Be discussingill the Trump Administrations regulatory policies, live coverage here on cspan. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2018] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] her appearance today is reminding me of one of the first events i did at brookings, it was probably eight years ago, i hosted an administrator, one of my first events, i was nervous. I was Walking Around outside getting warmed up and there was a group of protesters out front, one of whom was wearing an oscar the grouch costume with the a fake sign in front of him, they were singing a , a playly written song on oscars song, i love trash. It was creative and effective because without that i would never have rebounded remembered the ash disposal role. Rule. Ash disposal there is nothing so exciting happening outside the room. The story does highlight a serious point, which is that the job of the office of an ministration and Regulatory Affairs is always controversial. Is responsible for vetting agencys tallies of the benefits and costs of federal regulation. Or turn itk a rule back to the agencies. It is a powerful position and office within the federal government. Ra officer is frequently called the regulatory star at and giventory czar the current administrations proper emphasis on deregulation, roleps administrator raos is more important than ever. Before joining the Trump Administration, she was an associate purpose of law at the Antonin Scalia a law school at george mason university. Mason shening george served in all three branches of government, she was counsel to the Senate Judiciary committee under orrin hatch. Thomasrked for clarence and she served as associate counsel and special assistant to president george w. Bush. I am delighted to have her here. Today is she will speak for approximately 20 minutes and then i will join her on stage for question and answers and then we will turn to all of you for further questions and answers from her. With that, please join me and welcoming administrator rao. [applause] ms. Rao thanks so much to ted for inviting me to be here today and to brookings for hosting this event. Every time i have a public experience i asked my staff and close advisers for jokes. No one ever comes up with any. I try to joke about the fact that we no longer have any jokes. My chief of staff has said to me, you are the administrator of the office of information and Regulatory Affairs, it is just not funny. Jokes. Y, i have no well see if i can do better next time. Today, i wanted to discuss the Regulatory Reform efforts of this administration and to focus on three main points. I want to speak a little bit about what we have done in this past year, what we plan to do in the upcoming year, and then give you some of the principles why we believe so strongly in our Regulatory Reform effort. First, a little bit about what we have done. From my perspective, this past year was a banner year for Regulatory Reform. Soon after taking office, the president issued an ambitious series of executive orders that directed agencies to eliminate two regulations for each new one and to impose zero regulatory cost in fiscal year 2017. When those executive orders came out there was a lot of skepticism. When you look back at the past year, what we see is those executive orders focused attention on a very big problem of cumulative regulation. The administration did not go after the problem with little scissors, but with something much lore much more like the beautiful gold scissors the president used to cut the red tape at his december speech. The president directed the agencies to deregulate. Some of the ways we have done this, the administration has slowed the production of new, costly regulations. We issued only three new regulations in fiscal year 2017. We have tried to redirect the regulatory inertia and as part of our effort to change the delayed we withdrew or 1500 planned rules. Those are roles that are currently in process and rules we are thinking about. It demonstrates the magnitude of what has been halted or postponed. It also shows that what the administration is doing is carefully reconsidering the direction, the scope, and the content of many proposed regulations. Across the government, we have regulatoryated 22 actions for every one new regulation, a ratio that far exceeds the 241 the president one the the two for president called for. s owning to oira calculations, we have had a total net savings of over 8 billion. To provide some context about what this kind of production , regulatoryrically costs have increased in administrations of both parties. In the previous administration, during just there last eight annualizedy imposed regulatory costs of over 15 million. We are planning to continue this ,n 2018, for this fiscal year agencies are committed to overing regulatory cost by 10 billion. How we been doing that . I have gotten questions about implementation. These are significant reforms we have had to put in place and we have been working with the oira to do this. A small staff, we have about 45 career officials and they are excellent. Working closely with the career Civil Servants and other agencies to implement the president s executive orders in a way that is careful and responsible. One thing to highlight about what we have been doing, we have tried to be exceptionally transparent and how we have calculated two for one and the cost savings. We have focused on developing a system that would meet the president s goals. Inwant real reduction regulatory burdens and want to incentivize agencies to eliminate and streamlined burdens of all sizes. This, wewere doing wanted to maintain the high standards of regulatory analysis we expect from agencies. At oira we provided advanced guidance about how would we would about how we would be implementing executive orders