South Carolina reins in agency power with regulatory reform

Columbia, South Carolina; July 1, 2026: South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster signed H.3021, the Small Business Regulatory Freedom Act, into law yesterday, reining in the ability of unelected bureaucrats to wield sweeping power without oversight. The law requires the General Assembly to approve any regulation with an estimated economic impact of $1 million or more over five years and prohibits courts from deferring to agency interpretations of state law.

“When regulations carry real economic consequences, the people’s representatives should have to vote on them,” said Jaimie Cavanaugh, senior state policy counsel with Pacific Legal Foundation. “And when those regulations land in court, judges — not the agencies that wrote the rules — should determine what the law means. South Carolina just made both of those things true.”

The law also requires agencies to formally review their existing regulations every five to eight years and empowers the Legislative Audit Council to audit that process.

The bill passed with support from a broad coalition including Americans for Prosperity, the Goldwater Institute, the Palmetto Promise Institute, and the Foundation for Government Accountability. Pacific Legal Foundation supported H.3021 as part of its nationwide effort to restore constitutional limits on administrative power.