I think the article is saying that the results are inconclusive. They have had little effect in either direction, so now that they are the status quo, there's no reason not to keep them. Arguments of excessive regulatory overhead may or may not be compelling, but they have an uphill battle to fight.
keeping stuff that doesn't show results but feels good seems an awfully dumb thing to do. instead they need to determine why it does not do what they expected. The reason I take this view is that too many will accept a state "we feel good about it" and never work to solve the actual problem.