Regulatory Reform: Agencies' Efforts to Eliminate and Revise Rules Yield Mixed Results

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO updated and expanded its previous review of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) page elimination and revision initiative, focusing on whether: (1) agencies' reported page elimination totals took into account any pages added to the CFR during the same period; (2) agencies' CFR revision efforts would reduce regulatory burden; and (3) the administration has any mechanism in place for measuring burden reductions as a result of its CFR page elimination and revision initiatives. GAO limited the scope of its work on the first two objectives to four agencies: the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and Transportation (DOT), the Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).