163,000 State Regulations Stifle Opportunity in Louisiana

Last week, A new report from FreedomWorks Foundation came out grading all 50 states on the openness and transparency of their regulatory processes. While laws are passed through the legislative process, regulations are created by government agencies not always subject to check by the people, even though most go through a comment period or some other public-facing process.

That’s important because regulations touch nearly every facet of life, from work to dining to business and everything in between. In fact, according to the study, there are 163,000 regulations on the books in Louisiana.

Given their impact on our daily lives – and the large number of them – transparency and openness in the system is crucial. So, how does Louisiana stack up? Not well, according to FreedomWorks. Louisiana ranks in the bottom 10 states, earning a D on its report card.

The grades are based on four key criteria:

Ease of Submitting Comments: This measures how simple it is to submit comments. This includes the relative ease with which activists can find comment submission forms or contact information. It also looks at how straightforward the process is and how it is presented.

Transparency/Accessibility: Can activists access up-to-date regulatory information both past and present? This looks at how easy to find the existing regulatory code is and how easy it is to find information on upcoming rulemakings. This also takes into account whether these documents are searchable and how dense they are to navigate.

Uniformity: States have a variety of different agencies promulgating regulations, just like the federal government. The question is whether or not activists hoping to engage have to navigate dozens of different frameworks or if there is some unity in the process. Can all the state’s information be gathered in one place if need be?

Regulatory Restrictiveness: Very succinctly, this plank measures how restrictive the code of regulation is in each state. How many restrictions are on the books and how do they impact residents?

Louisiana does relatively well on the uniformity measure, earning 20 out of 25 points, but does poorly on restrictiveness – a measure of the size of the regulatory burden in our state, earning only 13 out of 25 points in that category.

You can find all the details at: https://www.stateregscorecard.com/louisiana