The Fall 2014 Edition of the Administrative Law Review contains an article titled: The Regulatory Budget Revisited written by Jeff Rosen and Brian Callanan which concludes that it is time to give serious attention to implementing a regulatory budget.
The article traces in detail the history, theory and experimentation with regulatory budgets. The record is clear; regulatory budgets should be given consideration comparable to procedural suggestions for regulatory reform.
As the authors state, nearly forty years ago OMB performed a detailed analysis of a regulatory budget, developed a Regulatory Cost Accounting Act of 1980 to provide the attendant requirement for cost information and developed an experimental regulatory budget for EPA
The article concludes:
“The concept of a regulatory budget has undergone three decades of scholarly, legislative and administrative consideration. After a long gestation period, the increasing adoption of complementary policy tools such as cost-benefit analysis, and recent experience with the “One-in, Two-out initiative in the United Kingdom, the time has come for further debate about regulatory budgeting as a reform option in the United States”.
ACUS, OIRA, the ABA Administrative Law Section, leading academic authorities, think tanks and regulatory analysts should address the recommendations of the authors.
