Montana has joined 15 other states in sending a letter urging Congress to reign in federal agencies that continue to create and enforce onerous regulations.

Attorney General Tim Fox said the letter addresses four primary areas where government and its bureaucracies have overreached their authority.

"They're issuing 'guidance documents' that circumvent the public comment process required by federal law," Fox began. "They're regulating without statutory authority, and as evidence of that, pretty much every lawsuit that we've won along the way concerned legislation that people tried to pass in Congress, but couldn't. They also failed to consider the cost of these of these regulations to not only the states but also to individuals within the states. And finally, they failed to consider the effect of the regulations on the states themselves, which is in itself a violation of the separation of powers."

Fox said the situation with these unregulated bureaucracies has become so obvious, that organized action needed to be taken.

"It has risen to a level of such urgency that we felt we needed to write this letter to Congress and we should continue to beat the drum, otherwise, we'll be filing lawsuits in court, and that's just not how the founders intended the government to operate."

Montana, Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Kansas, Michigan, Nevada, North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, and Wisconsin signed the letter.

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