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32.1

Prioritize Agencies

Summary:

The President shall prioritize all federal agencies with a number to resolve conflicts between agencies and preserve the rule of law.

Prioritize Agencies: Proposed Language

All agencies of the federal government having the authority to issue regulations shall receive a priority number by the President by January 1 of each even numbered year with the highest priority being the lowest number. Conflicts among valid regulations among agencies shall be resolved in favor of the agency having the highest priority. New agencies not having a priority number shall have the lowest priority in the order established unless the President amends his prior prioritization.

Commentary:

One can easily discern that when there are thousands of regulations, there will be conflicts among the regulations of any single agency and conflicts between the regulations of one agency and any other agency. The courts have had occasion to deal with these conflicts. In 1985 the Federal Claim Court ruled that Department of Defense regulations prevailed over Army regulations. In 2009 that court ruled that Department of Defense regulations prevailed over inconsistent Air Force regulations.

Today it is estimated that there are more than 1,300 distinct organizations across all three branches of the federal government. In all probability, the number of these agencies is growing and not diminishing. We publish so many regulations, that it is more appropriate to gauge the number of them by referring to the pages. In 1970 the Code of Federal Regulations contained 54,834 pages. By 1998 the Code of Federal Regulations contained 134,723 pages (201 volumes). In 2008 ABC News reported that the pages in a single title of one volume, when removed and then attached end to end, rolled out the length of 1-1/2 football fields. Another report in 2008 measured the linear width of these volumes at 304 inches. These numbers have continued to grow.

As one can imagine, many of these regulations impose penalties for noncompliance and generate a strong probability of conflict, established to be exponential by mathematical calculations. Currently, these conflicts, to the extent they are not resolved in a court proceeding, are resolved by people presumably trying to do the right thing. However, the notion that the law is ultimately determined by people is inconsistent with the notion of the rule of law and causes society to degenerate into the rule of men. When men begin to rule, freedom begins to die.

The proposed amendment requires the President to number each federal agency and thereafter provides that the agency with the lowest number prevails over agencies with larger numbers. The method of resolving conflict is simple and easy. The only remaining hurdle is the resolution of conflicting regulations within a particular agency. This the court will have to resolve. Further, this process ensures that there is but one government ruling us and not a plethora of many governmental agencies exhibiting their power and imposing their rules upon ordinary Americans as their activities in some fashion fall under a particular agency and its regulations.

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