Maintaining the regulatory code can be a bit like gardening. Sometimes, it makes sense to make major changes, like swapping one type of plant for something better suited to local conditions. But most of the work involves simple day-to-day tasks like pulling up weeds. This week’s Highlights features the work of two agencies that are doing the routine but important work of tending to their regulatory code to make sure it’s free of any stray, unnecessary requirements.

 

The Department of Wildlife Resources eliminates 60 discretionary requirements across 13 regulations.

The Department of Wildlife Resources (DWR) recently took a very careful look at its hunting regulations and determined that they included a number of minor restrictions that imposed unnecessary burdens on the public.

Some of these consisted of outdated requirements, like banning Sunday hunting or imposing catch limits on blue catfish in various major rivers. Others were highly technical, including restrictions on the amount of muscle tissue that may be attached to a product made from deer tissue. Though none imposed a major burden individually, the overall effect was to place a bunch of unnecessary restrictions on hunters. Streamlining these regulations will simplify people’s lives and leave DWR with a leaner, more manageable regulatory code.

 

The Department of Education reorganizes several regulatory chapters and removes unnecessary burdens.

Like DWR, the Department of Education (VDOE) recently reviewed several of its regulatory chapters and decided that some cleanup was in order.

In several cases, VDOE decided it could eliminate a stand-alone regulatory chapter, moving most of its content to a more logical portion of the code and removing unnecessary detail. In another case, it determined that a regulation conflicted with other parts of the code. In a third case, it determined that certain regulatory text did not impose an actual requirement and therefore was better suited for a guidance document. And in a fourth case, the agency was able to eliminate an unnecessary incorporated document that addressed an issue already covered in statute.

These changes will benefit both the public and VDOE itself: a cleaner regulatory code is both easier for regulated parties to navigate and for the agency to maintain going forward.