Delegate Michael Webert: How Regulatory Reform Saved Virginians Thousands

And so, it's a matter of, it's a talk about healthcare.

It's a good example. Healthcare is so highly regulated that it almost doesn't matter which sex you're talking, whether it be insurance, whether it be pharmaceuticals, whether it be, you know, your hospital. They are so highly regulated that whenever you try to tweak it, it's going to tweak something else. And I've discovered this that, you know, if you're going to address like pharmaceuticals

and some of the things that happen there, so for instance, you know, the use of patents to be able to protect a profit margin, things like that where you're, you're trying to tweak it, but then it's going to,

“they're shifting costs and I think, in my opinion, healthcare, so many of our, our, our industries”

when they face huge amounts of regulation. Americans are capable of achieving extraordinary things when they have the freedom and opportunity to do so. This is American Potential. Hey everyone, welcome to the American Potential podcast on your host David Farmer. You know, if you're someone who's interested in history, you'll hopefully like this episode,

because our guest today, not only talks about history and it's well-seept in history, but he made history as part of the 1960 civil rights movement. So before we get to Tim, I want to bring him engineer Matt, just talk about some of the cool historical places that he's been and being able to visit Matt. Tell me about, you know, I, I guess I'm, I'm excited to talk to Clarence about his,

participation history. Some of us haven't been as active in major historical events, but we've seen a lot of cool stuff that reminds us of our history of Americans. What's up the stuff you've seen? Oh, well, for one, traveling with this show gets you out and seeing awesome historical stuff all the time.

“And we had some really cool opportunities to, well, for example,”

we did go to Philadelphia. That was very historical and cool. And then I also, I, I might have mentioned this once before on the show. I am a little bit of a World War II history buff. And I really enjoyed visiting the battleship New Jersey. And they've got it as a museum now.

It's a really cool, I mean, one of the last great World War II battleships. That was neat. And then we got the film not too long ago at a World War II destroyer, right in front of it on the pier there. So that was cool. That was the USS Orlex. So for me, those are, we get a little bit of a World War II history guy. Those are really fun for me.

No, that's cool. I love, because there's so many different eras. I mean, that's one of the fun things about enjoying history.

I've always loved history.

“What's what got me involved in interested in politics?”

I can't believe one of my kids don't love history. I'm like, no, this documentary really is cool. We should go to this place. But, you know, for me, some highlights, I've been to the Alamo, I've got a San Antonio, which is kind of cool.

I mean, the story of the Alamo is cool. It's certainly, like everyone else says, it's smaller than you realize. But it was pretty cool to be like, all right, this is the Alamo, pretty iconic. You know, a lot of sites in Virginia. I've been to, you know, in Richmond, you know, seeing places like,

you know, like the, the, the old, say capital, the say capital in Virginia is pretty cool, because, you know, Jefferson designed it. You know, when you can't, you want to around Virginia just bump into places. I grew up near Morris Town where George Washington's headquarters was.

You know, Revolutionary War and then, you know, recently we were up in Boston.

You know, and saw where the Boston Tea Party was. And went to the tavern where the sun's a liberty were formed. And went to cheers. Hmm. So you can get the same.

Maybe not quite the same, but it's still good times. There's a little difference in the level of history between, you know, that the Tea Party and cheers, but I'll take it. Yeah, yeah. Well, I guess today, as, as lived in a pretty amazing life and made a lot of, you know,

made a lot of history. So, uh, for interested in talking to them. Saving money is something we all try to do, right? I mean, whether it's finding coupons, winning for something to go on sale, or just try not to spend more than we have to.

So let's imagine if a state government actually tried to do the same. There are some states that actually have put mechanisms in place. That if a regulation costs a certain amount, the state legislature has to vote on it. Which is, you know, it's pretty good way of keeping things in check. So, as some states are reviewing new regulations,

others are taking a look at the regulations they already have to see if changes need to be made. One state, Virginia, has an office of regulatory management, which is generated a significant amount in annual savings.

governorship and state leadership.

