CEI Policy Analyst to Argue for Regulatory Reform
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Contact:
Richard Morrison, 202.331.2273
<?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags” />Washington, D.C., July 26, 2005—Tomorrow Competitive Enterprise Institute Senior Fellow Marlo Lewis, Jr. will testify before the Regulatory Affairs Subcommittee of the House Committee on Government Reform on the problems with the current state of federal regulation and the prospects for substantive reform in Congress.
Lewis’ testimony will incorporate elements of two recent CEI publications: Lewis’ own study, Reviving Regulatory Reform: Options for the President and Congress, and Ten Thousand Commandments: An Annual Snapshot of the Federal Regulatory State by CEI Vice President for Policy Clyde Wayne Crews, Jr.
As both Lewis and Crews have shown, regulatory costs have continued to increase in recent years, regardless of which party controls the White House or either house of Congress. This ever-expanding scope of the regulatory state has been due more to a lack of oversight and accountability than anything else.
“In part, regulatory costs are growing because they are uncontrolled,” wrote Lewis in submitted testimony. “Many rules function as implicit taxes, their costs embedded in the prices we pay for goods and services. Some affect growth, employment, and innovation. Yet, nothing in the current process requires or even allows elected officials to make explicit choices about the costs of regulatory programs. Regulatory costs accumulate as if by stealth.”
The Regulatory Affairs Subcommittee of the House Committee on Government Reform will hear from witnesses beginning at 10am on Wednesday, July 27, 2005. Lewis’ written remarks will be available at www.cei.org after tomorrow’s hearing.
CEI is a non-profit, non-partisan public policy group dedicated to the principles of free enterprise and limited government.