Regulatory Relief Needs Better Transparency

Getting rid of #NeverNeeded regulations is one of the most important policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. The short-term benefits are obvious, but the long-term benefits are arguably more important, for both long-term growth and resilience against the next crisis. My colleague Alex Reinauer and I have a short piece over at RealClearPolicy looking at just how much deregulation has happened in the wake of COVID. It’s actually difficult to tell how much there is, due to a lack of transparency:

Transparency is important, especially during a crisis. Agencies need to do more than look like they are “doing something” in response to COVID. Congress and the president need to ensure agencies follow existing transparency requirements. Additional safeguards such as annual agency regulatory report cards will keep agencies more honest during this and future crises. Then policy makers and the public can judge for themselves what agencies are faring, and how they can do it better. It’s a lot more cost effective than another $1 trillion “stimulus.”

These transparency problems are a system-level problem that needs to be addressed. Agencies need to follow existing transparency guidelines. People need to know what they are doing, how much it costs, and what agencies are doing to improve their work. As we often say at CEI, institutions matter. It is not enough to reform this or that rule. The larger institutions that create those rules also need to be reformed.

Read the whole piece here. For more reform ideas, visit neverneeded.cei.org.