Let's talk about what's going on with our guests today, who represents Virginia's 61st district, delegate Michael Weaver. Delgit, thanks for having me, appreciate it. Yeah, well, you guys are in the fight.

I mean, I know there's been a lot of changes in leadership and Virginia over the last year plus, and that resulted in, you know, some real challenges for those of us who value, you know, more liberty and free markets and less spending. But, sorry, I'm very interested to hear kind of about what's been going on,

specifically around the regulatory fights. But before we get to that, I mean, you're also in your a farmer. Oh, yeah. So maybe give us a little bit of your background as to like how you came into it, how your family came to be farming and, you know,

what that has been like and how that's led to Toronto for office. Well, so I guess it kind of leads to how I came into office in general. I, you know, is a young kid. My first business was basically running a custom hay operation. We went around and picked up square bales and threw them on a wagon

and, you know, stacked them for the local farmers in the area.

And it was really funny because I never visited a weight room during football season.

I was always working. Just to, you know, the typical farm, you know, corn fed farmer. And then my grandmother when I had taken a leave. I guess from college for a little bit. And when back was living on my grandmother's farm on our main farm.

And decided to give it a go and take over and manage it. And, you know, we were in the angus business. That's how I met my wife. And just kind of grew the business over time. And then the seat came open and I was asked to run partly because I've been so involved

in the community farm bureau or local livestock exchange. And all that stuff. And then also. And just to kind of set way into regulatory reform.

“I mean, I still remember my first job to go into DC to lobby was was really to say, hey,”

we have so many regulations that are so burdensome on us. We need to, you know, we need to shrink it. But we also, please just leave us alone. It is kind of where it, how I got kind of got started in it. And that's where we got into the regulatory reform.

And, you know, arm the office of regulatory management. The government young can put in place is really an extension of house bill. I think it was 833 that we passed. I was the patron, but we passed it under the north of the administration. But the then speaker cox is leadership on that too.

And it was a largest, largest regulatory reform that the Commonwealth had ever seen. And it really focused on the tone of office and regulatory management and licensing. And it all, you know, transpired with the great thing takes like the Mercator Center. You know, Alec, you know, AFP.

Basically looking at everything and going, okay, how can we shrink the burdensome regulations that are there in the Commonwealth and the regulatory requirements.

I mean, how many forms do we have to fill out just to be able to do something in the United States now, you know.

“And so that's how we got started and government young can really really last on to that.”

And I will tell you that the office of regulatory management and the regulatory reform that, like, he undertook at Department of Environmental Quality really has saved the tax payers and immense amount of money. I think they calculated it out at for the. The cost of a house. I think just from the regulatory reform that they were underwent at DEQ.

Was the savings of about $26,000 for house. Wow. Yeah. And that's a real real calculated money that people are saving by houses due to regulatory reform. That's a great way to bring it home.

Bring it home to people. So the space. Well, I mean, you mentioned in your introduction that, you know, what, what is the cost of, of regulations? And I think, I think to me, that's also a kind of counts as a hidden tax sometimes. It's just, it just adds to the inflation of the cost of goods and, you know,

while government is there to be a referee and and also help. You know, make sure that things are done safely and things like that. At times, I do believe that the bureaucrats are just trying to keep their jobs. Yeah. Yeah.

I don't disagree. We've talked a lot about regulatory issues on the show. And then we can talk.

“I remember talking to the, the head of the farm.”

You're up in Pennsylvania and he's a hog farmer and he was talking to us about some specific things.

So like in your life, you know, your, your, your day job as a farmer like how have you seen regulation impact, you know, your business.

“Oh, so I still remember this was the, the Obama ruled waters of the US when they were trying to expand waters of the US.”

We, we brought out folks from EPA and some of the, some of the just the rule makers and said, look, if the rule goes through as written. I lose this much ground and by the way, I mean, we're in the drought now. I, that's, that's acres that wouldn't be able to, to grace. The other thing too is, and I, I'll tell the story because I was, it was literally this morning.

So I bought a brain, I bought a new tractor first new piece of new equipment. We've, we've purchased in a long time and it's an expensive piece of equipment, right.

“So, but it also has the death fluid with it.”

