Georgia One Step Closer to Reining in Regulations
This is a guest post by Tony West, the State Director for Americans for Prosperity- Georgia
Earlier today, Senate Bill 28, the Red Tape Rollback Act of 2025, passed the Georgia State Senate. As currently written, it is the most substantive regulatory reform legislation in years, possibly in state history. If enacted and these reforms take hold, it could be a model that other states attempt to emulate in the future, as it will produce a regulatory environment that businesses will thrive in.
It is a timely bill, as recent reports suggest Georgia is in need of regulatory modernization and reform. In August of last year, the Mercatus Center ranked Georgia as the 26th most regulated state in the nation. In the same month, the Cicero Institute released a report on state regulatory and rulemaking processes, and ranked Georgia tied for last. Even in a well-run state like ours, it is important to always strive for improvement.
SB 28 would improve and modernize the executive branch rulemaking process in such a way that not only will these rankings improve over time, but our economy should expect to see a sustained boost as business owners and entrepreneurs feel the relief from outdated or unnecessarily onerous rules.
Nationwide, a few other states have gotten a head start. In 2022, Ohio passed SB 9, requiring agencies to cut regulations by 30 percent and Missouri had regulatory reduction targets at 33 percent. In Virginia, upon coming into office, Gov. Youngkin instructed agencies to cut regulatory requirements by 25 percent. Incredibly, their new Office of Regulatory Management estimates these transparency and efficiency efforts have saved Virginians $1.2 billion per year. And to their credit, this was before “DOGE” was a thing.
Senate Bill 28 doesn’t take a prescriptive approach to regulatory reduction like these other states. Executive orders can be repealed, different Governors have different priorities, and once regulations are reduced, new ones can always be implemented to replace them. What SB 28 does is put in place permanent and ongoing processes that allow for new transparency and increased oversight by the legislative branch, so that more likely than not, any rule or regulation in effect in the state is due to the legislature’s intent and is a net positive for the state. At the very least, Georgians will have a much larger voice by having these major policy changes go through the regular order of the legislative process. Outdated or onerous rules will be more likely to be repealed by an agency itself if this bill becomes law. While there are a variety of respectable approaches to regulatory reform, this bill uses sunrise and sunset reviews as the methods by which to reach this goal.
First, the sunrise review, often called a REINS Act (Regulation from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny) acts as a backstop to prevent harmful major rules from being implemented without legislative oversight. Under this bill, if an agency reasonably expects that compliance costs of a new rule for individuals, businesses, or local governments would exceed a certain threshold, implementation would be paused while the agency conducted a thorough economic impact analysis. That report would then be made available to the legislature. If the legislature determined that the new, major rule, was necessary and a net-positive for the state, a simple majority vote in both chambers and signature by the Governor would act as ratification of the new rule, making it officially implemented. This additional layer of scrutiny will ensure legislative intent is more likely to be adhered to, and businesses across our state will rest assured that no highly impactful regulation would be dropped on them without the General Assembly’s awareness, and most importantly, support.
Secondly, the sunset review portion of the bill sets up a regulatory review process to be conducted by agencies internally. In a staggered schedule, every four years each agency will take a deep dive look at each of their rules and regulations. To paraphrase from section 2-4 of the bill, agencies shall determine findings like: 1) whether the current rule is achieving the benefits sought at promulgation and is in compliance with current law 2) whether the achieved benefits of the rule justify compliance costs faced by Georgia businesses and 3) whether there are less restrictive and less costly alternatives to accomplish the desired goals or benefits. As administrations change, and facts on the ground change, it stands to reason the answers to these questions could vary every four years. And having these considerations written down for lawmakers to analyze, could lead to legislative clean up bills to ensure our regulatory environment isn’t overly burdensome. Ideally though, agencies “self-police” and find efficiencies and opportunities to reduce rules on their own. SB 28 even rewards such civic behavior: if an agency has reduced its number of rules by 10 percent or more since it’s last quadrennial review, it’d be exempt from that cycle’s review process.
It’s not a mandatory across the board cut like the states mentioned above attempted, which may disappoint some hardline small government types. But it may be a better approach in that it ensures that every year there is an incentive amongst agency staff to think even more critically about proposing new rules, and to be more proactive about eliminating unnecessary rules, which could be more beneficial for the state in the long run.
While no single piece of legislation is ever a silver bullet to jumpstart or bolster an economy as large and dynamic as Georgia’s, regulatory reform like SB 28 will be another tool in the state’s toolbelt to ensure we not only retain our top spot as the best place to do business, but set a standard for governmental excellence and economic freedom for decades to come.
Tony West is the State Director for Americans for Prosperity- Georgia
