Federal Regulatory Reform: An Overview

Publication Date: January 2003

Publisher: Library of Congress. Congressional Research Service

Author(s):

Research Area: Government

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Abstract:

Federal regulation can be defined broadly as federal requirements, directives, standards, or procedures, backed by the use of penalties or other sanctions, intended specifically to modify the behavior of state and local governments, private institutions, businesses, and individuals. Congress and the President have made numerous attempts to reform government regulation over the last 3 decades. Regulatory reform efforts have centered on several policy issue areas that include requiring agencies to prepare cost-benefit and cost-effectiveness analyses for major regulations, centralizing mandatory review and clearance of new regulations, setting expiration dates on regulations (forcing a new review of a regulation before it is continued), and expanding the role of judicial review.

The heart of the debate over regulatory reform is the tension between the costs imposed by federal regulations, in terms of both dollars and government intrusiveness, and protecting public health, safety, and the environment. Several factors have made it troublesome to resolve regulatory issues and to pass comprehensive regulatory reform. The difficulty is compounded by the fact that costbenefit analysis, cost-effectiveness analysis, and risk-assessment analysis, primary tools used by regulators, rely on subjective assumptions, incomplete data collection, and other uncertainties.

In its efforts to address regulatory issues, Congress has enacted laws to lessen the regulatory burden and intrusiveness of federal regulation. These laws include the Paperwork Reduction Act, the Regulatory Flexibility Act, the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act, the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act, and the Congressional Review Act, among others.

The purpose of this report is to provide Congress with an overview of regulatory reform efforts and a summary of regulatory issues. The report also briefly describes what issues have been most contentious and prevalent over the last decade or more, and what Presidents have attempted, on their own authority, to evaluate better both the necessity and the costs of regulations. Also discussed are laws passed by Congress that have a direct or indirect impact on the regulatory process, those that affect the analysis of the costs and benefits of regulations, and other laws that allow for congressional, executive, and judicial review of regulations.