A new administrative order seeks to radically reduce state regulations that underpin dozens of professions, utilities, elections and more.
Volumes of the Alaska Administrative Code are seen on Wednesday, Oct. 15, 2025, at the Legislative Reference Library in the Alaska State Capitol at Juneau. Administrative Order 360, issued in August, calls on state agencies to reduce the number of state regulations by 15% before 2027 and 25% cumulatively before 2028.
If laws are the bones of a state, regulations are the ligaments and connective tissue that keep it moving. Alaska’s administrative code, a shelflong 10-volume set of thick books, dictates everything from how to conduct an election to theare regulated by the state: Pharmacists follow the rules in that code, as do nail technicians, concert promoters, barbers, midwives, and people who euthanize animals. Elections officials operate under a system of regulations, as do local electric companies, water providers, and the people providing Internet service. Utilities, which have local monopolies on critical services, are tightly regulated, with even their profit margins controlled by the state. Regulations are intended to protect the public and ensure safety, but some businesses see them as a problem, particularly if the cost of following them is high, or if they go beyond what the business owner thinks is warranted. “There are often numerous, unnecessary requirements that simply impose an unnecessary burden on businesses, the public, and the agencies themselves,” says aDevelopment permitting regulations are a top priorityThe governor’s order specifies that the departments of Natural Resources, Environmental Conservation and Fish and Game focus “on permitting process reform,” eliminating regulations that lay out steps to take before a development project like a new mine, road or neighborhood can be built. Attorney General-designee Stephen Cox began leading the Alaska Department of Law not long after Dunleavy issued AO 360, and his agency is taking a lead role in its implementation. “One of the things that the governor is trying to do is make Alaska all the more attractive for investment,” he said. Sometimes, Cox said, regulations go farther than what was intended by law. Rather than serving as connective tissue, they can act “almost like a spider web” as additional forms and requirements are added over time, with none taken away. “You might start out with a single strand, but then there becomes this whole web that you can walk right into. You can feel it everywhere. … it’s just sort of expanding and expanding, and it hardly ever shrinks, until the rain comes, and that’s what AO 360 will be akin to,” he said. Department of Law officials believe the state has a large number of outdated regulations that could be easily removed. In other cases, regulations have adopted parts of federal law by reference, but agencies haven’t checked to see whether those federal laws have been repealed or changed in the meantime. A cursory review shows some areas of the code haven’t kept up with technological development. “Telegraph” appears five times in the code, “fax” 16 times, “telex” four times. For many departments, the guide suggests that reducing training requirements or eliminating parts of mandatory forms could earn credit toward the governor’s goal, even if the main regulation stays in place. “Consider, for instance, a requirement that an applicant for a professional license complete 1,000 hours of training before he or she can be certified. Some training is necessary, so the requirement should not be eliminated completely, but 1,000 hours may be excessive. Requiring 500 hours of training, for instance, may be sufficient,” the guide states.that doctors are required by regulation to take 25 credit-hours of continuing-education classes each year. Under the guide, the state is encouraging Alaska’s state medical board to reduce that requirement, he argues. The guide states that when eliminating requirements, “agencies should be mindful of the important role of regulations in promoting public health, safety, and welfare, and developing our natural resources, and should not eliminate any requirements that are critical to protecting the public and the environment.”, agencies have until Jan. 5 to draft “a proposed plan setting forth regulations identified for reform based upon stakeholder meetings.”Further squeezing agencies is a requirement that they submit guidance documents — materials that tell Alaskans how to follow regulations — to the Department of Law for review. By Feb. 1, the department will make a determination whether those documents should themselves become regulations. If they do, that would mean the agencies would have to make further cuts in order to fit their guidance documents within the number of regulations they’re allowed. The state’s baseline number of regulations — a figure that will dictate how many regulations must be cut under the governor’s plan — was supposed to be published by Oct. 13, according to the draft schedule. It has not yet been finalized. Seven agencies have completed or substantially completed their baseline count information, according to a spokesperson for the Department of Law. The remaining agencies have asked for an extension. The Alaska Public Interest Research Group, a consumer watchdog, has been following the governor’s project with some alarm. It’s particularly concerned with upcoming changes to utility regulations. “We support thoughtful, periodic review of regulations to make sure they’re effective and up to date. But this process isn’t that. By setting an arbitrary target for cuts and moving at breakneck speed, the state is creating a chaotic process that favors well-organized industry interests, leaves the public at a disadvantage, and places unnecessary strain on state agencies already stretched thin,” said AKPIRG regulatory analyst Brian Kassof. “Regulations exist to protect the public interest and provide stability and certainty for communities and businesses. This rush to eliminate 15% of regulations across our state agencies does not leave adequate time for meaningful public engagement and risks creating unintended consequences that will be much harder to fix later.” Alaska’s program follows others in Idaho and Virginia Dunleavy’s program is modeled after a similar one that began in Virginia in 2022, Cox said. That one was itself modeled after a different but similar effort in Idaho that started in 2019.That event showed the similarities and differences between that state’s program and the one in the works for Alaska, which has fewer state agencies and regulations. Youngkin, for example, praised the elimination of tens of thousands of regulations related to home construction, something he claimed had reduced the cost of new homes in the state.Virginia’s program significantly reduced the rules governing how stormwater runoff is regulated. Andrew Wheeler, former EPA director for President Donald Trump,for Youngkin and said that before he started work, Virginia’s stormwater regulations formed a stack 23 inches high. Afterward, the stack was five inches high. The federal government has taken steps toward regulatory reform under multiple Republican and Democratic administrations, but during the first Trump administration, the president tried regulatory budgeting and ordered that two federal regulations be repealed for every new one. That was new. “They adopted something called regulatory budgeting, and so they would look for ways to reduce the number,” Cox said. Something similar will be in place in Alaska. If an agency wants to enact a new regulation, it needs to find another to remove, while also pursuing additional removals to meet the 25% goal.“It’s with that goal of really unleashing the Alaska economy and inviting new investment into Alaska, that is motivating the governor in terms of why this is appropriate,” he said. is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c public charity. Alaska Beacon maintains editorial independence. 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