Products
Chapter 7: A Note on Notice and Rule Reviews at OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs
Tracking the effects of rules and regulations, executive orders, memoranda, and regulatory guidance is vital. These alternative regulatory actions have become powerful means of working…
Products
Chapter 6: Another Dimension of Regulatory Dark Matter: Over 21,000 Agency Public Notices Annually
Along with presidential proclamations are those of departments and agencies. Without actually passing a law, government can signal expectations, specify parameters for, and influence…
Products
Chapter 1: Biden’s Regulatory “Modernization” Expanding Government Affirms the Unworkability of Administrative State Rule
Where recent editions of Ten Thousand Commandments began by surveying of approaches the Trump administration took to streamline red tape as well as of Trump’s…
Products
Chapter 2: Beyond a Federal “Regulatory Budget”
Federal programs get funded either by taxes or by borrowing against a promise to repay with interest from future tax collections. When Congress spends, no…
Products
Chapter 5: The Presidential Dimension of Regulatory Dark Matter: Executive Orders and Memoranda
Executive orders, presidential memoranda, and other executive actions make up a large component of executive “lawmaking.” They merit attention from lawmakers, since they can have,…
Products
Chapter 3: What Comes after “Trillion”? The Unknowable Costs of Regulation and Intervention
The cumulative high end for costs in the three recent fiscal years is around $4.6 billion, compared to around $105 billion for the prior 10…
Products
Chapter 4: Tens of Thousands of Pages and Rules in the Federal Register
The Federal Register is the daily repository of all proposed and final federal rules and regulations. Although its number of pages is…
Products
Chapter 8: Analysis of “The Regulatory Plan and Unified Agenda of Federal Regulations”
“The Regulatory Plan and Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions” (the Agenda) is the document in which agencies have outlined their priorities since…
Products
Chapter 10: Liberate to Stimulate
Policy makers frequently propose spending stimulus to grow or strengthen economies. That has certainly been the case during the past two years in response to…
Products
Executive Summary – Ten Thousand Commandments 2022
Download the Executive Summary as a PDF The Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) February 2022 Budget and Economic Outlook, covering 2022 to 2032, shows discretionary,…
Products
Executive Summary – Ten Thousand Commandments 2022
The Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) February 2022 Budget and Economic Outlook, covering 2022 to 2032, shows discretionary, entitlement, and interest spending of $6.822 trillion in…
Products
Chapter 9: Government Accountability Office Database on Regulations
The various federal reports and databases on regulations serve different purposes: The Federal Register shows the aggregate number of proposed and final rules—both those that…
Study
Ten Thousand Commandments 2022
View Full Report Here Ten Thousand Commandments is the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s annual survey of the size, scope, and cost of federal regulations, and…
News Release
Report: Biden Upends Role of Federal Regulators to Seek Climate, Social Justice Policies
A new Competitive Enterprise Institute report documents how regulations imposed by the federal government on the private sector have radically shifted since President Biden…
Issues & Insights
Voters who think that putting Republicans in control of the House and Senate will make a big difference for the economy are in for a rude awakening. President Joe Biden has unleashed the regulatory Leviathan. Lawmakers will be hard-pressed to stop the damage.
The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) just this morning released its hugely valuable report called “10,000 Commandments,” which is a compendium of the regulatory state. In it,…
Issues in Insights
A Supermarket Merger Is Not A Threat To Humanity
Grocery store giants Kroger and Albertsons have announced a proposed merger, but it’s a business combination that will likely come under undue antitrust scrutiny. Before the…
News Release
Kroger Merger with Albertsons Would Allow More Competitive Pressure on Other Market Leaders
Kroger announced a deal today to merge with Albertsons, which would combine the nations’ two largest chains of grocery stores into one company. The…
Blog
Unmeasured Costs of Regulation are Accelerating under Biden
During a recent Senate hearing on the nomination to head the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA)—the…
Federal News Network
A snapshot of federal rule-making and its wide scope
Federal News Network cites CEI’s Clyde Wayne Crews on federal rule making: Rulemaking is one of the most widespread activities in the federal government.
Blog
Questions the 118th Congress Should Ask OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs
The Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee recently held a hearing on the nomination of Richard L. Revesz to be Administrator of the…
Blog
A One-Pager on an “Abuse-of-Crisis Prevention Act”
In recent months CEI has presented the case for a “Abuse of Crisis Prevention Act” to counter and prevent the political predation that continues to…
Blog
Tackling Unmeasured Government Growth Must be Prioritized in the 118th Congress
Fred L. Smith Jr., the founder of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, refers to the regulatory state as the least disciplined part of the federal enterprise.
Blog
The Problems with the White House Competition Council
Sometimes seemingly little things slip under the radar that have big implications. One of those this week was the third meeting of President Biden’s…
Blog
America Needs an Emergency Declaration to End All Emergency Declarations
Last night President Biden declared on 60 Minutes hat “The pandemic is over.” “If you notice, no one’s wearing masks, everybody seems to…
Blog
Many Federal Agency Rules and Guidance Documents are Still Not Properly Reported to Congress and the GAO
A 2014 white paper prepared for the Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS), “Congressional Review Act: Many Recent Final Rules Were Not Submitted…
Blog
Pondering the Paradox of the Paltry Proliferation of Prominent Proposed Rules in the Federal Register
Spending is up, the debt is up, and Republicans keep helping raise the debt ceiling. Armageddon does not result, we have learned. On the…
Blog
Threats to Democracy Posed by an Unleashed Administrative State
President Joe Biden’s much-covered Independence Hall remarks last week have drawn their share of praise, condemnation, and memes. Prominent was Biden’s easy deployment of…
Blog
Megaportals for Guidance Documents: Toward Emergency 2025 Legislation to Correct Biden’s “Whole-of-Government” Incursions
In preparing an August 2022 update on executive branch sub-regulatory guidance documents and memoranda (the observable tally is 107,000 but vastly more exist), a…
Blog
Federal Agency Guidance Document Inventory Tops 107,000 Entries
Federal statutes appear in the U.S. Code. Regulations, pass through the Federal Register, and come to rest in the Code of Federal Regulations. But no…
Blog
How the Inflation Reduction Act Will Expand Regulation
Ever since observers began tallying rule counts and pages in the Federal Register, detractors have complained about what poor measures such devices are. They might…
Blog
Stomping FROGs: An Updated Inventory of Biden’s Elimination of Trump-Era Final Rules on Guidance Document Procedures
Since President Obama unleashed the pen and phone, federal agency guidance documents and the confusion and abuse surrounding them has been covered extensively.
Forbes
Optimism On Administrative State Reform—With A Big Caution
There’s hopeful anticipation on the right of reforming the administrative state. In particular, many observers, pundits and policymakers take heart in …
Forbes
Framing An “Abuse-Of-Crisis Prevention Act” To Confine The Federal Government
I’ve been through a few of these. I was here at 9/11, I was here during the financial crisis in ‘08, I was here during…
Blog
294 Costliest Rules in Biden’s Spring 2022 Unified Agenda of Federal Regulations
Unelected federal agencies personnel issue over 3,000 rules and regulations every year. That compares to a far lower number of laws passed…
Blog
A Breakdown of Rules in the White House’s Spring 2022 Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions
Since the early 1980s, federal departments and agencies have highlighted selected regulatory priorities in spring and fall editions of the Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory…
Forbes
Biden Administration Releases Updated Regulatory Agenda
Apart from a one-time Obama-era glitch, federal agencies have highlighted selected regulatory priorities in Spring and Fall editions of the …
News Release
CEI Report Proposes Legislation to Stop Future Congresses from Exploiting National Crises to Grow Government
WASHINGTON—The United States has been rocked by three major economic crises so far in the 21st century—the 9/11 terror attacks, the 2008 financial crash, and…
National Review
The Case for Letting Crises Go to Waste
If there is an iron law in politics, it’s that when crisis hits, government grows. Rahm Emanuel, President Obama’s chief of staff, advised that politicians should…
Study
The Case for Letting Crises Go to Waste
Executive Summary An Abuse-of-Crisis Prevention Act to reaffirm boundaries of politicians and the legislation they can pass has become necessary to the survival of limited…
