11.17.16

Regulatory Reform Outlook

 

WASHINGTON, DC – The Senate Budget Committee today released its November 17, 2016, Budget Bulletin focused on the outlook for Regulatory Reform. The Budget Bulletin provides regular expert articles by Senate Budget Committee analysts on the issues before Congress relating to the budget, deficits, debt, and the economy.

Read the full Senate Budget Bulletin here.

Excerpts follow:

The rising cost to the economy of federal regulation is alarming. Private sector experts now estimate new federal rules in the health care, labor, financial, energy, and environmental sectors added $1.2 trillion in costs to the economy last year. And the accumulation of regulations has resulted in trillions of lost gross domestic product (GDP) growth. Yet none of this is accounted for by any government agency.

This Budget Bulletin examines key issues surrounding the regulatory reform debate:

Missing Cost Estimates - Commonly cited estimates of how much regulations cost the private sector range from $800,000 to $1.8 trillion. Missing are the government estimates to compare with those from the private sector.

One-In-One-Out Regulatory Budget – Several legislative proposals would require a federal agency to repeal a rule before it can issue a new one – the one-in-one-out approach.

Economic Analysis – The key to achieving better economic analysis regarding the impact of over-regulation is creating an agency to crunch the numbers, and deciding where to house it. One proposal would establish a regulatory-analysis division at CBO to analyze economically significant rules, defined as at least $100 million in annual economic cost.

Congressional Review Act – One tool Congress has used to turn back executive-branch regulatory overreach is the Congressional Review Act (CRA). Congress needs to review the CRA and consider whether GAO is best suited to review the rules before sending them to Congress. The goal is to conduct a thorough review of the rules, without the need for further regulatory-impact analysis.

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