“With just 4 employees” in his regulatory office, Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin has “saved residents $1.2 billion per year” and “reduced cost of building a new house by $24,000,” by eliminating more than a quarter of Virginia’s regulations, says Dominic Pino of the National Review. Under Youngkin, “occupational license approval times declined from 33 days to 5 days. Stormwater permitting reforms saved $124 million.” And “Department of Environmental Quality permit processing times declined by 70%.”
Pino adds that
Like similarly successful efforts in Iowa and Idaho, Virginia’s reforms have been boring, methodical, and based on economic analysis rather than political noteworthiness.
Since 2022, Virginia has reduced the number of requirements in its regulatory code by 26.8 percent, exceeding Youngkin’s goal of 25 percent. He says his administration is on pace to reach a 33 percent reduction by the end of his term early next year. The reduction in regulatory word count is even greater: 11.5 million words were struck, nearly half of the total found in state guidance documents…Deregulation in housing construction is estimated to reduce the cost of building a new house by $24,000 on average….
Perhaps most impressive: Youngkin has achieved these results with only four full-time employees in his Office of Regulatory Management.P.S.: DOGE has yet to repeal a single federal regulation and has no target to do so.
On July 8, Governor Youngkin announced that the Office of Regulatory Management (ORM), which he established by an executive order in 2022, had reduced 26.8 percent of regulatory requirements in the Virginia Administrative Code, yielding more than $1.2 billion in annual savings for Virginians. ORM also worked with state agencies to cut 11.5 million words from state guidance documents—a 47.9% reduction.
This strategy has produced concrete results. For instance, reforms to Virginia’s Building Code lowered the cost of constructing a new home by over $24,000. This single change is expected to save Virginia homebuyers $723 million per year. Faster licensing at the Department of Professional and Occupational Regulation has cut approval times from 33 days to just five, yielding $179 million annually in additional worker earnings. Updates to stormwater permitting processes have produced another $124 million in savings, while a new Virginia Marine Resources Commission’s general permit framework reduced costs by $47 million.
These reforms, which have been supported by an updated cost-benefit analysis framework, have reduced costs but also improved policy delivery. A new Virginia Permit Transparency (VPT) portal, launched in 2024, tracks over 100,000 permits issued annually, enabling agencies and the public to monitor applications. Since its implementation, the Department of Environmental Quality has slashed average processing times by 70 percent.
