2017 Regulatory Review in Retrospect

2017 was a monumental year for retrospective review in administrative agencies. For decades, both Congress and the President have taken measures to address regulatory accumulation, but none failed to slow the growth of the Code of Federal Regulations to over 1.2 million words. In early 2017, Presidential executive orders requiring federal agencies to conduct comprehensive reviews of existing regulations sparked a series of similar state-based initiatives. For the first time in decades, agencies dusted off outdated regulatory codes and critically evaluated their purpose and outcomes. While adapting new administrative practices is undoubtedly a long game, the early progress made in 2017 yields several key observations regarding regulatory review:

1. Executive orders propel agencies to action. Executive action is a smart first step for igniting the review process and making common sense improvements to regulatory codes. Check out our report on the key components of successful state executive-led initiatives here.
2. Sustainable regulatory review requires legislative action. To reinforce executive-led review and tackle more challenging policy decisions, legislatures must adopt a system for routinely evaluating rules and agencies. Argive recently published a report outlining review provisions of state legislative policies here.
3. Metrics make or break reform initiatives. To fully realize review goals, executive branch agencies must evaluate and track regulations using an agreed upon metric. Without consistent, quantitative measures, it’s difficult to assess regulatory outcomes. The state of Missouri uses “regulatory restrictions” to measure and manage state regulations. Regulatory restrictions are a proxy measure for regulatory burden that count the number of restrictive words in regulatory text. Other useful measures include outcome-based metrics like number of rules reviewed, amended, or repealed and number of words or pages in regulatory text.
4. Transparent reporting boosts public support. Regulations have a reputation for catering to special interests, but government can prevent opaque pork-barrel policy by making regulatory review efforts transparent and publicly available. Missouri, Kentucky, and Illinois all have dedicated websites where state agencies regularly publish updates on reform initiatives.
5. Public comments aid agency reviews. Throughout the regulatory review process, agencies are tasked with the additional work of evaluating hundreds of regulations for update or repeal. Soliciting public comments can help agencies prioritize rules to review and identify ways the rule could be updated based on public rationale. Argive published a report on how regulations.gov, the federal rulemaking website, could be improved to foster productive public dialogue on regulations. Check out our recommendations here.

We witnessed great strides in introducing regulatory review in 2017 via executive action, but lasting results require more than a single review. In order to sustain early agency progress, it is important to encourage legislative and third party oversight to hold agencies accountable. By increasing executive AND legislative oversight of administrative agencies, we can recalibrate the careful system of checks and balances inherent in our country’s design.

Visit argive.org to learn more.