Title: How Many Rules And Regulations Do Federal Agencies Issue?
Headings: How Many Rules And Regulations Do Federal Agencies Issue?
How Many Rules And Regulations Do Federal Agencies Issue?
Content: Clyde Wayne Crews Jr.
Contributor
Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. Policy
Policy director at Competitive Enterprise Institute
This article is more than 3 years old. Share to Facebook
Share to Twitter
Share to Linkedin
US Republican Representative from North Carolina Mark Meadows speaks to reporters after a meeting of ... [+]
the House Freedom Caucus to discuss the healthcare bill on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, on March 23, 2017. ( NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images)
With Congress on summer vacation, it's an appropriate time to reflect on the number of laws it passes vs. the number of rules and regulations put out by the hundreds of federal agencies they (are supposed to) oversee. There's been much talk in the new Donald Trump administration about cutting regulations, speeding up construction permitting, executive branch reorganization and the like. There's also been talk of the "administrative state" (some have said " deep state ") and the reality of agency bureaucrats digging in their heels to slow down Trump's reforms (with media sympathy: only some seven percent are Republicans) . But these things matter no matter who's president, because increasingly, since the federal government is so pervasive, it can regulate private activity without waiting for Congress to pass a law, and without even going through the normal notice-and-comment rulemaking process to which agencies "must" adhere. That threatens conservative and liberal values alike. The bottom line is that in today's America, most binding rules comes from agencies (unelected) rather than elected lawmakers.