
In this year’s legislative session, Georgia had an opportunity to address its ever-growing regulatory code and reduce regulatory burdens placed on its citizens and businesses. Although the “Red Tape Rollback Act” passed the Senate, it ultimately failed to become law in Georgia.
Although sidelined in Georgia until at least next year’s session, regulatory reform has been a hot political topic recently, especially this year. This is partly due to the high profile effort at the federal level led by Elon Musk. While DOGE caught national headlines before fizzling out along with Musk’s relationship with the president, other attempts to cut government waste at the state level have proved more effective and more enduring.
Take Virginia, for example. In 2022, the state established its Office of Regulatory Management (ORM) via executive order from Gov. Glenn Youngkin. Three years later, Youngkin announced that the ORM had reduced the number of regulations in the state’s code by 26.8% and is on pace to reach a 33% reduction by the end of his term. This exceeds the originally stated goal of cutting requirements by 25%.
Virginia’s successes don’t stop there. Regulatory word count was reduced by 11.5 million words, over half of the total. The governor’s office estimates that the ORM’s efforts will save Virginians $1.2 billion a year, and changes to the state’s building codes have lowered the cost of building a new home by over $24,000.
In addition to saving money, Virginia also focused on reforming licensing and permitting. The ORM cut approval times for the licensing process from 33 days to five and saved hundreds of millions of dollars in costs across multiple industries. It should be noted, too, that the ORM was able to accomplish this with only four full-time employees.
In Forbes, James Broughel detailed some of the ways the ORM has exceeded its own expectations, and importantly, he pointed out distinctions between reform efforts like Virginia’s ORM and DOGE. Broughel pointed out that DOGE’s focus was largely fiscal, and at best, yielded modest savings and anecdotal evidence of waste-cutting. In fact, DOGE has yet to repeal a single federal regulation and has no target to do so. As Broughel puts it, “ORM’s reforms are grounded in economic analysis… DOGE’s strategy, by contrast, has eschewed such analysis in favor of immediate disruption. While that may appeal to voters hungry for change, it is a fragile strategy prone to backlash.”
This distinction is relevant to Georgia, which introduced the Red Tape Rollback Act earlier this year and was subsequently branded as Georgia’s version of DOGE. In reality, Georgia’s proposal more closely resembles Virginia’s ORM. The Red Tape Rollback Act would have required all of Georgia’s executive agencies to perform top-to-bottom reviews of their regulations every four years as well as publication of economic impact analysis reports for proposed rules estimated to cost over $3 million in cumulative implementation and compliance costs. Georgia’s proposal also included a cost-benefit analysis of costly regulations that took inspiration from Virginia’s model.
But ORM isn’t the only regulatory reform effort that has demonstrated success, and the Red Tape Rollback Act took inspiration from other states as well. States like Missouri and Ohio have implemented benchmarks for cutting regulatory language, and automatic reviews of rules projected to cost a certain amount were implemented in Kansas and Florida. One important distinction between these reforms is the method of their implementation. Despite its successes, Virginia’s ORM was created by executive order, meaning it could be dismantled by a change in administration.
Regulations from the executive branch tend to grow over time, and that has been the case in Georgia since the Secretary of State’s office began tracking rules and regulations in 1965. Georgia’s code has grown at an average rate of 13% per year since then, and over half of its regulations were found to be in need of review according to the 2019 Georgians First Commission. Georgia also does not rank highly among other states in terms of implementing regulatory reforms or regulations in general. While regulations are usually implemented with safety or quality control in mind, it is often unclear whether they achieve their practical goals, generate benefits worth the costs they impose or stay in effect after becoming irrelevant.
Reforms like the ones proposed in Georgia and enacted in Virginia seek to reverse the inertia with which regulatory codes grow. Agencies would be required to justify the continued existence of old regulations and provide transparency around the costs of new ones. If Georgia lawmakers want to maintain Georgia’s status as “the best state for business,” regulatory reform needs to be a higher priority.
Add your name: Georgia needs regulatory reform!
Unnecessary regulations increase the costs for businesses and consumers. Georgia needs to join other states that have reformed their regulatory environment.