Once the election dust settles, Congress will wrangle over another COVID-19 spending bill, but regulation will ultimately have greater impact on the recovery. Agencies have been waiving limitations on telemedicine, restrictions against remote work and education, and other harmful rules. Yet, nobody knows how many total rules they have waived or how much impact they are having. This is a longstanding problem.
Agencies need to start following their own rules, especially at a time like this. Congress and the President should enforce existing agency transparency requirements, such as the required notice-and-comment process for new rules, and stop agencies from dodging required cost-benefit analysis. Improved disclosure is also needed.
The 185,000-page Code of Federal Regulations has roughly 1.1 million regulations. According to the White House, federal agencies have taken 600 administrative actions in response to COVID-19. Many of those were already in progress before the pandemic. Many others never went through the formal rulemaking process and are difficult to track. Such reforms can be undone at any time, and the public might never find out.
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