explain why they oppose regulatory reform. So in the short term, pessimism reigns.

After the election, the main task is keeping these reform ideas alive. It is important for each new Congress to keep reintroducing reform bills, and to vote on them, even in the face of veto threats. That way, when voters finally elect a president interested in regulatory reform, the legislation will already be right there for him or her to sign. So despite short-term pessimism for the next administration, the long-run future is bright for regulatory reform—so long as Congress is committed to keeping these bills alive.