At the Oklahoma State Capitol on Oct. 21, an interim study met for a hearing exploring the state costs to comply with federal regulations as it relates to the Oklahoma Department of Transportation, the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality, the Oklahoma Health Care Authority, and the Oklahoma Department of Human Services.

According to the request for interim study 15-027, the hearing was put together to explore the following:

• Are the regulations constitutional?
  • Have they been reviewed and voted on in statute?
  • Show work necessary to comply with federal regulations and show costs.
  • How many persons, vehicles, equipment, time, related to Federal regulations.
• Should we be complying with regulations?
• Should we fight these regulations?
• Is the money Oklahoma receives “borrowed”?
  • (As part of the Not balanced US budget?)

OCPA’s Trent England was present at the hearing to talk about the harmful, long-term, and sometimes intangible costs of the centralization of regulation on public policy from a constitutional perspective.

A recording of entire hearing is available here. If you would just like to listen to Trent England’s testimony, fast forward the recording to about 2:28:00.