Senator Warner chaired a Senate Budget Committee Government Performance Task Force hearing yesterday to discuss the United Kingdom’s recent regulatory reform efforts and distill lessons that might be applicable to the current regulatory reform debate in Congress. 

Senators Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Ron Johnson (R-WI), and Warner at the Government Performance Task Force Hearing yesterday. 

The hearing’s first panel featured Graham Turnock and Johannes Wolff leaders of the United Kingdom’s efforts. Turnock and Wolff described the UK’s “one-in, one-out” program which requires new regulations to be offset by either modifying or eliminating an existing regulation of equal value. In the second panel, Dr. Michael Greenstone from MIT and Jitinder Kohli from the Center from American Progress—talked about how the United States can approach regulatory reform with the UK’s efforts in mind.

Graham Turnock, left, and Johannes Wolff, right.

Senator Warner used the hearing to dispel common misperceptions about federal regulations and to suggest several areas of reform. It is the cumulative impact of regulations, not specific regulations from any particular Administration, which are burdening American businesses, he said. The cumulative annual cost of the U.S. regulatory burden, meanwhile, “is unclear,” said Senator Warner, “estimates range from $44-62 billion according to the Office of Management and Budget to $1.75 trillion according to the Small Business Administration.”

Senator Warner described four areas of reform that can help reduce the regulatory burden for businesses. First, Senator Warner wants to review existing regulations periodically to remove outdated rules or update the rules to make it easier for businesses to comply. Senator Warner would use a system similar to the UK’s one-in, one-out program to help agencies do this. Second, Congress needs to give the agencies an incentive to reduce regulatory burden while balancing necessary public safeguards. Third, there needs to be an independent review of agency cost-benefit analyses to insure integrity in the agency analysis. Finally, Senator Warner wants to measure the performance of regulations just like the federal government does with agency programs.

“Regulations should be monitored and measured to ensure that goals and outcomes are being met,” said Senator Warner, “regulations should also be reviewed periodically to ensure that they are still relevant and serving the intended purpose.”