Dunleavy's chief of staff refuses to answer questions about cutting 15 percent of regulations

Tyson Gallagher, long-time chief of staff for Gov. Mike Dunleavy, refused to reply to any questions about the arbitrary plan to eliminate untold thousands of state regulations by the time Dunleavy leaves office in December 2026.

Maybe there are one or two legislators willing to demand some answers for the public. We’ll see.

Instead, Gallagher had the governor’s PR man, Jeff Turner, unleash this burst of bureaubabble:

“The text of the AO (administrative order) outlines the reason the administration is undertaking the regulatory reform effort, to reduce unnecessary burdens on Alaskans and to increase transparency. Regulatory changes are a normal part of the departments’ workload. Departments have dozens of guidance documents; those are in the process of being compiled, reviewed, and will be posted on the Alaska Online Public Notice System in the near future as directed in the AO. Government exists to serve the people, ensuring transparency of requirements and incorporating the public’s feedback in the process of updating regulations is a critical part of this responsibility.

Gallagher’s claim that this will cost nothing and is a part of the normal workload is the most obvious lie. This is an immense undertaking that will cost millions. It is also foolish.

While Gallagher and the Dunleavy PR man declined to release anything about how this is supposed to work, I have obtained two important documents from other sources that are revealing, including the Gallagher “Regulatory Reduction Guide.”

Gallagher’s guide directed every agency in state government to count the number of requirements in state regulations that can be eliminated without a change in state law and post the numbers by October 13. Nothing yet.

After adding them all up, every agency is required to pick 15 percent to eliminate by next December, when Dunleavy leaves office.

Gallagher’s guide also says that a cumulative total of 25 percent have to be eliminated by the end of 2027, but that directive can be ignored because there will be a new governor with other ideas.

The guide says that if the agency has 1,000 requirements, it needs to eliminate 150 of them by next December.

I am not impressed by the examples Gallagher gives about how to determine what is a regulatory burden that can be eliminated.

“Consider, for instance, a requirement that an applicant for a professional license complete 1,000 hours of training before. he or she can be certified. Some training is necessary, so the requirement should not be eliminated completely, but 1,000 hours may be excessive. Requiring 500 hours of training, for instance, may be sufficient. By making this change, the agency is reducing the regulatory burden by 50% (1,000 minus 500 hours,” the governor’s guide claims.

Only the Dunleavy administration would start with the assumption that reducing the training qualifications for a professional license by half is “reducing the regulatory burden by 50%” and is good for the public.

There is nothing in the Regulatory Reduction Guide to suggest that higher qualifications may be in order for professionals. On the contrary, the bureaucratic reward only comes by reducing qualifications.

And there are also rewards for reducing fees and adding to the Dunleavy deficit.

“For example, if an agency reduces a fee from $200 to $100, the regulatory stringency has been reduced by half, and it will thereafter be counted as ‘0.5 requirements’ rather than 1 requirement,” the guide instructs.

Cut the fee to zero, however, and the agency will get credit for eliminating one regulatory requirement. With this thinking, there is such a thing as a free lunch.

I imagine that hundreds of state employees who should be doing real work have been scratching their heads trying to interpret the guide to cutting regulations, which has some inscrutable passages.

“A requirement not to do something is equivalent to a requirement to take some action. Any discrete prohibition from taking some action should therefore count as a regulatory requirement,” the state sages say.

As an example, it mentions the state ban on moving raw milk from a farm, which can be avoided if the farm has a permit to ship the product.

“The milk producer may not allow the raw milk products to be removed from the dairy; this is an imposed requirement. The second sentence allowing the removal if there is a permit becomes a second requirement.”

As a wise Buddhist once said, “Two hands clap and there is a sound. What is the sound of one hand?”

Dunleavy and Gallagher released a schedule in August saying that every agency was to have added up the number of regulations it can eliminate by Monday. Where are the numbers?

Despite all the blather about transparency, this entire exercise is incoherent, not to mention a waste of time and money.

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