(FORTUNE Magazine) – Ronald Reagan's favorite D.C. think tank may be going native. The Heritage Foundation, long a critic of Big Government, is pushing a proposal that would actually add a new agency to the federal bureaucracy. Odder still, it's an arm of Congress designed to stamp out excessive regulation--to regulate the regulators, so to speak.

Under the Heritage plan, the $5 million, 50-person Congressional Office of Regulatory Analysis would be charged with stemming the growth of rules and regs. Angela Antonelli, Heritage's economic policy studies director and chief CORA advocate, notes that U.S. agencies have issued 8,675 rules in the past two years. "I take the position that there's room to make this a priority," Antonelli asserts.

Still, Antonelli acknowledges that the idea may seem counterintuitive: "With a lot of conservatives, their initial reaction is, 'What are we doing suggesting a new program?' " Indeed, the whole idea is sort of like PETA raising funds by holding a barbecue.

--Jeffrey H. Birnbaum