and we showed our work on the website. The numbers demonstrate a fundamental reorganization of the regulatory system. We have slowed the pace of new rules but also of smaller roles. We have eliminated many costly regulatory actions, which include rules and guidance documents and information collections and we have pushed agencies to be open in their actions and not simply to redirect their regulatory activity to guidance or other some regulatory forms of action. We welcome input about our system because we are continuing to implement these farreaching reforms and we are working on improving our process both in working with agencies and in informing the public. While we have been working through the requirements of these executive orders, we have sought to continue and institutionalize longstanding regulatory practices. On the fema on the theme of publishes an oira agenda of regulatory and deregulatory actions. And this past summer when we updated the agenda we released a list of inactive items, this was a list that was long maintained by administrations that included items agencies work considering propagating but they did not want to be on the agenda. That was never made public. We have now made that list public. People have information about all the different potential regulatory and deregulatory actions agencies might be considering. Now that this information is all publicly available on our are working with agencies to remove stale items from the agenda. I understand there are some items and some agencies that are left over from the george w. Bush administration. We are pushing to make sure that our agenda reflects real Agency Priorities so the public can have a must a much better sense of what is coming. We have also made a number of technical changes, the agenda is now searchable, and my staff is in a process of working on making some of these changes consistent with the federal register, with new rules going forward. While there have been new reforms, there is also a lot of continuity in what we are doing. We are continuing to follow longstanding principles of centralized regulatory review that you can find in executive order 12 866 issued by president clinton. Samee continuing with the costbenefit standards. That is some of the technical parts of it. Reform efforts go beyond some of the numbers you can see on our website. They go beyond individual deregulatory actions. We are also systematically trying to crack down on bad regulatory practices and make sure agencies are proceeding in a manner that is consistent with law. Even when an agency has Legal Authority to proceed, we want to make sure they are working to solve an actual problem. We want to make sure there is some reason for the government to act, such as a substantial market failure. We are pushing hard to the manned fair analysis of the cost and benefits of regulation. Too often in the previous administrations the benefits were exaggerated and the costs downplayed. We want to have a fair accounting of both of those. Satisfied thate an agency has Legal Authority and the regulation may be necessary, we want to make sure that agencies work to regulate in a manner that is giving fair notice to the public and in a way that respects to process. This is the theme on which we have been working very closely with the White House Counsels Office to ensure that agencies are not proposing new regulatory requirements through guidance or onters or speeches or faqs the website. We are trying to change the culture so that when an Agency Issues guidance, it is a guidance about existing requirements and backdoor to imposing new requirements without the process and accountability that is necessary for a legitimate administrative system. That is some of what we have been up to in the past year. What is next for the president s regulatory agenda . Let me say a little bit about that. Focusing on continuing with the momentum we have built up over the last year with Regulatory Reform. In the second year, we want to work closely with agencies to identify serious areas for reform. The fall unified agenda a you will see that 448cies are proposing some deregulatory actions and 131 regulatory actions which is a better which is better than a three for one ratio. Deregulation takes time. Reconsidering big rules requires research and analysis and the full rule making process. Agencies are working to identify areas where reform can happen and produce significant benefits for the american people. Ways we canof the assist with that is we work agencies across areas, often regulatory regimes involve multiple agencies and this is an area where oira can add value. Another thing we are doing, we have been doing and will continue to do is to look closely at some of the statutory authorities that oira for promoting Regulatory Reform. One of our main statutes is the paperwork reduction act. Paperwork reduction burdens are not funny, but they are extremely costly and burdensome. One of my predecessors said do not forget about the paperwork burdens. It can often impact individuals and small businesses. Bere are a lot of savings to had in streamlining or eliminating paperwork burdens. Has authority under the congressional review act. The act was used multiple times this year to strike down regulations. Requires that all agencies, including the independent agencies, submit their roles to oira for a major determination under the act. What that means is when there is to oira,at has to come oira determines whether it provides more than in cost. Part of our obligation is to make sure agencies are complying with the cra and failure to comply can threaten the below the can threaten the validity of rules and we know Congress Takes this seriously. The cra can also promote costbenefit analysis because agencies have to explain whether their role is above or below