That's a great question. There are two challenging things when talking about regulation and red tape: one is measuring it, the other is accurately defining it.
I will say that from a private sector perspective, you certainly know it when you see it. But it really boils down to a few different things. One is unnecessary or duplicative rules. Poor government customer service is clearly red tape. One of the ways we quantify it is we ask our members how much time they spend on regulation compliance, hours spent on all the regulatory activities they do. Then we ask how much of that time, in their view, could be reduced without harming the important human health and safety and environmental reasons for having regulation in place.
We take a very small business view on red tape. The rules that are necessary are regulation. Those that aren't or poor government customer service are red tape.