regulatory reform

Today, the Competitive Enterprise Institute hosted a Capitol Hill forum on How to Achieve Regulatory Reform in the 115th Congress.

Our guests were Adam J. White (Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution), Richard J. Pierce Jr. (Professor of Law at George Washington University), and Jerry Ellig (Senior Research Fellow at the Mercatus Center); my own remarks follow.

There’s also more advice for Congress on this topic, by the way, in CEI's Free to Prosper: A Pro-Growth Agenda for the 115th Congress. 

*****

The final pre-inauguration Federal Register was 1,464 pages long. A normal day’s edition is roughly 300 pages. According to The Hill’s Overnight Regulation column, “Miriam Kleiman, a spokesperson for the Federal Register, described it as ‘one of the largest ever’ editions of the government's rulebook.” Since there is a lag time of a few days for most documents, the midnight rush may well continue into next week. New rules from the last week range from organic poultry to pool pumps.

On to the data:

In a mere nine working days, the 2017 Federal Register has nearly reached 5,000 pages; the midnight hour approaches. New rules from the last week range from school lunches to bumblebees.

On to the data:

The new year is off to an eventful start. The midnight regulatory rush continues, with more than 2,100 Federal Register pages, despite a four-day work week, along with 51 proposed regulations and 52 final regulations. The final regulations range from “entities” to air conditioners.

On to the data: