What have we learned so far about regulatory budgets, and what might the next iteration of Executive Order 13771 look like?

Although E.O. 13771 is not currently on the books, future presidential administrations may decide to formulate their own versions of regulatory budgeting under OIRA’s management and oversight. So it’s good to learn from the experience so far.

With that in mind, the Antonin Scalia Law School’s C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State and the Mercatus Center organized a research roundtable last year, to workshop some new papers on regulatory budgeting in the states, in federal agencies, and abroad.

The papers were recently finalized and published as a symposium in the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy’s online supplement:

• “The Regulatory Budget In Theory and Practice: Lessons from the U.S. States,” by James Broughel (Mercatus Center)
• “Measurement Options for Regulatory Budgeting,” by Laura Jones (Canadian Federation of Independent Business) & Patrick McLaughlin (Mercatus Center)
• “Regulatory Budgeting: Inhibiting or Promoting Better Policies?,” by Andrea Renda (European Union Institute’s School of Transnational Governance)
• “Regulatory Budgeting in the U.S. Federal Government: A First-Hand Account of the Initial Experience and Recommendations for Future Regulatory Budgets,” by Anthony Campau (former OIRA chief of staff)

The symposium also has an introductory essay by Sen. James Lankford: “For a Regulatory Budget: Successful Policies Should Be Made Permanent.”

To further discuss OIRA’s original implementation of Executive Order, we invited Anthony Campau on to the Gray Center’s podcast.

And speaking of OIRA: In late 2020, the Gray Center’s podcast featured Prof. Richard Revesz, now the pending nominee for OIRA Administrator, to discuss his recent book with Prof. Michael Livermore. And in January 2021, Prof. Livermore returned for a webinar with Professors Jennifer Nou and Stuart Shapiro on the future of OIRA in a Biden Administration.