Article from For Liberty by Norm Leahy.

If there’s an upside to the state-mandated shutdowns in response to the coronavirus outbreak, it was how many rules and regulations were suspended to help businesses survive.

Now, Idaho is looking to make at least some of the regulatory changes made out of necessity permanent:

Idaho Gov. Brad Little signed a new executive order on “Regulatory Relief to Support Economic Recovery.” It is “focused on reducing barriers to economic recovery, waiving licensing provisions, increasing telehealth access, and augmenting healthcare capacity.”

Specifically, the governor’s order addresses what to do with the 150-plus regulations that Idaho state agencies waived in response to the COVID-19 outbreak. Perhaps most importantly, it eliminates the presumption that the affected rules are in the public interest. It states that “if waiving these regulations was deemed necessary to improve public health and welfare during the declared emergency, there is a rebuttable presumption that the regulations are unnecessary or counterproductive outside of the declared emergency.” In other words, if government officials viewed an existing rule as such a hindrance to response efforts during a serious public health emergency that they waived it, then the rule may not be right for normal conditions either.

This is exactly the mindset all levels of government should take into the post-pandemic world. Regrettably, and despite any evidence to the contrary, too many officials are more inclined to regulate more activity more closely for much longer.

Image Credit: By Cellofellow (Gadsden_flag.svg) [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons