Senior fellow urges Kansas to force regular rule review, add sunsets and retrospective analyses

Tim Frost, senior fellow at the Cicero Institute, told the Kansas Senate Commerce Committee on Sept. 24 that regulatory accumulation imposes significant costs on commerce and households and recommended a series of statutory changes to limit that burden.

Frost, who said he oversaw a large licensing consolidation and a repeal‑and‑replace of administrative code in Idaho, described Kansas’s current regulatory volume as “three million words” with tens of thousands of prescriptive terms such as “shall” and “must.” He said jurisdictions that shrink regulatory word counts can see measurable economic gains and cited a Mercatus Center estimate that a 40% regulatory reduction can yield about one percentage point in annual growth.

Why it matters: Frost argued excessive procedural default is a hidden tax on home building, small businesses and rural entrepreneurs. He told lawmakers that Kansas could reduce home‑price inflation, speed small business launches and expand telehealth by pruning “restrictive strings” in regulation.

His recommendations included: require rules to expire automatically (sunset) on a five‑ to eight‑year schedule unless affirmatively renewed by the Legislature; add mandatory retrospective cost–benefit analysis so agencies test whether predicted impacts matched reality; publish rule text, datasets and underlying code in machine‑readable bulk formats; extend or restore more robust legislative review of rules (a “REINS‑style” approach) and consider a centralized independent review office to audit agency analyses before rules take effect. He also urged periodic “unwinding” of long‑running delegations of rulemaking authority so widely used rules are codified into statute only after a fixed period rather than left as perpetual regulation.

Frost acknowledged constitutional and judicial constraints in Kansas and told lawmakers the approach should be tailored to the state’s separation of powers. During questioning he said the heavy lift is initial implementation and recommended prioritizing rule chapters and building the work into agencies’ strategic plans rather than hiring across the board.

Frost’s presentation: “It would convert the default from perpetual to expiring, so the agency must prove a rule should exist because the rule is expiring,” he said. He added that mandatory retrospective reviews would allow businesses and courts to evaluate whether regulatory predictions matched outcomes.

Bottom line: Frost urged a mix of procedural reforms — sunsets, retrospective reviews, better data publication, legislative review and limits on delegation — to make rulemaking more accountable and to “force the spring cleaning” of accumulated regulations.