Forbes
Inflation And Biden’s Whole-Of-Government Price Hike
The Trump era saw countless news stories quoting unnamed officials speaking disapprovingly of their boss “on the condition of anonymity.” Because of …
Blog
Act Now! The Bipartisan Innovation Act Is a Reminder of the Urgent Need for a Bold National Elevator Plan
President Biden on numerous occasions of late has complained about the miracle that one can simply drive to a McDonald’s in rural areas and…
Blog
A Brief Outline of a Regulatory Report Card Congress Should Enact
Measure what is measurable, and make measurable what is not so. — Quote frequently attributed to Galileo, that, alas, probably was not…
Forbes
Congress Is Causing Rising Regulatory Burdens. That Needs Fixing
Mid-terms are approaching, and that means market-oriented policy groups, classical liberals, libertarians and others will resume the tradition of dusting off, polishing and updating …
Blog
How Biden’s “Building a Better America” Agenda Consolidates Permanent Federal Power
Biden’s “Building a Better America” is not about building America, but rather about spending to fatten an already overfed central government with a…
Blog
The DHS “Disinformation Governance Board” Needs to Be Dismantled
In recent months, an escalation of various forms of federal surveillance has become apparent. That’s bad enough, but the trend is rendered more problematic…
Blog
Biden’s Escalating Fusion of Regulation and Censorship Requires Decisive Pushback
President Joe Biden’s “whole of government” advancement of numerous elements of an-interventionist “Building a Better America” agenda is accompanied by an alarming level…
Blog
Escalation of Surveillance Threatens Right to Anonymity
The Biden administration has pressured big tech social media platforms to advance its policies in areas like cultural debates, climate interventions, and to stifle dissent…
Blog
Addressing Forever Crises
It does not suffice for this administration to attribute record 8.5 percent inflation to “Putin’s price hike.” We have endured not just…
Blog
An Emergency Law to Extinguish Regulatory Dark Matter
Many of us are pondering when things will return to normal. The short response is: never. …. Nothing will ever return to…
The Washington Examiner
Warning: Biden’s Costly Overregulation Turns ‘Extreme’
The Washington Examiner cites Vice President for Policy and Senior Fellow Wayne Crews on President Biden’s Trucking Action Plan and Vice President Kamala Harris’ federal…
Blog
Getting Things Undone: Lessons from the Obliteration of Trump’s One-In, Two-Out Campaign
‘Tis the season. As midterms approach, we’re seeing “agendas” emerge from aspirational conservatives nominally opposed to Biden’s transformation of the United States. These anti-progressive inventories…
News Release
Biden Budget ‘Billionaire Tax’ Constitutionally Troubling
The newly released details of the White House budget for fiscal year 2023 marks a failure in spending restraint and regulatory accountability, say CEI experts.
Forbes
Biden’s $5.79 Trillion 2023 Budget Proposal Would Also Expand Regulation
A billion here and a billion there, as the old saying went, would eventually add up to real money. Not so much…
Blog
Edward Scissorhands and Federal Regulatory Disclosure
Recently, President Joe Biden proclaimed before the Business Roundtable’s CEO Quarterly Meeting on March 21 that there’s “going to be new world order”…
Forbes
SEC’s Climate Disclosure Rules Advance Biden’s Epic Whole-Of-Government Regulatory Agenda
“The President will advance his climate agenda using every tool at his disposal and can make significant progress in curbing emissions, growing our economy, and…
News Release
SEC Climate Disclosure Rule Will Cause Big Problems, CEI Experts Predict
Today the Securities and Exchange Commission described a new rule it plans to impose concerning climate disclosure requirements that may affect even private companies as…
The Washington Examiner
Biden Regulating ‘Wokeness’ and Socialism into Federal Policy: Expert
The Washington Examiner cites Vice President for Policy Wayne Crews’ report on Biden’s government equity agenda: “Biden’s ‘whole of government’ equity agenda…
Blog
Biden’s Whole-of-Government Equity Agenda Precludes Limited Government
A 1977 Reason magazine review of Friedrich Hayek’s “Law, Legislation, and Liberty (Vol. 2) noted Hayek’s contention “that the prime public concern should be,…
Blog
Biden’s Repudiation of Trump’s Regulatory Streamlining Agenda: An Inventory
The explicit pro-regulatory shift by the Biden White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has entailed abandonment not merely of Trump’s…
Blog
One Nation, Ungovernable? The Bipolar Unified Agenda of Federal Regulations
