President Trump on Friday unleashed a new executive order that requires most federal departments and agencies to designate one agency official as the “Regulatory Reform Officer” — an anti-regulation officer.
Each Regulatory Reform Officer is tasked with studying and reporting on the cost of existing regulations and looking for opportunities to repeal such regulations.
This is huge.
Up until now, these agencies viewed their role in life as spewing out more regulations. It was a sign of how hard-working they were. More regulations with higher costs gave a bureaucrat high status.
Now someone in the shop will be pushing back, with the White House executive orders urging them on.
In the 1940s, Congress created the Byrd Committee (named after the conservative senator from Virginia, Harry Byrd) whose job was to write and submit legislation that reduced spending. It was an anti-appropriations committee. Some $40 billion in today’s dollars was eliminated.
Now there will be at least one full-time staffer pushing back on over-regulation.
This is a big deal. A game-changer.
President Ronald Reagan would have loved it.
Grover Norquist (@GroverNorquist) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is the president of Americans for Tax Reform.
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