Regulations serve an important role in our economy, but if they are too costly, they can have a negative impact. Consequently, cost-benefit analysis of proposed regulations has long been considered a best practice. Federal regulations could cost up to $2 trillion a year, and regulations are particularly costly for manufacturers. Washington ranks poorly in interstate comparisons of state regulatory burdens.

Washington has laws that require analysis and review of regulations, and several governors have made regulatory reform a priority. Streamlining, coordination, and communication have been recurring themes. Efforts haven’t always delivered, though, as the State Auditor’s Office found in a recent series of performance audits.

A number of bills addressing some of these problems have since been adopted nearly unanimously, demonstrating the noncontroversial nature of regulatory reform. Still, the regulatory environment is costly, unpredictable, and untimely. An improved regulatory environment would increase the competitiveness of manufacturing in Washington.

Read the report here.

The first two reports in this series on manufacturing jobs:

• Rebalancing Priorities: The Case for Manufacturing Jobs Part I
• Manufacturing Jobs Part II: Education and Workforce Development Strategies to Close the Skills Gap