And so when you, if it's a diesel, a diesel engine, any diesel, like your on road diesel engines, they have death fluid and it helps clean the, the, the, the, what's coming out of the exhaust, right. And so they, they've, they've taken the point where now they do this on the tractors. For cleaner environment. But what we've discovered is on a brand new tractor, the death fluid we're burning through death fluids. So not only that, do you add an extra $10,000 to $15,000 for the engine.

You have an extra basically added cost because I have to buy this death fluid, which is basically your rea and have to add it in order to scrub the, the exhaust on a tractor.

And the tractor's not nearly as efficient. My 1992 tractor, I can fill up and it will run for a week. And to be honest, I bet you have probably amissed the same. And that's just the, that's the cost of overregulating, overregulating, overburdening things, trying to accomplish a goal that is just adding to the cost of doing business. We see it all the time. Yeah, we hear about it. Across the country, I mean, I've talked to folks in Alaska, folks in Wyoming, you taught, and it, it's, it's all the different shapes and sizes.

The federal level, it's at the state level, it's the local level. And we talked to guys who have food trucks in Georgia and, you know, they're, they're talking about it and how they, they can't do business or trying, you know, and all of it doesn't just does not seem commensual. It feels like if everybody could just kind of go with the smell test or do something that's commensual, you can feel up and are off. Maybe I'm just naive that way.

“But you guys have been trying that, you know, I think the reform you guys made over last decade in Virginia and which had trying to preserve has really been effective.”

The number you say, what 26,000 per home saved, you know, streamline regulation is pretty phenomenal. So maybe talk to me a little bit more about the office regulatory management and what it actually does to save money. So, so basically, when I was, when I was talking about the, the first bit of reform that we did, one of the big feedbacks that we got was that the, there's a lot of busy work in trying to identify those regulations and things like that, and it would be really nice to have it housed in one spot and have, you know, one or two people that are, that their whole job is to focus on regulatory reform, collect all the data,

work on trying to streamline those things and so governing young can took that to heart and said, okay, we're going to create the office. And then they then what they did to is they also started using artificial intelligence in order to go through the code and identify needless regulation. I took away that busy work and in the executive branch in order to expand it along the entire executive branch, and then he also had cabinet secretaries like my growl band.

And who has been so involved in, like, you know, water, his big, my growl band's first business was was water conservation and stream bank fence saying things like that.

And so he is the master at this stuff. And so what he did was he started streamlining things along with the office of regulatory management day every day work together. This is the best example. They work together and figured out that if they could streamline it streamline the permitting process and make it faster, not only are they just making easier on business general, but they're making a faster and we all know the time is money. And then also just lowering that identifying duplicative regulations and things like that, then they can, what they did was they took away that burden on business business to be able to function faster.

I think that's, that's where that's where you see a big savings if you could really streamline some regulation. I don't know what you've seen across the country, but from what I've talked to with some of my colleagues.

When you have a business, it's no longer having to dedicate five lawyers to just, you know, making sure that they comply with things.

“That frees up a whole lot of economic empowerment that that business can use in order to grow. And I think that's a great day.”

Now, I mean, I think we all agree that if that fewer lawyers might be better. So when I came in, I'll tell the store when I came in. My, my predecessor was was a lawyer and he later became a judge. But one of my colleagues he was throwing a fundraiser and he said anytime you could replace a lawyer with a farmer's it's good day in the general assembly. So it's American movement in the right direction. Right. Yeah. And at one point, I was the only one. Now I've got a couple, couple, a couple newer colleagues that that also were in the cattle business too.

But I just, you know, we talk about regulations. We talk about taxes. I'll just bring up Virginia. The, the, what we are about to embark on, which is probably one of the dumbest things we could do, which is that we are about to enter into Reggie. The regional greenhouse gas initiative, where we have to pay for the carbon energy that we're producing. Meanwhile, we're also a carbon importer. You know, you mentioned Pennsylvania. They were at least smart enough not to join.

“But we just went through the, the new auction with Reggie, and it was like, I think it's $35 for for a credit when in 2020 when Governor young can wisely said we're not going to participate.”

