Smart Regulation New Business Roundtable Report Highlights Need for Regulatory Overlap Reform

Jun 3, 2019

Washington – Business Roundtable today released “Reducing Regulatory Overlap in the 21st Century,” a report on the harmful economic effects of overlapping regulation resulting from multiple U.S. regulatory agencies having jurisdiction over a given economic activity.

The report details how regulatory overlap increases costs and impedes business activity, provides insight into recent Executive Branch progress in reducing overlap and offers recommendations to inform additional reform efforts by Congress and the Trump Administration.

In releasing the report, Doug Peterson, President and CEO of S&P Global, Inc. and Chair of the Business Roundtable Smart Regulation Committee, issued the following statement:

“A strong and comprehensive regulatory system is critical to protect U.S. consumers and workers, promote fair competition and drive economic growth. Unfortunately today, overlapping and inconsistent standards can frustrate regulatory goals and impose real costs on American businesses and consumers.
“Despite recent progress by the current and previous administrations, significant challenges remain. Business Roundtable CEOs encourage Congress and the Trump Administration to better address overlapping regulations in order to improve America’s regulatory system, better achieve regulatory goals, and stimulate innovation and growth.”

The report focuses on three areas where regulatory overlap is both well-documented and particularly pervasive—food manufacturing, surface transportation and finance—and urges the Administration and federal agencies to employ five measures to create a smarter regulatory system:

  • Negotiate memoranda of understanding and establish interagency working groups to improve coordination among regulatory agencies.
  • Designate a lead regulator where multiple agencies have responsibility for oversight, with other regulators exercising both regulatory and enforcement deference to the primary regulator.
  • Conduct joint rulemakings in instances where new rules stretch across the jurisdiction of multiple agencies.
  • Improve communication between regulators and industry actors, including increasing the clarity and availability of guidance in regulatory areas prone to jurisdictional overlap.
  • Consider the role of state and local regulators and how the recommendations above could be used to improve coordination and streamline regulatory measures across levels of government (e.g., through national associations that promote uniformity among federal, state and local requirements).

The full report is available here. Click here to learn more about the Smart Regulation Committee’s objectives for 2019. 

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