MADISON, WI (WTAQ) — A new report recommends that the state of Wisconsin work to get rid of some of the over 160,000 regulations that make up the state’s legal codes off of the books.
The report from the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty says that Wisconsin is the most over-regulated, on a per-capita basis, of the Great Lakes states. It also suggests ways to fix it, including adding a sunset provision to all rules made in the state.
“Under current law, if an agency promulgates a regulation, that regulation stays on the books forever,” WILL Senior Counsel Lucas Vebber told WTAQ. “We think it would be better if, on a rolling basis, the regulations were only in place for a set period of time.”
It also suggests an independent agency look over and evaluate how rules are working, issuing what WILL calls “sunrise reports”. Right now, they’re analyzed by the department that makes them.
“That information’s great, but obviously if you’re writing your own report on your own rule, you get to give it your own sales pitch,” said Vebber. “With a sunrise report, there would be an independent report that gets written.”
Another suggestion made in the report is a “net-zero” rule, designed to offset regulatory costs.
“We just say that whenever an agency adopts a rule that comes with a cost increase for those involved, they also have to find a cost decrease,” Vebber said.
The report was compiled in the fall and was released this week. Vebber says the suggestions are unlikely to go anywhere in the current assembly session.