As we lurch from crisis to crisis, it is interesting to compare the way one administration’s philosophy of government response to both shock and normalcy…
Blog
Biden’s State of the Union “Trillions Down” on Big Government Mistakes
Ladies and Gentlemen, the State of the Union is that of far more government control over the nation’s economy in years. The years following 2022…
The Washington Examiner
Stymied in Senate, Biden Sets Off ‘Big Bang’ of Regulations
The Washington Examiner cites Vice President for Policy Wayne Crews on President Biden’s increased regulatory program proposals: In opening the regulations spigot,…
News Release
CEI Experts React to President Biden’s State of the Union Address
President Joe Biden delivered his first State of the Union address before a joint session of Congress tonight. CEI policy experts weighed in on his…
Forbes
State & Federal Officials Move to Regulate & Even Ban PFAS Chemicals, But Many Wonder if that Makes Sense
Forbes cites Vice President for Policy Wayne Crews on the cost of federal regulations: Federal regulations cost employers, workers, and…
News Release
House Democrats’ China Bill Would Make the U.S Less Competitive and Harm Consumers
The House of Representatives is considering the America COMPETES Act this week, a bill described by sponsors as a “China competition bill.” The wide-ranging legislation…
Forbes
What To Do Instead of the America COMPETES Act
As if $30 trillion in national debt isn’t isn’t plenty stimulus, here we go again with the spending, on science and technology this…
The Washington Examiner
Regulatory Costs Soar as Biden Adds Rules Faster Than Predecessors
The Washington Examiner cites Vice President for Policy Wayne Crews on Biden Administration regulations: In a broader sense, Wayne Crews, vice president…
The Economist
Enthusiasm for Regulation, Often in Areas Like the Climate, Shows No Sign of Flagging
The Economist cites Vice President for Policy Wayne Crews on regulatory guidance: Many new instructions come not as formal rules but in…
The Washington Examiner
Zogby: US Overwhelmingly Wants Less Federal Meddling
The Washington Examiner cites Vice President for Policy Wayne Crews on President Biden and regulations: The results were stunning, especially coming at…
Blog
Joe Biden and Merrick Garland Promise New Regulation in Agriculture and other Sectors
After stepping off into the snow upon arrival Monday, January 3, President Joe Biden headed back to the White House, where his first action of…
Forbes
Joe Biden’s Year in Federal Regulation, 2021
Today is New Year’s Eve. Yesterday, December 31, 2021 was the last federal workday of the year. This presents an obvious opportunity to survey the Federal…
Forbes
Here Are the 295 Costliest Rules in Biden’s Fall 2021 Unified Agenda of Federal Regulations
Along with the big spending, there’s big regulation, too. It seems to be mounting a return. Federal agencies issue …
Forbes
The Fall 2021 Unified Agenda of Federal Regulations Delivers on Biden’s Promises of Government Activism
Each Spring and Fall since the 1980s, federal agencies have highlighted some of their regulatory priorities in the Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory…
Blog
Biden’s Fall 2021 Unified Agenda of Federal Regulation Heralds Abandonment of Regulatory Oversight Role
The Biden administration has just released the Fall 2021 edition of the twice-yearly Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions.
Forbes
This Thanksgiving, Big Government Is the Turkey
The turkeys Peanut Butter and Jelly got a Thanksgiving pardon from Joe Biden at the White House. Presentation of a turkey to the POTUS…
Blog
An Inaccurate Update on OMB’s Inaccurately Reported Costs of Federal Regulation
Here inside the Beltway we are now in fiscal year 2022. In anticipation of the next edition of the chronically late “annual” Report to Congress…
Blog
How to Prepare for Administrative State Reform While Stuck in a Progressive Ditch
Would-be regulatory reformers find themselves in a ditch during the Biden administration, which regards Trump deregulatory efforts as “harmful” and overturned reform-related executive orders…
The Washington Examiner
Biden Ramps up Costly Regulations and Hidden Taxes
The Washington Examiner cites Vice President for Policy Wayne Crews on President Biden and regulations: “Halloween may be over but Tyrannosaurus Regs…
Forbes
Stopping Biden’s Build Back Better Act And The Bipartisan Infrastructure Plan Is Not Enough
Observing policymakers’ behavior, the only certainties regarding the next crisis to befall the Nation once the pandemic is in the rearview mirror are that Congress…
Blog
Federal Agency “Significant” Rulemakings Return to Bush-Obama Heights
While agencies are on track to issue about the same number of rules as they did last year, the number of “significant” rules among…
News Release
