Virginia Shows A Smarter Path To Regulatory Reform

Forbes

09-07-2025

Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin speaks at an event on July 8th to announce achieving a 25% ... More reduction in state regulatory requirements.
Governor Glenn Youngkin's recent announcement that Virginia has surpassed its 25 percent regulatory reduction goal marks a decisive moment not just for the Commonwealth, but for the national conversation around government reform. While the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)—the flagship of President Trump's second-term administrative overhaul—has generated the most headlines with its dramatic cuts to federal staff and contracts, it is Virginia's quieter, evidence-based approach that may deserve the spotlight.
Virginia Surpasses Targets with Real, Measurable Gains
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.
How Virginia's ORM Compares to the Federal DOGE
These successes are not cherry-picked anecdotes. Rather, they are part of a consistent pattern of measurable administrative savings across agencies.
In contrast, DOGE—helmed by Elon Musk and charged with eliminating waste at the federal level—has taken a sledgehammer approach. DOGE has aggressively targeted agency budgets, slashed staffing levels, cancelled grants, and rescinded contracts. Agencies like USAID have seen sharp staff reductions, and programs touching diversity, foreign aid, and climate change have all faced steep cuts.
While DOGE's interventions may yield modest budgetary savings, its approach has been criticized for its volatility and bluntness. There is little in the way of systematic regulatory review or analysis. Moreover, as of mid-2025, DOGE's focus has remained largely fiscal. Regulatory streamlining, let alone comprehensive cost-benefit analysis, has not been a centerpiece of its strategy.
DOGE may be bold, but Virginia's ORM is smart. Where DOGE has wielded a chainsaw, ORM has used a scalpel.
The Case for Evidence-Based Regulation
A fundamental distinction between DOGE and ORM is epistemological. ORM's reforms are grounded in economic analysis. Each proposed rule must be subject to a cost-benefit analysis and demonstrate efficacy. Agencies consider distributional impacts on families, small businesses, and local governments. This is not red tape for red tape's sake. Instead, it's a set of economic and legal requirements to ensure that regulation serves the public interest without imposing unjustified burdens.
Furthermore, ORM's reforms have sped up and improved governance. Despite new layers of analysis, average gubernatorial review time for regulations fell from 80 days to under 10 days. This counterintuitive result underscores that better analysis can speed up, rather than delay, decision-making.
DOGE's strategy, by contrast, has eschewed such analysis in favor of immediate disruption. While that may appeal to voters hungry for change, it is a fragile strategy prone to backlash. Regulatory reforms that balance costs and benefits are more likely to prove enduring than ones that just reduce headcounts or eliminate programs for the sake of doing so. Without stakeholder buy-in, even highly significant short-term changes are unlikely to last.
Permitting Reform Is A Bipartisan Revolution in the Making
Virginia's VPT portal and Youngkin's accompanying Executive Order 39 are emblematic of ORM's more pragmatic approach. Permitting reform is one of the most discussed yet under-delivered policy reforms today. Delays in permit approvals stymie housing development and energy and infrastructure expansion. By digitizing the permitting process and making it more transparent, Virginia is making inroads towards reducing these bottlenecks.
The VPT portal now covers permits from agencies representing most of the state's environmental and public infrastructure footprint. The website provides Gantt charts showing each application's progress on the way to obtaining a permit. This level of transparency is absent even in federal permitting dashboards.
Toward a Sustainable Reform Agenda
Compared to DOGE, Virginia's ORM operates on a more lean budget and staff—just four full-time employees oversee the Commonwealth's regulatory streamlining. Yet their influence has been profound. This raises the question as to why more states haven't adopted such a model.
One reason may be the ephemeral nature of executive orders. ORM, for all its successes, is not yet codified in law. A change in administration could unravel its progress overnight. As other states look to Virginia as a model, they too should consider institutionalizing reform efforts to guarantee durability beyond one political cycle.
Conclusion: The States as Laboratories of Bureaucracy
Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis famously called states the 'laboratories' of democracy. Virginia is a great example of a laboratory of bureaucracy. The Commonwealth's methodical approach to regulatory modernization offers a replicable model for states and the federal government too.
As President Trump's DOGE winds down its high-profile crusade against government waste, policymakers should ask themselves whether spectacle alone is enough. Cutting for the sake of cutting is not reform—it is performance. Virginia's success proves that a quieter, more technocratic approach grounded in expertise, transparency, and responsiveness to evidence can deliver greater and more lasting returns.
As the 2026 gubernatorial elections approach in states across the country, legislators would do well to examine Virginia's model. With billions in savings and a more accountable administrative process, ORM may very well be the most important government reform initiative you haven't heard about.