Across our region, policymakers have been taking action that significantly moves the economic needle: cutting waste and trimming red tape. It’s a key reason Idaho, Montana and Wyoming regularly show up among the least-regulated states in the country, and is a major draw to families, job creators and taxpayers alike.
Washington has made some permitting upgrades, but still carries one of the heaviest regulatory loads in the nation. Mercatus’ state snapshots for Idaho, Montana and Washington show that Idaho is the least regulated state in the nation, and Washington is the eighth most regulated.
Now, Virginia has a timely playbook that can help every state in our region accelerate what’s already working, and help Washington finally get serious. Virginia soon will see AI regulatory reform agents deployed. The goal: “To carry out what seems like the arduous task of digesting Virginia’s laws and regulations, Vulcan first got regulations, statutes and case law into one central database. AI agents then dig through those thousands of pages of text and the regulatory provisions that stem from them, then map them to see where there is overlap. The agents also determine whether a regulation has been expressly written into law, or been delegated to an agency through that law to determine and implement for themselves.”
Route Fifty detailed how Virginia’s Office of Regulatory Management (ORM) reached and is now surpassing its 25% regulatory reduction goal. Additionally, Virginia is now using agentic AI to supercharge the next round of streamlining. The AI agents review statutes and their implementing regulations, flag mismatches, and compare requirements across states.
For example, it identifies irregularities in licensing hours for barbers or cosmetologists, and then the program generates “heat maps” that agencies can use to prioritize reforms. ORM has also launched transparency tools, such as a permit/license tracking dashboard, so that applicants can follow status updates like a FedEx package. This is a great model for other states to follow.
For Idaho, reforms should stay the course and add Virginia-style AI tools. Idaho’s current regulatory reforms are a national model. Governor Little’s 2019 Red Tape Reduction Act and Licensing Freedom Act were followed by the 2020 Zero-Based Regulation order. These reforms force routine, line-by-line reviews with roughly 20% of rule chapters scrutinized each year. That approach helped Idaho become, and continue to be, the least-regulated state in the nation. The next step is to integrate Virginia’s toolkit, which includes AI-assisted statute-to-rule traceability, cross-state comparisons to identify outliers/unnecessary regulation, and a public permit tracking dashboard that reports agency performance in real-time.
For Montana, the reform momentum is real; now keep it going. Montana’s Red Tape Relief effort, launched by Executive Order 1-2021 and continued via EO 17-2021, has driven a top-to-bottom review of the state’s regulations. State updates and press releases indicate that roughly one-fifth of regulations have been repealed or amended since the initiative began, with reform bills enacted in 2023 and beyond. Montana should now implement rolling reviews and add Virginia-style analytics, AI mapping, cross-state benchmarking, and permit dashboards with shot-clock timelines, so advancements and deregulation persist regardless of who leads the administration.
For Wyoming, keep the reform Task Force focused. Wyoming’s Regulatory Reduction Task Force has been working issue-by-issue with agencies and stakeholders. The task force’s agendas, minutes, and staff summaries show active bill drafting around permitting timelines and housing/energy reforms. A straightforward next step is to publish a live, user-friendly inventory of rules and before/after changes, and to stand up an AI pilot to surface duplication and statute-rule mismatches. Local moves are already pointing the right way. Laramie County just expanded home-business rights by removing permit and site-plan requirements in unincorporated areas.
For Washington, continue to update permitting and modernize the code itself. A positive development is that the Washington Department of Commerce commissioned an independent evaluation by Beveridge & Diamond on siting and permitting reform. But Washington still sits near the top of the regulatory burden and faces chronic project delays. The fix is to pair those permitting upgrades with a Virginia-style regulatory management system: an ORM-equivalent with measurable reduction targets, AI-assisted statute-to-rule mapping and cross-state comparisons, and public dashboards that track permits and licenses in real time.
The “why” to do this now is simple. The accumulation of thousands of rules over decades, usually well-intentioned, raises costs, slows housing and infrastructure, and disadvantages small businesses relative to entrenched corporate giants. When states commit to regulatory discipline, especially now with AI-assisted audits, the result is faster build times, lower compliance costs and a more responsive government.
Most of our region is already proving it can be done. The next step is to put AI to work, accelerating the common-sense regulatory reforms that will help put our economy into overdrive.
Sebastian Griffin is the lead researcher for the Junkermier Center for Technology and Innovation at Mountain States Policy Center, an independent research organization based in Idaho, Montana, Eastern Washington and Wyoming. Online at mountainstatespolicy.org.