Cutting Red Tape: Governor Hochul Issues Executive Order Kicking Off “Regulatory Reset” to Save New Yorkers Time and Money

Governor Kathy Hochul today issued an Executive Order to commence New York's "Regulatory Reset," a comprehensive and methodical review of thousands of regulations and laws across all state agencies, to improve the functioning and efficiency of state government. Through this "Regulatory Reset," agencies will reform outdated regulations, fees, and requirements that waste New Yorkers' time, and make sure that taxpayer dollars are being put to good use.

"New Yorkers rely on state government in ways big and small every day, but for too long, needless red tape has slowed down the core functions of government and made it harder for our state to deliver for its residents - that changes today," Governor Hochul said. "This 'Regulatory Reset' will leverage cutting edge tools and human expertise to conduct the most comprehensive review of our laws and regulations in state history, saving New Yorkers precious time and money. While some in Washington have tried to gut the very functions of government, we are choosing a different path, one that will strengthen the vital work of government and reaffirm its role for good in our state."

The "Regulatory Reset" Executive Order specifically directs agencies to review the following opportunities for modernization and reform:

• Outdated requirements in regulations that add unnecessary burdens for New Yorkers, including requiring people to mail or fax information, submit wet signatures or multiple physical copies of documents, file information in person, or notarize documents.
• Burdensome fees and fines imposed on individuals and small businesses which drive up costs without generating meaningful revenue for the State.
• Mandated reports and boards, commissions, and councils that state agencies are dedicating significant resources to, but no longer serve the public interest.

Working with government reform and tech non-profits and academic researchers, the state has identified thousands of potential opportunities for reform using AI-enabled tools. Agency experts will now be tasked with thoroughly reviewing all identified regulations and rules to determine the best path forward. All final recommendations in the "Regulatory Reset" will be extensively vetted and evaluated by experts at state agencies and in the Governor's office before proceeding. Potential reforms will be advanced either through the regulatory and rulemaking process or through statutory updates to be developed in collaboration with the New York State Legislature. The first wave of actions taken in the "Regulatory Reset" are expected to be announced later this year.

New York's "Regulatory Reset" is the nation's most expansive state effort to systematically review outdated regulations and improve government efficiency. To advance the "Regulatory Reset," New York enlisted the support of nation-leading tech and academic partners at the Recoding America Fund, US Digital Response, and Stanford University's RegLab. The Recoding America Fund and US Digital Response, two nonprofits focused on improving state capacity and government's ability to deliver services and outcomes, assisted the "Regulatory Reset" using AI-enabled models to identify outdated and burdensome regulations and to catalog fees. Stanford RegLab's interdisciplinary team of engineers, data scientists and social scientists partnered with New York State and utilized AI-enabled tools to generate all mandatory reports and boards, commissions, and councils in New York State regulations and statutes into digestible formats for agencies to review. This unprecedented effort is made possible by leveraging cutting edge AI tools, while ensuring strong human safeguards at every step of the process and elevating the expertise of state officials in the decision making process.

Recoding America Fund Executive Vice President Robert Gordon said, "Too often, governments just pile new rules on top of old ones, costing time and money for citizens, businesses, and public employees. Today New York asks a simple, necessary question: What can we take away? Alongside our partner US Digital Response, we've been honored to help deploy AI to find rules worth revisiting, at a scale once out of reach. We're eager to see how New York's work progresses--and how other states follow its lead."

Stanford University Professor, Director of the RegLab, and Senior Fellow at Stanford HAI Daniel Ho said, "New York is uniquely committed to untangling bureaucracy so that government actually works for the New Yorkers who depend on it. Using the methods pioneered by Stanford RegLab to sift through 18M words of legalese to enable the Regulatory Reset, the Governor's office is demonstrating what leadership with human-centered reform looks like in practice."

Tina J. Walha, CEO, U.S. Digital Response said, "When public servants have the right technical support, they can deliver for their communities in ways that would otherwise be out of reach. That's the premise USDR was built on, and it's what made this work with New York possible. Our team brought technical expertise to help accelerate a review that would have taken years by hand, while state agency staff and childcare providers brought the expertise and judgment that only they can. The result is a smarter, faster path to modernizing regulations that affect millions of New Yorkers' lives."

The "Regulatory Reset" is the latest step of the State's EXPRESS NY initiative to strengthen government and improve its functions. In June, Governor Hochul announced an initial wave of 50 significant actions across 22 state agencies to remove or modernize outdated regulations that slowed service delivery or created unnecessary barriers between New Yorkers and government services they rely on. Together, these reforms will save New Yorkers tens of millions of dollars in fees and over a million hours of time each year, with over 1.5 million state residents expected to benefit.

In May, Governor Hochul signed legislation that included her "Let Them Build" agenda, a sweeping set of comprehensive reforms to the State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA) to cut red tape and speed up the building of critical housing and infrastructure projects across the state. These reforms were the most significant changes to SEQRA since its passage in 1975 and will speed up the construction of eligible new housing and infrastructure by as much as two years.

In February, Governor Hochul asked New Yorkers for their input on this agenda, asking the public for submissions of proposed regulations, rules, or permits to modernize from New Yorkers. This process garnered a groundswell of public interest, with a wide-ranging response of nearly 4,000 submissions from all 62 counties of New York. State officials are now in the process of reviewing these public submissions, with an initial round of actions planned for later this year. Proposals submitted by members of the public informed the priorities and focus areas of the "Regulatory Reset."