It was like 12 or not even. Yeah, I think it was about 12. So now you're looking at if that, if that those prices stay just to comply with Reggie.

You're looking at about $800 million tax on the ratepayers of the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Just to comply. That's unbelievable. Yeah. Yeah. It's just, we've been involved with, you're kind of fighting Reggie in particular in New England states obviously Virginia, Virginia, Governor young King had a good thing there. And I mean, even, you know, very liberal left leaning New England states even decided not to go along with it at times. It usually usually get pressured into it. But it's just, you know, why they were just costing taxpayers so much more money.

“And it's unbelievable. Well, not only that, but I discovered so, you know, the whole goal is to to shrink carbon emissions, right?”

But what I've discovered too is you have entities that are participating in these auctions that don't produce power. Well, there, there is all there there to do is buy up the allotments so that the price goes higher to make it more painful. So we don't have our carbon emitting, you know, our carbon emitting generation.

But the problem is, part of the reason our power bills are going up is because we don't have what I call dispatchable generation.

And it's because of the environmental regulations that the Democrats imposed in 2020 with the Virginia Clean Economy Act along with, you know, Maryland and New Jersey and those states that also impose all of those regulations. And so now we're importing all of our, you know, a lot of our energy and the energy that when you when it's 20 below. The extreme example, but you go and you go into your house and you turn on your heat, you turn on your light, it needs to work and that energy is more expensive because solar.

It doesn't produce power at night, so. So that's, that's, I mean, just yet another example of what overburdened some regulation does to the average citizen. Well, and in Virginia, it's even working against Virginians and working against yourselves and in all the way down to the point of that, you know. Western Virginia has plenty of natural resources and energy producing businesses and lots of great resources that can help Virginians and other people. I mean, it's a it's a boom to the economy, but like, you keep trying to penalize it, it's not going to be a safe forever.

Well, and that's, I mean, that's exactly, you're exactly right, you're exactly right and it punishes those parts of Virginia. And then we also have the other issue where the Democrats would like to see, you know, huge land mass is covered in solar so that they can feel good about turning on their their lights. Problem is, you know, for me, it's, well, where we're going to grow our food and, you know, my constituents don't want to see all of their land in solar.

So, the new governor, and you went through your first legislative session, I know you guys fended off a lot of attacks or, you know, bad policy.

And there's been a attempt to dismantle some of the good policy that had been passed in the previous administration. I imagine the next legislative sessions, another fight and then some. What, with regard to the regulatory regiment, you guys have in place, which seems I've been, you know, very successful. What do you think, so the future. There.

“Personally, I think, I think under the current administration as well as the fact that the Democrats have the trifecta, they have a majority in the house and a majority in the Senate.”

I would venture to say that a large portion of our regulatory reform is going to disappear. I think that the governor, so for instance, her.

I forget what he, I call him the energies are, which is a new position. She's already added to the bureaucracy.

You got a director of the, you know, of energy already, and now she's added in energies are who's so goals to make energy more affordable. But everything that they've done is made energy more expensive. I think I think in their effort to accomplish their altruist goals, we're just going to see an influx of regulation. And their biggest thing is they want to take away local control of everything so that, you know, a locality can't say, hey, we are a store of the taxpayer dollars.

If we put housing here, we put industry here, we put, you know, we put industry here. This is where we're going to have all of the infrastructure for it. They're taking that away and it's going to be very. It's only for certain things, you know, they're going to pick and choose that. They're not going to, they're going to say, okay, housing, you can build wherever you want.

“Well, now what are you going to do when you have to put in a highway?”

You know, where are your tax dollars going to go for that? And while we would like to see some regulatory reform and that, we still need to look some local zoning to know that we can say, okay, we're going to put our our industry here, which we have my house is just up from a from an industrial area. And now we're, you know, they're, they're working and building it out now. But I think what you're going to have particularly is, so they, you know, they want to do a great thing.

They want to lower regulations on housing. But then they also do the same thing and say, well, you have to keep all the old trees. Or, you know, you have to have X number canopy. Or you have, you know, it's just, it's, it's those types of things that when they add up. All of a sudden that 26,000 dollars that the governor just saved is gone.

