A new bill aims to help administrative agencies meet regulatory goals by requiring them to assess the effectiveness of new major rules. Senate Bill 1420, The SMART Act of 2019, would require agencies to publish ideas about how to measure the anticipated benefits of new major rules, including how to collect the necessary data to conduct such a review. Senators Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) and James Lankford (R-Okla.) introduced the bill on May 13, 2019.
The act instructs agencies to perform cost-benefit reviews of major rules to determine whether they are accomplishing their objectives, are no longer necessary, or need to be improved. It follows other federal standards and defines major rules as those that have or are likely to have the following results:
- An annual effect on the economy of $100 million or more
- A major increase in costs or prices for consumers, individual industries, government agencies, or geographic regions
- Significant effects on competition, employment, investment, productivity, innovation, health, safety, the environment, or on the ability of U.S.-based enterprises to compete with foreign-based enterprises in domestic and export markets
The provisions of the SMART act apply to rules that meet those criteria as determined by the administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA). OIRA is an office within the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) that handles regulatory review, information collection requests, and oversight of government statistics and privacy policies. The act exempts guidance documents, which include interpretive rules, policy statements, and agency rules of organization, from its review requirements.
Additional reading:
https://ballotpedia.org/Office_of_Information_and_Regulatory_Affairs
https://ballotpedia.org/Guidance_(administrative_state)
https://ballotpedia.org/Independent_federal_agency
https://ballotpedia.org/Executive_agency
https://ballotpedia.org/James_Lankford
https://ballotpedia.org/Kyrsten_Sinema
Text of S.1420 (The SMART Act):
https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/1420/text
Learn More
