WASHINGTON, D.C. – In a keynote address this morning at the Progressive Policy Institute, U.S. Senator Angus King (I-Maine) underscored the need for Congress to undertake regulatory reform to help encourage entrepreneurship, promote innovation, and support economic growth. King’s remarks were delivered as part of a forum entitled, “Innovation in a Rules-Bound World: How Regulatory Improvement Can Spur Growth.”

“Just this morning on the radio I heard about the regulation of shrimp season in Maine, the regulation of drugs used in nursing homes by Medicare, and the regulations on the fishing season by the EPA. Within about a thirty minute period, there were three major news stories about regulations,” Senator King said. “Regulations are important, but there’s got to be a balance. The question we should be asking is really an ancient one: who will guard the guardians? Who will regulate the regulators? I think it’s up to Congress to do so. I think we should be working, in some capacity, to ensure that regulators are not exceeding their authority, to ensure that regulations today make sense, and to ensure that outdated regulations are repealed so that businesses won’t be weighed down and can, instead, grow and thrive.”

From introducing large-scale reform legislation to tackling smaller, poorly-tailored regulations head-on, improving the regulatory process to help cultivate an environment for economic growth is one of Senator King’s top priorities – particularly as the United States issues nearly 3,000 new regulations every year but has limited capacity or processes to review the effectiveness of regulations already in place.

To address that very issue, Senator King, along with Senator Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), will reintroduce later this month the Regulatory Improvement Act. The bipartisan bill would create a Regulatory Improvement Commission to review outdated regulations with the goal of modifying, consolidating, or repealing regulations in order to reduce compliance costs, encourage growth and innovation, and improve competitiveness.

Senator King has also introduced the PROTECT Act as well as the Federal Permitting Improvement Act, both of which seek to streamline an onerous regulatory scheme to protect innovation and create jobs.

The Progressive Policy Institute is an independent D.C.-based think tank founded in 1989 and has a long legacy of promoting ideas aimed at economic growth, national security and modern, performance-based government. PPI is a non-profit, 501(c)(3) organization.

###