the 100 million threshold. Another thing we are considering at oira, and the speech is part of this, is sharing with the public a message of responsible and beneficial Regulatory Reform. We want to be clear that we are not dismantling Important Health and safety regulations. We are proceeding with deregulation in a way that is careful and we are applying the same costbenefit standards to both regulatory and deregulatory actions. I sometimes hear from critics that deregulation is just a way to help big business or special interests. If you look closely, you will see that many regulatory burdens are often put in place by big business or powerful interest groups. Regulation often creates barriers to entry, it can eliminate competition and can goodsthe cost of ordinary and services. It can blunt and stifle innovation. On ise are focused listing regulatory requirements that are no longer working for the american people. That is some of what we are thinking about for the coming year. I want to Say Something about why we care so much about Regulatory Reform, why are we doing this, why is it so important to the administration . Here there are reasons that are practical and principled. Let me start with the practical. Lifting excessive government regulations can stimulate the economy. In the past few months there has been a lot of reporting about this. Many economists have identified a link between this years booming Economic Growth and the slowdown in regulatory activity. Even the New York Times ran a story drawing this connection. Effects, removing burdens can help create jobs and leaving individuals more free gives them the opportunity to work hard and do great things. Sum, one of the most important effects of this administrations initiative has been to change the environment. To me,ses frequently say and individuals have said that they are no longer fearing arbitrary new burdens being imposed by guidance documents or new regulations. Mulvaney said heut the cfpb, i think what said there applies to other agencies as well. This administration is no longer pushing the envelope with regulations. What are some of the principles behind what we are doing . There are a lot of great practical effects but the principles are important. From my perspective as a former law professor, Regulatory Reform is part of a larger effort to promote a more Constitutional Government and thereby to enhance individual liberties. Efforts help promote Constitutional Government and a number of ways. First, i think there is important democratic accountability when you have more president ial accountability. Regulatory reform is quite clearly a key component of this administration and the president has set a very ambitious regulatory policy across the government. , and through a centralized review process, we can work with agencies to make sure they are promoting president ial priorities to illuminate unnecessary burdens. Another way we promote more Constitutional Government is by highlighting and promoting due process and fair notice, which i mentioned earlier, by cracking down on sub Regulatory Guidance or regulatory dark matter, we are ensuring that when agencies impose new requirements they are following administrative procedure. Ive always found it interesting that one of the ways legal scholars depend defend the constitutionality of an expanded states they say agencies promote Constitutional Values or they follow Something Like an administrative constitution. This means something quite different from the original constitution, i think it is too often the case that agencies have failed to follow even this much dinner first even this much thinner version of constitutionality. By requiring agencies to follow procedures, we can ensure notice and decisionmaking. Ands also important to us our Reform Efforts to make sure that we in the executive branch respect the roles of the other departments of government. Towork with agencies interpret statutes to mean what they say. Doing that, we respect the lawmaking power of congress and we work not to expand the authority of the executive ranch beyond what the law allows. Admittedly, Statutory Authority is also open ended, but agency should not act as if they have a blank check from congress to make law. We also work hard to respect the row of courts in reviewing administrative actions and we are mindful of precedents and process. Perhaps most importantly, listing unnecessarily regulatory board ins burdens results in individual liberty. Government regulation serves vital health and safety goals and congress has ensured we already live in a highly regulated society. Even against that backdrop, Government Intervention should still serve a purpose, it should not be a solution in search of a problem. There are many regulations on our books that are outdated or ineffective. Regulations have simply piled on top of regulations in a system no one would have designed with a clean slate. We are looking closely at those regulations and eliminating access and ordered to restore freedom. When the government acts, it should do so in service of the people. Those are the principles that , a regulatory policy that works by promoting Economic Growth and innovation and jobs and the prosperity that accompany greater freedom. Thank you so much for your attention, i look forward to the questions fromd the audience. [applause] ted thank you again for being here and your thoughtful comments. I will start off with questions on the executive order at the beginning of the Trump Administration and that you lead with in your speech. And a lot of order the guidance surrounding it and the agency actions, theres a lot of focus on cost. In your speech you are focused on cost, the premise being we have too many regulations. Risk if we focus on too much cost. There are regulations out there that might be