Will Montana's governor deliver when it comes to regulatory relief in 2022? In some ways, he already has, according to Frontier Institute CEO Kendall Cotton.

The Frontier Institute is a free market think tank in Montana. We had a chance to chat with Cotton about Governor Greg Gianforte's (R-MT)  "Red Tape Relief Initiative." The Frontie Institute recently released their own report analyzing the effort thus far. Here's some highlights from our conversation.

Where did we stand back in 2020 as Governor Greg Gianforte took office?

Kendall Cotton: When Governor Gianforte was just coming into office, Montana's regulatory code had grown to over 4.7 million words, nearly 60,000 regulatory restrictions. That means words like 'shall, must, or required' that you actually place a burden on somebody to comply with. So that's really where we ought to focus our attention. And that's exactly what Governor Gianforte is addressing with his red tape initiative, he ordered the top to bottom review of all of those regulatory restrictions on the rulebooks.

 

What actions have already been taken by the governor?

Kendall Cotton: The Department of Labor and Industry last month proposed to amend six rules, repeal 27 rules. They said it's going to increase accuracy, consistency, simplicity, better organization, and ease of use for customers and staff. And they decided the reason for doing that is alignment with the governor's red tape relief initiative. So we think that there's lots of examples to cite like that.

 

What action could we see in 2022?

Kendall Cotton: We anticipate new data coming out here probably in June. That's going to allow us to look back and see how the success of red tape initiative has gone over the past year. The data that we have right now is the The newest data only runs from May 2020 to May 2021. So that was just at the very beginning of Governor Jan Forte's administration. I think that when new data comes out in the middle of this year, we're gonna see major red tape relief.

Click below for the full interview:

 

LOOK: What major laws were passed the year you were born?

Data for this list was acquired from trusted online sources and news outlets. Read on to discover what major law was passed the year you were born and learn its name, the vote count (where relevant), and its impact and significance.

 

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