President Obama Attempts to Buttress Republican Concerns Over Regulatory Agenda

In an attempt to meet Republican calls for ending a regulatory environment that is stifling job creation and economic growth, President Obama on January 18 signed an executive order requiring all agencies to review federal regulations that are too burdensome. Under the Executive Order, the president ordered federal agencies to design cost-effective, evidence-based regulations that are compatible with economic growth, job creation, and competitiveness, utilizing the following guiding principles:

• Cost-effective and Cost-Justified: Consistent with law, Agencies must consider costs and benefits and choose the least burdensome path.
• Transparent: The regulatory process must be transparent and include public participation, with an opportunity for the public to comment.
• Coordinated and Simplified: Agencies must attempt to coordinate, simplify, and harmonize regulations to reduce costs and promote certainty for businesses and the public.
• Flexible: Agencies must consider approaches that maintain freedom of choice and flexibility, including disclosure of relevant information to the public.
• Science-driven: Regulations must be guided by objective scientific evidence.
• Necessary and Up-to-Date: Existing regulations must be reviewed to determine that they are still necessary and crafted effectively to solve current problems. If they are outdated, they must be changed or repealed.

It is unclear at this time how the federal agencies will respond to this directive and what regulations would be permitted to be rolled back by the Administration. In addition to the Executive Order, the president also issued two memos concerning transparency and job creation. The first memo requires the federal agencies to make publicly-available compliance information easily accessible, downloadable, and searchable online.  The second memo calls on the federal agencies to consider ways to reduce regulatory burdens on small business and requires that Agencies provide justifications when such flexibilities are not included in proposed regulation. AGC will closely monitor how these new directives will be implemented and will continue working with the federal agencies and Congressional leaders to identify regulatory actions that are inhibiting job growth in the construction industry. The new Executive Order can be found here. The new memorandum on Regulatory Compliance can be found here. The new memorandum on Regulatory Flexibility, Small Business, and Job Creation can be found here. For more information, please contact Marco Giamberardino at (703) 837-5325 or giamberm@agc.org.