Law & Principles

Oklahoma among most over-regulated states, study says

September 12, 2024

Ray Carter

Despite its reputation as one of the nation’s most conservative states, Oklahoma imposes far more regulations than most other states in the nation.

According to the 2024 edition of “Snapshots of State Regulations,” issued by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, Oklahoma is the 17th-most regulated state in the country with 142,313 regulations on the books. In comparison, Idaho, the nation’s least-regulated state, has just 31,497 regulations in place.

Oklahoma has more state regulations than traditionally liberal states such as Minnesota, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Vermont.

Officials with the Mercatus Center warn that excessive regulation often impedes economic growth.

“Mercatus research indicates that regulatory accumulation worsens economic conditions, inadvertently increasing poverty rates, destroying jobs, and raising prices,” the report stated. “The path to reversing these trends is clear: Improve regulations by reducing their number.”

Because state agencies have incentive to create new regulations, but not repeal old ones, state regulations can dramatically expand and accumulate over time, making it difficult for the typical citizen to keep up with those rules.

Writing in the News & Observer newspaper in Raleigh, North Carolina, Patrick McLaughlin, the Mercatus Center’s director of policy analytics, noted that regulatory accumulation creates significant liability for businesses in a state.

“While ignorance of the law may not be a valid defense in court, for the average person or small business owner, this layer cake of regulations makes ignorance inevitable,” McLaughlin wrote.

He noted that six years ago Idaho had more than 72,000 regulatory restrictions. Today, that state has just 31,497 regulations. Idaho officials repealed two regulations for every new regulation imposed and also mandated that all state regulations expire within five years unless re-authorized.

During his first term, Gov. Kevin Stitt sought to reduce Oklahoma state regulations by repealing old regulations whenever new ones were imposed. But progress has been slow.

The policymakers who chair the legislative committees tasked with oversight of Oklahoma agency regulations say more must be done to rein in the regulatory state, and say the current system needs major reform. While lawmakers can reject new regulations during session, simply completing a review of those regulations before they take effect is overwhelming.

“Some might wonder why Oklahoma is one of the more regulated states in the nation. One of the reasons is the administrative rules process, which has allowed agencies to get away with writing rules that are often unnecessary, counterproductive, and contrary to legislative intent,” said state Sen. Micheal Bergstrom, an Adair Republican who chairs the Senate Administrative Rules Committee. “When the Legislature and the governor’s office has 400-or-so packets of new proposed permanent rules, tens of thousands of pages, dumped on it during session for review, it’s a recipe for failure.”

Bergstrom and his House counterpart, state Rep. Gerrid Kendrix, an Altus Republican who chairs the House Administrative Rules Committee, have requested a legislative study on reforming the process. That study is expected to take place on Oct. 23. Bergstrom said the study will give lawmakers the chance to “find solutions and start seriously cutting and controlling the bureaucratic state.”

Kendrix also noted there are significant concerns about the current administrative rules process.

“Citizens often discuss revenue, spending, and deficits regarding the federal and state government, but often do not discuss or realize how much impact regulations have on their day-to-day lives,” Kendrix said. “Unelected bureaucrats put new regulations in every year through the administrative code, which has grown exponentially in our state over recent years. Our (state) constitution has approximately 230 pages, our statutes comprise roughly 8,600 pages, but the administrative code here in Oklahoma comprises over 26,000 pages based on research done a few years ago. This is an area that needs serious attention and aggressive work to get the impact on citizens reduced.”

Kendrix said he and Bergstrom continue to confer on reforms that will improve the system and reduce the regulatory burden on Oklahomans.

Recent polling shows that Oklahoma’s regulatory pile-on has not gone unnoticed by employers.

The Business Leaders Poll (BLP), a collaborative project of The State Chamber, the Oklahoma Business Roundtable, and The State Chamber Research Foundation, surveyed 325 business owners and executives in Oklahoma over four weeks in early summer 2024.

The poll found that 80 percent of Oklahoma business officials described state regulations as burdensome, with 22 percent saying state regulations are extremely or very burdensome.

NOTE: This story has been updated since publication to note that the legislative study on administrative rules was jointly requested by the House and Senate.