When it comes to the housing regulations. So when you listen to your colleagues across the aisle and they're proposing, you know, kind of dismantling what's been very positive streamlining regulations.

“Is there one set of argument or is there, what's the line of justification from them?”

I think, I think everybody lives in a silo, I mean, I think they're looking at their considered their area. They're looking in northern Virginia and they're saying, okay, this is what, this is what's going to happen. You know, we have these issues, so we're going to put in all these regulations.

And that, the problem is that also negatively affects the rest of the state.

And so, and then you also forget that, oh, there's a whole set of federal regulations when it comes to this. So I think one of the best examples of regulatory reform that. Well, a very small example, but it's a very good example is the fact that in Virginia now when you're looking at looking at some of these older, these older buildings like that have, you know, storefronts on the bottom, like on the old mainstream, you've got the storefront on the bottom, but you have apartments up top. We no longer regulate two staircases.

You know, we're going more towards Europe where you can have one staircase because if you were to redevelop that, you need two staircases. You just added a $100,000 to that project. And so, you know, it's looking at that and going, okay, we need to do that. We've got a couple of Democrats that their willing to look at stuff like that. But then others that they just, they're not. They're okay. We want, you've got to make sure you maintain 20% of the tree canopy when you're redeveloping an area.

You've got to, you know, make sure that certain regulations are there, stormwater regulations are there. That's where the Department of Environmental Quality made a lot of headway was in stormwater regulations.

But yet, here we are, adding more credits, adding more this and that to the cost of it. And I don't think they realize that it's death by a thousand cuts.

“Yeah, I think that's so true. I think a lot of people are well-meaning and are like, "Well, what about this? What about this?"”

But everything is a trade-off, you know, and everything comes into the cost. I do think that there are some folks who don't share a worldview who really do want to control things. And want to use a regulatory, excuse me, regulatory process to kind of impose their view of the world. I think Reggie goes towards that, for instance. You can talk about, you know, carbon tax credits and stuff. I think there's a desire to control behavior on the part of some.

But I think a lot of times it's people looking at just their own little slice of the pie and say, "Oh, well, we can make things better this way.

I make things better this way." Rather than entrusting the people to make things as good, you know, if they're in a self interest, try to make it as good as they could be. You know, it's kind of a top-down approach rather than a bottom-up approach. All right, great. And you mentioned trade-offs. The interesting thing about it is everything that we do in government is a trade-off.

It really is a trade-off. And so it's a matter of, so we'll just talk about healthcare.

It's a good example. Healthcare is so highly regulated that it almost doesn't matter which section you're talking about,

whether it be insurance, whether it be pharmaceuticals, whether it be, you know, your hospital. They are so highly regulated that whenever you try to tweak it, it's going to tweak something else. And I've discovered this that, you know, if you're going to address like pharmaceuticals and some of the things that happen there, so for instance, you know, the use of patents to be able to protect a profit margin, things like that, where you're trying to tweak it, but then it's going to their shifting costs.

“And I think, in my opinion, healthcare, so many of our industries, when they face huge amounts of regulation,”

the only people that can really survive are the big guys, because that's where you're seeing this massive consolidation of companies. And it's because you end up the little guy isn't allowed to thrive, because they can't overcome the regulatory burden that's put in front of them just to get started. You know, it's like licensing. In licensing can be just a huge barrier to entry when it comes to certain industries. You know, the regulatory form that that we passed in 2018, I think is a as a perfect example.

You know, I think at that point cause, cause mythology, it was 390 hours to get your license or something. And now they're down to like 300 a little less, but I mean, that's a perfect example. We had so many things that would come a, oh, well, you a hair braider, me did a cosmatology license. And then we were like, okay, well, no, they're just braiding hair. It's like, well, why don't we take a look at the whole thing and say, okay, you know, why can't a person voluntarily enter the marketplace and say, I'm going to, I'm really good at braiding hair.

