Panel features critic of ‘regulatory dark matter’

E&E News reports on Wayne Crews testifying on federal agencies regulating through guidance documents before a Senate subcommittee. 

The conservative scholar who writes the "Ten Thousand Commandments" scorecard of regulatory action will testify before senators this week at a hearing on the ways federal agencies use guidance to communicate with the public.

Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.), chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on Regulatory Affairs and Federal Management, invited three nongovernmental witnesses to Thursday's hearing on "Examining the Use of Agency Regulatory Guidance."

Among them is Clyde Wayne Crews of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, author of an annual report on the federal rules agenda that The Wall Street Journal once called the "best measure of the overall regulatory burden."

In the 2016 edition, Crews estimated the federal regulatory cost reached $1.885 trillion in 2015.

The agenda for this hearing builds on a hearing the panel held last year to talk about the process behind issuing guidance documents under the Administrative Procedure Act (E&E Daily, Sept. 24, 2015).

Read the full article at E&E News.