CEI Experts Weigh In on Reconciliation Framework Agreed to by White House and Congressional Democrats
WASHINGTON – The White House and congressional democrats announced agreement on a “framework” for a reconciliation bill that will spend nearly $2 trillion and includes…
Forbes
Congress Should Charter an “Office of No” to Counter Federal Overregulation
While you’ll never hear it from NPR or the rest of the monoculture media, “rule of flaw” by federal agency bureaucracy can impede economic…
Blog
The Radicalism of “Build Back Better” Is the Crisis that Classical Liberals Must Not Let Go to Waste
If the mantra of the day is, “Never let crisis go to waste,” then what are we to do when artificial crisis is being created…
Forbes
The Greater Reset: An “Abuse-Of-Crisis Prevention Act” To Restore Limited Government
Coming in the wake of 9/11 and its Patriot Act, and the 2008 financial meltdown, the pandemic marked the third major economic shock of the 21st Century…
Forbes
The Debt Ceiling Marks Republicans’ Turn to Not Let Crisis Go to Waste
Where does all that talk about teachable moments and national conversations go when government refuses to acknowledge that maybe, just maybe, a …
Forbes
Debt Ceiling, Meet Domestic Forever Wars
Joe Biden proclaimed to the nation that “I was not going to extend this forever war,” referring to the tw0-decade campaign in Afghanistan. To some,…
Blog
Why Government Infrastructure Spending Crowds Out Private Investment and Innovation
Those proclaiming of the Senate infrastructure bill that none of the spending is needed are correct. In embracing this gigantic spending bill, Republicans have helped preclude the…
News Release
Senate-Passed Infrastructure Bill Is a Gigantic, Counterproductive Spending Bill: CEI Analysis
The Senate today passed a complicated, controversial $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill. CEI policy experts criticized the mammoth bill as a plan that will do…
National Review
Property Rights and Infinite Cyberspace
What is the one force that can prevent the purported Big Tech villains such as Facebook and Google from being displaced as the dominant platforms? Republicans.
Forbes
Republicans Should Kill The Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill And Do This Instead
Reminding America that big spending is bipartisan, some Senate Republicans craving the illusion of artful dealmaking …
National Review
Biden’s Regulatory Pen and Phone Must Be Replaced with an ‘Abuse-of-Crisis Prevention Act’
For folks who talk about boring topics such as federal regulation, it’s normal to discuss costs and counts. I’m one of those people. I actually enjoy writing…
Forbes
How Biden’s Executive Order On Promoting Competition Instead Consolidates Government Power
July brought headlines announcing, “Biden to sign order to crack down on Big Tech, boost competition ‘across the board’” and “launch…
Blog
Enshrining Cronyism
If you like your cronyism, you can keep it. For that matter, if you like your income inequality, you can keep that too. Highly reminiscent…
News Release
CEI Experts React to President Biden’s Wide-Ranging Executive Order on Competition
President Joe Biden signed an Executive Order on Promoting Competition in the American Economy today, which the White House claims is aimed at enhancing…
The Hill
Sustained Economic Growth Needs Congressional Regulatory Reform
Former President Trump was the first president in 30 years to take a serious interest in regulatory reform. You might have to go back to former…
News Release
CEI Supports Sen. Rick Scott and Rep. Byron Donald’s New Regulatory Reform Bill to Prune Unneeded Rules
WASHINGTON – Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) recently introduced S. 2239, the Unnecessary Agency Regulations Act of 2021, a law that would require the Office…
FEE
Households Face Up to $14,000 in ‘Hidden’ Federal Taxes Every Year, New Report Reveals
FEE cites CEI’s 10KC study by Vice President for Policy Wayne Crews: The fiscally-conservative Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) just released its annual …
News Release
New Ten Thousand Commandments report evaluates the sweeping hidden tax of regulation; Provides definitive assessment of Trump deregulatory legacy
The Competitive Enterprise Institute issued Ten Thousand Commandments 2021: An Annual Snapshot of the Federal Regulatory State today, a report by Vice President for…
Products
Tens of Thousands of Pages and Rules in the Federal Register
Download Chapter 5 as a PDF The Federal Register is the daily repository of all proposed and final federal rules and regulations. Although its…
Products
Liberate to Stimulate
Download Chapter 10 as a PDF Policy makers frequently propose spending stimulus to grow or strengthen economies. That was certainly the case in the…