House Oversight and Accountability Committee unanimously advances regulatory reform legislation
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Earlier today, the House Oversight and Accountability Committee advanced 41 to 0 the Guidance Out of Darkness (GOOD) Act from Rep. James Comer (R-KY). This showing of unanimous bipartisanship is significant and follows passage of the legislation by voice vote back in 2018 during the 115th Congress.
The committee also approved the Unfunded Mandates Accountability and Transparency Act (UMATA) from Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-VA).
The GOOD Act would create a single, searchable, indexed database to contain or link all regulatory guidance documents. This would shed light on regulatory dark matter and help reveal the true extent of the administrative state.
UMATA would ensure stricter and more clearly defined requirements for how and when federal agencies must disclose the cost of federal mandates affecting business, consumers, and lower level governments via more formal preparation of regulatory impact analyses. This would help protect federalism and promote government accountability.
A letter of support for these bills from Fred L. Smith Fellow in Regulatory Studies Clyde Wayne Crews and Senior Government Affairs Manager Matthew Adams can be found here.
After the markup, Crews said:
Together, the GOOD Act and UMATA would help promote disclosure, accountability, and more sound regulatory policy generally. We encourage members of the committee to advance these commonsense bills at this unique opportunity.
In the mid-90s, the parties worked together closely to advance, paperwork reduction, small business regulatory relief, unfunded mandate restraint, and other reforms advancing accountability and disclosure.
The recent rise in spending with which Congress must grapple will be accompanied by a surge in regulatory activity, making today, in this 118th Congress, the opportune moment to get ahead of that new tide.
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