The 2025 legislative session saw progress in several policy areas, including the passage of landmark tort reform and a reduction of the state income tax. No session comes and goes without some measure of disappointment, though. This year, Georgia had an opportunity to join other states in passing regulatory reform and failed to do so.
Senate Bill 28, labeled the “Red Tape Rollback Act,” was designated as a priority by the Lieutenant Governor’s office upon its introduction, and it passed the Senate 33-21, along party lines, in late February. Despite interest from the House Budget and Fiscal Affairs Committee, which also passed the bill, it ultimately never came to the House floor. While Georgia’s biennially structured legislative terms means that the Red Tape Rollback Act can be considered in 2026, its stall this year further postpones a reckoning for Georgia’s expanding regulatory code.
Almost each year since the Georgia Secretary of State’s office began tracking regulations in 1965, the state’s code has grown. Research provided to the Georgians First Commission, tasked with analyzing Georgia’s code during Gov. Brian Kemp’s first term, showed that over half of those regulations were out of date, redundant or in need of review.
It is important to view regulations from executive branch agencies in the proper context. That is, while it is the General Assembly’s responsibility to pass laws, most of the state’s regulatory burden in fact comes from an unelected bureaucracy and the federal government. If left unchecked, executive regulations tend to grow over time, as Georgia’s have.
At both the state and federal levels, the vast landscape of regulations contributes to a myriad of economic constraints. In addition to higher poverty rates, unemployment and inflation, regulations disproportionately burden smaller businesses which struggle to navigate complicated compliance requirements.
The Red Tape Rollback Act would have been a critical step in not only reducing the burdens in Georgia’s code, but in changing the process by which regulations are enacted to better ensure their necessity and that they do not impose unnecessary costs. It and similar regulatory reform efforts seek to reverse the inertia with which regulatory burdens grow by requiring the agencies that enforce them to justify the creation and continued existence of regulations.
SB 28 would require all state agencies to perform top-to-bottom reviews of their regulations every four years and to account for the economic impact of their proposed rules. For proposed rules that agencies anticipate will cost over $3 million in cumulative implementation and compliance costs, agencies would need to provide economic impact analysis reports to the General Assembly. Rules estimated to have a large economic impact would require ratification by the General Assembly before going into effect.
Georgia’s regulatory reform bill follows aspects of models that have been implemented successfully in other states and reflects a widespread desire to make government more efficient. The lieutenant governor’s office originally billed SB 28 as something akin to a state version of the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE); however, it does not share practical similarities with that program beyond a general mission to reduce regulatory bloat.
More appropriate comparisons to the Red Tape Rollback Act can be found in other states, such as benchmarks for cuts in regulatory language, like those in Missouri and Ohio, and legislative reviews of regulations estimated to cost more than a certain amount over a certain period of time, such as in Kansas and Florida.
SB 28’s inclusion of a cost-benefit analysis for costly regulations takes inspiration from a similar model used by Virginia’s Office of Regulatory Management. In addition to reducing the state’s code, Virginia’s cost-benefit analysis has led to several positive outcomes such as saving an estimated $1.2 billion per year, cutting the cost of building a new house by $24,000 and reducing the time it takes to acquire permits and licenses over various industries.
Lawmakers who have spent years touting Georgia as “the best state for business,” should take care not to take that status for granted. Georgia does not rank highly in regulatory freedom or in countermeasures to regulations. Maintaining our business-friendly environment takes effort and maintenance, and there is no better place to start than the state’s regulatory code. The legislature should not allow that opportunity to slip away next year.
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.