And have people pay them for it. Instead, the state says, oh, no, you need it. Cosmatology license. Because I'm all the risks involved with hair braiding. Exactly. Exactly. Seriously. I mean, and that's, I mean, that's, you see it, you see those types of examples everywhere.

“And I think that's where the Office of Regatory Management under young Ken came in with such a good example of innovation.”

And that it, it, that's its sole purpose. You know, when you, when you have an office is and like that and their sole purpose is to look at all that stuff and say that we don't really need that. I think that's a good thing. And if they can do it bureaucratically as opposed to through the legislature and makes things even easier, because as you mentioned, I believe there are people that want to use the regulatory process to impose their worldview on the way we do things. And, you know, if you have an office like young Ken did, they kind of connect and nick that in the bud kind of speak.

Del. Well, you know, it strikes me that, you know, the regulatory stuff often isn't the sexy issue that people want to talk about. But it's kind of the meat and potatoes that when you do it right, you end up with more affordable housing, you end up with business unleashed, you allow entrepreneurship, you allow and so often it's the little guy. I mean, to giant companies and super wealthy folks can afford all the lawyers and accountants and engineers that you need.

And so, you know, I do hope that Virginia does not go, does not backslide on this, because I think that there's, you know, there's been a good culture created there. And then, you know, I think about America soon, 50th birthday and it's, you know, no Virginia is, you know, top of the top of the heap when it comes to the state state, you know, that have a great legacy and have something to say about, you know, the declaration and the principles that are enshrined in it. And I, you know, I'd love to see Virginia continue to lead the way.

“I mean, as, as what I, as what I, I think you pointed out this, it's the small guy, I mean, look at the.”

Look at the companies that started out in a garage in an hour, you know, multi-billion dollar.

Truly dollar companies and, you know, part of that is because the world hadn't tried to regulate them at all. And all of a sudden, you have, you have this, this, this massive business that was created in a garage. Or, you know, a guy who decided that one day he would just go out on his own as a plumber and all of a sudden, now he's got a massive business running, you know, 150 trucks and say, you know, a few hundred employees and he's just doing well. And that's, that's the kind of American exceptionalism that we want to see.

And, you know, as you brought up the 250th anniversary in Virginia because, you know, we kind of.

Kind of created everything.

I'm, I'm a little partial little partial. I've heard that before whenever I was in. I'm a little partial. I mean, I like to point out that Sam Houston was a Virginia. So, you know, every time I see Texans, I'm like, we're your father.

Oh, that's awesome.

So, but I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've loved for the governor to be able to do that.

“I think, particularly now with the drama that we've seen and within the Democrats that I'm hoping that she, she actually returns to.”

Or does what she says when she was talking about moderation. She wanted to be, she, she kept saying this. She was this moderate Democrat, her campaign kept saying this. She was moderate Democrat and all of a sudden she went super left with our, you know, redistricting issues. And that kind of thing, but I'm hoping that that at least with all of this drama, she can go, you know what? Regulatory form is one of those things that we can work together on. I mean, up for me personally, it's, as you say, it's the meat and potatoes and I'm a meat and potatoes kind of guy, you know, I do farm, you know, throw a big steak on there and I'm even better.

Literally a meat guy. Yeah, I'm literally, yeah, literally meat guy. So it's like, okay, let's, you know, let's work on that because that, that's really, you don't, you don't see it immediately. You see it two to three years later when it's actually making businesses, lives easier, your constituent lives easier, and they're, they're, they're able to have a little bit more money in their pocket. Yeah, well, I wish you the best of the fight. You know, I know that you're, like I said, you know, that the folks are kind of unaligned or controlling things now, but you've been just put it up with good fights.

“I think hopefully as we keep showing the benefits of Virginians of, of, you know, a streamlined regulatory process and people, you know, hopefully everybody wants more affordability for, for folks.”

So I wish you the best in kind of prosecuting this fight. Thank you, Matt. I appreciate it. We need all the help we can get to. So yeah, I'll tell you, thanks a lot. And I hope that that the America's soon to 50th is, I probably know what nowhere better to celebrate than Virginia. So I hope it's a wonderful time for everybody. Oh, thank you. It's going to be great. Yeah.

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