Sen. Rick Scott Leads Reintroduction of Unnecessary Agency Regulations Reduction Act

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Senator Rick Scott was joined by Senators Tom Cotton, Thom Tillis, James Risch, Mike Crapo, Ron Johnson, Josh Hawley, Ted Cruz and Eric Schmitt to reintroduce the Unnecessary Agency Regulations Reduction Acttoreduce burdensome government regulations and more efficiently dispose of outdated, duplicative or unnecessary agency regulations. This legislation will create a mechanism to eliminate multiple regulations originating from federal executive branch agencies in a joint resolution.

The Unnecessary Agency Regulations Reduction Act is endorsed by Heritage Action, FreedomWorks, Americans for Prosperity, the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), the National Taxpayers Union, the R Street Institute and the Competitive Enterprise Institute…

Jonathan Bydlak, The R Street Institute Policy Director, Governance Program, said “The R Street Institute is pleased to once again endorse Senator Scott’s Unnecessary Agency Regulations Reduction Act. For too long, the American economy has suffered from the drag of outdated, duplicative, or nonsensical rules. All administrations should take regular inventory of such strains placed on the economy and work with Congress to repeal those that no longer make sense. This bill seeks to do just that…”

The Unnecessary Agency Regulations Reduction Act would create the following process:

• Beginning two years after enactment, the Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) will annually—

• Compile and maintain a list of all planned agency major rules or sets of major rules for the period covered by the submission; and
• Compile a list of outdated, duplicative or burdensome agency regulations to consolidate or repeal.

• OIRA will also consider GAO’s Duplication Overlap and Fragmentation (DOF) annual audit of programs to identify any duplicative, outdated, or burdensome regulations associated with the programs, agencies, offices, and initiatives identified in their report.
• The OIRA Administrator will include the list of major rules in each of the President’s Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions reports.
• No later than 30 days after the OIRA Administrator submits the list of major rules to Congress, each appropriate congressional committee shall review and then compile the final list of regulations to consolidate or repeal into a single joint resolution.
• This legislation is tied to the Congressional Review Act, which requires the measure to receive expedited consideration in each house of Congress.