Many Alaska agencies still counting state regulations after Dunleavy orders rule reductions

Months after Gov. Mike Dunleavy ordered state agencies to begin reducing the number of regulations governing their operations, several have yet to complete a full tally of the baseline number of rules eligible for reduction.

Dunleavy in August issued an administrative order tasking all state agencies with reducing the number of regulations that dictate their operations by 15% by the end of 2026, and by 25% the following year.

In his order, Dunleavy said that reducing regulations was necessary to “attract investment and grow (Alaska’s) economic base.”

But state departments are behind schedule in achieving the initial phase of the order, which entails counting the number of regulatory requirements in each agency. That count was meant to be completed by mid-October, to serve as a baseline for agency reduction goals, according to an instructional document disseminated earlier this year.

According to an undated tally provided by the Department of Law on Wednesday, numerous agencies had been granted an extension until March 2 to count their regulations, including the Department of Administration, Department of Fish and Game, Department of Military and Veterans Affairs, the Department of Revenue, the Department of Transportation and Public Facilities, the Division of Elections and the lieutenant governor’s office.

According to the governor’s plan, agencies have until Jan. 5 to submit a draft outline “setting forth regulations identified for reform based upon stakeholder meetings.”

Among departments that had tallied their regulations so far, the Department of Commerce, Community and Economic Development was leading in the number of tallied restrictions, reporting a baseline of more than 30,000. Its goal was to cut that number to just under 26,000 by the end of 2026, and just under 23,000 by the end of 2027.

That department is charged with overseeing licensing for dozens of professions across the state, including doctors, nurses, pharmacists, optometrists, social workers, architects and accountants, among many others. Numerous professions in the state are governed in large part by regulation, rather than statute, allowing for boards and commissions to more easily update their requirements in response to evolving best practices.

The number of regulations varied widely among agencies. The Department of Health — which oversees the state’s Medicaid program, among numerous other responsibilities — reported a plan to reduce roughly 4,000 of its 16,000 regulations in a two-year period.

The Department of Corrections, meanwhile, reported having only 57 eligible regulations for reduction. Its goal was to cut that number to 54 next year and 47 the year after that.

When issuing his order, Dunleavy said he wanted to focus on permitting reform in the Department of Natural Resources — which is aiming to eliminate more than 700 of its 3,000 regulations — and the Department of Environmental Conservation, which planned to reduce more than 3,000 of its 13,000 regulatory requirements. The Department of Fish and Game, also identified for permitting reform, has so far counted 650 regulations but sought an extension to finish its baseline count.

The Department of Law, which is in charge of implementing the governor’s administrative order, did not provide an accounting of its own regulations or how it intended to reduce them.

Attorney General Stephen Cox said in a statement in September that the Department of Law “intends to be a model in this process” by publishing its own reform plans.

Assistant Attorney General Rebecca Polizzotto said last month that some departments had been granted extensions for counting their regulations “because of particular board meetings or how they want to do stakeholder engagement.”

Despite the extension granted, Polizzotto said she still expected “a majority of agencies” would be in “substantial compliance” with Dunleavy’s order by the end of 2026.

As for the following year — that will be up to the next governor. Dunleavy’s time as governor ends next year and he is termed out from seeking reelection. The next governor can keep the order in place, or repeal it.

Dunleavy’s regulatory reform effort follows initiatives from previous governors who also sought to reduce, update and clarify state rules. But Polizzotto said Dunleavy’s order is different.

“As opposed to just issuing the order, he actually has put together a program of how to effectuate that,” Polizzotto said in an interview last month.

Dunleavy’s regulation-slashing effort was launched shortly before he appointed Cox to serve as Alaska’s top attorney in August. Cox, who moved to Alaska in 2021, said he had been previously “involved in regulatory reform efforts at the federal level.” In an interview, he called Dunleavy’s administrative order “a very sophisticated program” that’s “modeled after best practices that have happened in other states.”

Alaska’s effort is modeled after a similar initiative in Virginia, where Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin earlier this year announced he had surpassed the 25% regulation reduction goal he had set in 2022.

According to a study conducted by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, Alaska is already one of the least-regulated states in the country. Alaska ranked 44th out of 48 in the 2024 study (Arkansas and West Virginia were not included), with roughly 65,000 regulatory restrictions. For comparison, Virginia ranked 16th, with nearly 146,000 restrictions. California topped the list with 420,000 restrictions.

Polizzotto said that even if Alaska has fewer restrictions on the books, it still has work to do eliminating and updating old regulations that are no longer in use.

“That’s just not good law, and you should not have it on the books regardless of if you have fewer regulations than another state,” she said.

Asked why Dunleavy set a 25% reduction goal for every agency — rather than taking into account the vast variation in the number and scope of regulations in various agencies — Polizzotto the goal was to “strive for consistency.”

To make it easier to hit the governor’s target, the Department of Law is allowing agencies to use a variety of methods to achieve the reduction target, including by reducing the number of requirements for a given professional license, or by reducing the word count or page count in guidance documents for Alaskans seeking information on regulatory requirements.

“I don’t think we’ve come across any doubt that any agency can meet that 25% goal. Some agencies might need a little more assistance, but some agencies might be able to exceed that 25% goal, because they have so much that just hasn’t been cleaned up,” said Cox.