Mountain of Regulation Moves One Shovelful at a Time
Richmond Times-Dispatch, page E-5
June 24, 2007
By Jack Rust, guest editorial columnLooking for some summer reading? Have I got a book for you: The Virginia Administrative Code. Weighing in at 24,000 pages, it makes War and Peace look like a restaurant menu. Reading 65 pages a day it would take you roughly one year to finish.
If you are a business owner, or just a citizen, reading the code
isn't really optional, it's mandatory. The regulations found in these 24,000 pages have the force of law and Virginia citizens and businesses are expected to know what is included and to comply with the requirements.
Compliance costs money, and Virginia consumers ultimately pay that cost - essentially a hidden tax.
With this in mind, Attorney General Bob McDonnell announced his Government and Regulatory Reform Task Force last August. I hesitated when he asked me to chair this effort, as I know that government regulations can be a quagmire, filled with lawyers and other equally savory characters. Enter at your own risk.
I am pleased to report that nearly one year later, McDonnell's ambitious undertaking to eliminate excessive and unnecessary government regulations is doing well at cleaning up the swamp.
While it doesn't make for eye-catching headlines, we are making real progress.
The mission of the task force is to conduct a systematic review of state regulations with the goal of minimizing any possible adverse impacts on commerce and society while preserving the important public safety, health, and welfare protections that many of the regulations provide. To that end the task force includes members from many walks of life, from a senior adviser to Gov. Kaine to a farmer in Lee County. Each one of the panel's members encounters regulations every day, but in very different contexts. Now they are working together to improve Virginia's government.
When we first met, the job of reviewing that mountain of regulations looked as difficult as as moving Afton Mountain to Richmond.
Obviously such a project required the proper tools. The task force found such a tool in its first action. We recommended, and the attorney general included in his 2007 legislative agenda, a proposal to create a "fast-track repeal" process for outdated or unnecessary regulations. We had found it was easy to get a new regulation on the books, but difficult to remove that regulation after its task was done.
Fast-track repeal will take effect on July 1. This tool will benefit not only the task force, but also any similar efforts in the future.
The task force also immediately recognized that the key to moving a mountain was to do the job one shovelful at a time. Working groups were established in the areas of small business, agriculture, health care, and the Administrative Process Act. This past Tuesday McDonnell added an environmental working group. These groups have been meeting separately, focusing on their specific fields, and making recommendations to the task force for action. That work is paying off.
On Tuesday McDonnell announced that, based on findings of the task force, he will propose uniformity in the public participation guidelines for state agencies, and he requested that we develop proposals for such guidelines.
Across the board, state agencies have no uniform standard for public input. These agencies are determining rules that bind all of us, and it only makes sense that Virginians get a full opportunity to make their thoughts known about proposed regulations. This legislation will be part of the attorney general's 2008 legislative agenda, and it is a significant step forward for public participation in state government.
The task force also identified an important reform needed to simplify registration for minority-owned, woman-owned, and small businesses contracting with the commonwealth. Currently, a minority, woman, or small-business owner has to fill out a separate set of paperwork for each designation. An African-American owner of a small business has to go through two separate processes for something that should be done just once. The attorney general will recommend ways to eliminate this redundancy, saving business owners time and trouble, and eliminating barriers to economic participation.
These small victories are important steps in winning the battle against unnecessary regulation. They are incremental, they take time, and they will never displace Paris Hilton in the headlines. However, pages are coming out of the Virginia Administrative Code, and common sense will prevail. With this work, we are helping to reclaim government for the citizens of the commonwealth. Virginians should be pleased that Attorney General McDonnell's task force is moving the mountain - one shovelful at a time.
Jack Rust, an attorney, served in the House of Delegates from 1980-82, and from 1997-2003. He chairs Attorney General Bob McDonnell's Government and Regulatory Reform Task Force.=========