Competitiveness
Richmond Times-Dispatch editorial, page E-2
December 10, 2006Late in the summer Attorney General Bob McDonnell created a task force to rid the state of outdated regulations. An August editorial, "A Needed Overhaul," lauded McDonnell's reform effort and the bipartisan manner he used to assemble his team. The upcoming session of the General Assembly should take McDonnell's idea one step further and write it into the Code of Virginia.
In the late 1980s the first President Bush charged a task force with reviewing federal regulations. Bush's commission was called the President's Council on Competitiveness, and the vice president served as its chairman. When a rule outlived its usefulness, the council would recommend that the president strike it from the Code of Federal Regulations through a streamlined process.
In explaining why he wanted continuous review of the regulatory system the elder Bush said, "Barriers erected by government - regulatory or otherwise - can frustrate innovation and . . . technological and scientific discoveries." The enforcement of outmoded government rules also can cost taxpayers mightily through the inefficient use of public resources.
After coming to the same realization about the crippling effects of burdensome regulations, McDonnell joined with the governor and his former colleagues in the General Assembly to form a regulatory reform commission by fiat. Monitoring the activities of unelected bureaucrats should have a permanent place in Virginia law.
Virginia's Council on Competitiveness should have the authority quickly to remove calcified bureaucratic rules. The governor and the attorney general should coalesce in its operation, and work with industry and consumer advocates.
Regulations promulgated by the Commonwealth's government should not retard efficiency in the public or private sectors. Codifying McDonnell's task force would help achieve that goal.=========