National Review: Congress Should Stop Passing the Buck to the Bureaucracy
Lawmakers pass laws full of lofty goals — “promote the public interest” or “ensure fairness” — and leave the tough choices to regulators who weren’t on anyone’s ballot. It’s tidy politics: take credit for ideals, outsource the trade-offs, blame the bureaucracy when the sausage tastes funny. But if we want an accountable government, Congress must stop writing postcards and start writing laws again.
We all learned the Schoolhouse Rock version of American civics: Congress makes the laws, the president enforces them, and the courts interpret them. Somewhere along the way, that got translated into “Congress sketches a vibe, agencies fill in the details.” The problem is that the “details” now encompass the most significant questions: what to regulate, how stringent the regulations should be, and at what cost. That’s not a detail; that’s the job.
A new study I authored for the Pacific Legal Foundation explains the need for a higher “nondelegation” standard to keep Congress from giving away its constitutional authority to regulate. I analyzed instances of congressional delegation during both the administrations of President Barack Obama and President Donald Trump and found that 90+ percent of such delegations provided either “medium” or “low” oversight for executive implementation.
None of this means members of the legislative branch need to moonlight as engineers or economists. It just means they should set the destination before letting agencies map the route. Start with standards that are clear and reviewable: “benefits must exceed costs,” or “choose the most stringent level that is technologically feasible and economically justified.” Then spell out the factors that matter — consumer prices, effects on small businesses, energy reliability, safety outcomes, innovation incentives — and tell agencies how to weigh them. That’s policy. The precise numbers and methods? That’s plumbing. Decide the policy; delegate the plumbing.
Congress also has a toolbox it underuses. Deadlines focus minds and prevent the “we’ll get to it eventually” drift that frustrates both industry and advocacy groups. Interagency consultation can stop siloed decision-making, where one office optimizes for its narrow mission and clobbers everything else. Public reporting and periodic review ensure that rules remain current and relevant. Further, sunsets are not guillotines. They serve as reminders to check whether the world still resembles what it was like when the law was written. Anyone who’s tried to use a decade-old phone knows why that matters.
Would this be a heavier lift for Congress? Sure. But that’s because the Constitution put the heavy lift there on purpose. Legislating is supposed to force hard debates in public. When Congress sidesteps those debates with vague language, the argument doesn’t disappear; it migrates to agency comment dockets and courtroom briefs. The politics don’t get easier; they just get less accountable.
There’s an added benefit to clarity: it lowers the temperature. When the big choices are made by elected officials in daylight, agencies aren’t asked to invent policy on the fly, and courts aren’t asked to read tea leaves. You get fewer regulatory whiplashes every time the White House changes hands. Businesses can plan. Consumers see more stable rules. And the people you vote for own the results.
Some will say Congress is too polarized to write with specificity. But polarization is exactly why specificity helps. If you can only agree on the destination, argue it out, vote, and lock it into statute. Then give the executive branch measured discretion to get there. When the law clearly defines what constitutes success and which trade-offs are acceptable, the implementation fight becomes smaller. Agencies won’t be tempted to treat a foggy phrase as a blank check, and courts won’t feel obliged to play policy umpire on every pitch.
A culture change on Capitol Hill would also be beneficial. Put more agency experts on temporary detail to congressional committees so members and staff can legislate with confidence instead of defaulting to airy language. Reward committees for oversight that identifies and fixes problems early, rather than grandstanding after the fact. And write laws with more than just glorified preambles. If a statute sets goals, it should also require regular, public metrics: are we safer, healthier, more prosperous than before, and at what price? It’s hard to improve what you don’t measure.
So here’s the bumper sticker Congress should live by: Make the rules of the road before handing over the wheel. Set measurable goals. Define the boundaries. Inform agencies about which trade-offs matter and how to account for them. Use deadlines, consultation, transparency, and sunsets to keep policy current and honest. Then let experts execute within those lines and let courts check that they did.
If lawmakers want credit for solving problems, they must solve them on paper. Vibes alone accomplish nothing. Aspirations don’t enforce themselves. And the longer Congress writes laws that read like mission statements, the more frustrated voters will be when the mission goes sideways. We can have a government that is both nimble and accountable. But first, Congress has to retake the keys and start driving again.
This op-ed was originally published in National Review on November 12, 2025.
