We are in the midst of a large project focused on digitizing many of AEI’s historical documents. AEI’s amateur archivists led by Karlyn Bowman (a coauthor of this blog) and dedicated RAs, along with willing interns, have taken dusty, fragile paper documents found in our former office’s basement and turned them into searchable PDFs. The other coauthor on this blog, Joseph Kosten, has finished loading all the editions of AEI’s Regulation magazine to the website available for download. We invite you to take some time to explore the archives. In them you will find articles and colloquies on important debates, and pieces on regulatory policies written by esteemed jurists such as Antonin Scalia and Stephen Breyer, both of whom later served on the Supreme Court. There is a treasure trove of valuable information waiting to be explored.
On the 45th anniversary of the magazine, former AEI president Chris DeMuth wrote an essay, “Regulation and Regulation” about his own and AEI’s involvement with the magazine. It is particularly timely because as Politico Huddle reported recently, the Congressional Review Act is “back in action.” This act enables Congress to rein in the regulatory state by empowering Congress to review, by means of an expedited legislative process, new federal regulations issued by government agencies and, by passage of a joint resolution, to overrule a regulation. After a new rule is finalized, the clock starts ticking and Congress can strike down a rule via a resolution within 60 days. Politico Huddle reports Republicans have a few in mind. Once again, regulations and their impact on Americans’ lives are in the focus of legislators on Capitol Hill.
Before coming to AEI, Chris DeMuth had extensive background in regulation. DeMuth served in the Nixon and Reagan administrations as administrator for information and regulatory affairs at the Office of Management and Budget and as executive director of the Presidential Task Force of Regulatory Relief. In his essay, DeMuth describes the evolution of regulation over recent decades:
The federal and state regulatory establishments have come more sophisticated and proficient than they used to be, more cognizant of regulation’s characteristic failings, and less prone to making outright mistakes in pursuing their declared or surreptitious purposes. . . . But smarter regulation, where it has occurred, has been overwhelmed by the emergence of a ‘regulatory state’ that could hardly have been imagined in the 1970s. In the 21st century, and especially since the financial crisis of 2008, federal regulation has become vastly more extensive, penetrating, and unhinged from economic, political, or constitutional restraint.
– CHRIS C. DEMUTH | Regulation Winter 2022-23
As the virtues and vices of regulation are once again debated, hopefully some of the wisdom from the Regulation Archive will help inform the final outcome.
Regulation is now published by CATO.
The post From the AEI Archive: Chris DeMuth on Regulation and “Regulation” appeared first on American Enterprise Institute – AEI.