“The Bush Administration is committed to developing a smarter regulatory system based on sound science and economics,” says a recent Office of Management and Budget report that outlines the Bush administration’s regulatory approach.
“A smarter system adopts cost-effective rules when market and state and local efforts fail,” says the report, “revises existing rules to make them less costly and/or more effective, and rescinds outmoded rules whose benefits do not justify their costs.”
Two tools for achieving the smarter regulatory system are the “return letter” and the “prompt letter.”
The report concludes that the cost of federal regulation ranges from $575 billion to $655 billion while benefits are estimated to range between $250 billion to $1 trillion per year.
Source: White House Bulletin, January 4, 2002; based on “Making Sense of Regulation: 2001 Report to Congress on the Cost and Benefits of Regulations and Unfunded Mandates on State, Local and Tribal Entities,” December 2001, Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Office of Management and Budget.
For report text http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/inforeg/costbenefitreport.pdf
For more on the Regulatory State http://www.ncpa.org/iss/reg/
FMF Policy Bulletin\8 January 2002
