The Federal Register is a daily publication from the federal government containing the proposed regulations and finalized rules from federal agencies, as well as presidential documents.

In 1936, the combined Federal Register totaled 2,620 pages. The 2013 version — remember, these are just the new regulations — added up to a whopping 79,311 pages.

When government is churning out nearly eighty thousand pages of new rules every year, it’s no stretch to say that compliance imposes costs on American individuals and businesses.

Some estimate those costs at $281 billion a year for environmental rules, $160 billion for tax laws, and another $75 billion for occupational safety and homeland security.

Many voices in Congress worry that unelected bureaucrats, operating almost as a fourth branch of government, are acting without enough oversight and imposing too many costly rules.

In 2011, the House of Representatives passed the Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny Act. Although the measure died in the Democrat-controlled Senate, it would have required Congressional approval of regulations with more than $100 million in cumulative economic impact.

Now that Republicans control both houses of Congress, could the REINS Act make a reappearance? First District Congressman David McKinley told the Daily Mail last week that it’s a priority for him. And he’d like to see a lower economic impact threshold: $50 million.

In our complex society and economy, Congress lacks the time and expertise to write every rule itself. Some amount of regulation from the executive branch is necessary to iron out the details of the laws Congress passes.

But sometimes — quite often, actually — the bureaucracy goes too far. When it reaches past Congress to create burdensome rules the legislative branch never intended — as is too often the case with the Environmental Protection Agency, for example — it should be reined in.

A resurrection of the REINS Act would be a welcome development, both for the reassertion of Congressional authority and for the American economy.

-Charleston Daily Mail Editorial, February 2, 2015