The Results are In: The Texas Regulatory Efficiency Office Delivers Savings to the Lone Star State
The momentum on regulatory reform at the state level is growing, and states like Texas are leading the way.
In 2025, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed Senate Bill 14, creating the Texas Regulatory Efficiency Office (TREO) to bring consistency to the regulatory process and establish a systematic review of existing agency rules. Housed within the Office of the Governor, the TREO has three core functions: reducing regulatory burdens by identifying outdated and redundant rules, improving efficiency in the rulemaking process, and increasing regulatory transparency for Texas taxpayers, businesses, and job-seekers.
The TREO is off to a strong start. As announced at a May press conference hosted by Gov. Abbott, the Office has already completed an initial round of agency reviews across 11 state agencies. According to the TREO website, those initial reviews identified and recommended more than 435 regulations for amendment or repeal, reduced the Texas Administrative Code by roughly 69,000 words, and will save Texas taxpayers an estimated $123 million. TREO Director Jerome Greener was direct about the scope of the challenge ahead as the Texas Administrative Code currently contains approximately 20 million words and an estimated 274,000 individual restrictions.
In May, the TREO launched a new AI-integrated interactive website that allows Texans to quickly find the specific rules, forms, and licensing requirements relevant to their industry, profession, or activity. The platform utilizes an AI regulatory assistant that connects users directly to state agencies and delivers real-time, plain-language guidance on compliance requirements. For Texans starting a new career or business, this is exactly the kind of tool that makes government work for citizens rather than against them.
Sen. Phil King, a member of the ALEC Board of Directors and the sponsor of SB 14, agreed, saying: “The newly-formed Texas Regulatory Efficiency Office has done an exceptional job building out their regulatory navigation website. It has brought transparency to state rules and regulations and modernized the business permitting process. For Texas to remain the best place to start and grow a business, we need to continue to be the nation’s leader in government efficiency. This cutting-edge tool is a major step in that direction.”
The Texas reform closely resembles the ALEC model policy An Act to Establish the Office of Regulatory Management. The model creates an Office of Regulatory Management “to enhance and utilize transparency to reduce unnecessary regulatory burdens and ensure that new regulations are evidence-based and cost-effective.” It charges the office with publishing a catalog of current regulatory requirements and biennial reports on new regulatory requirements to ensure best practices are applied in agency rulemaking. The TREO fulfills each of these functions by identifying inefficient rules, determining the regulatory costs imposed on the public, issuing best-practice guidelines for how agencies adopt new rules, and making all of that information publicly accessible.
The momentum on regulatory reform at the state level is growing, and the connection to federal efforts is not incidental. Regulatory reforms have emerged as a defining policy issue as the Department of Government Efficiency has drawn national attention to the costs of bureaucratic overreach. States like Texas are now leading the way on their own terms, demonstrating that limited government and free markets produce better results for citizens than layers of unaccountable agency rules.