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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Products
Another Dimension of Regulatory Dark Matter: Over 22,000 Public Notices Annually
Download Chapter 7 as a PDF Without actually passing a law, government can signal expectations and influence various industries—including health care, retirement, education, energy…
Products
What Comes after “Trillion”? The Unknowable Costs of Regulation and Intervention
Download Chapter 4 as a PDF If real debt levels on the fiscal budget and entitlements can be vastly higher than the public is…
Products
Swamp Things—Trump’s Discordant Regulatory Impulses Offset His Deregulatory Successes and Expanded the Administrative State
Download Chapter 2 as a PDF President Trump attempted to prune rules and costs and held down regulatory output with more enthusiasm than other…
Products
The Presidential Dimension of Regulatory Dark Matter: Executive Orders and Memoranda
Download Chapter 6 as a PDF Executive orders, presidential memoranda, and other executive actions make up a large component of executive “lawmaking.” They merit…
Products
Toward a Federal “Regulatory Budget”
Download Chapter 3 as a PDF When Congress spends, no one questions that disclosure is necessary for voters to hold representatives accountable. Federal expenditure…
Products
Executive Summary – Ten Thousand Commandments 2021
Download the Executive Summary as a PDF Now a relic, spending control and deficit restraint are indispensable to a nation’s stability and long-term economic…
Products
Bookending the Trump Era: Seven Efforts to Reduce and Streamline Regulatory Flows
Download Chapter 1 as a PDF This 2021 edition of Ten Thousand Commandments begins with a survey of approaches the Trump administration took during…
Products
Government Accountability Office Database on Regulations
Download Chapter 9 as a PDF The various federal reports and databases on regulations serve different purposes: The Federal Register shows the aggregate number…
Products
Analysis of “The Regulatory Plan and Unified Agenda of Federal Regulations”
Download Chapter 8 as a PDF One of the goals of regulatory reform should be to improve disclosure and enhance its relevance to rulemaking.
Study
Ten Thousand Commandments 2021
View Full Report Here Ten Thousand Commandments is the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s annual survey of the size, scope, and cost of federal regulations,…
The Washington Times
Trump-Dependent Media Feels the Pinch
The Washington Times cites CEI’s 10KC study by Vice President for Policy Wayne Crews: The Competitive Enterprise Institute will issue on…
Forbes
Here Are the 298 Costliest Rules in the New Unified Agenda of Federal Regulations
No matter the presidential administration, federal agencies issue thousands of rules and regulations every year compared to a relative handful of laws passed…
Forbes
The New White House Unified Agenda of Federal Regulations Promises Government Activism
Federal agencies outline their regulatory priorities in the Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions (the “Agenda”) each Spring and Fall.
Blog
Biden’s Spring 2021 Unified Agenda of Federal Regulation, by the Numbers
The Biden administration released the Spring 2021 edition of the twice-yearly Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions today. The…
News Release
Unified Agenda of Federal Regulation Reflects Biden’s Campaign Against Transparency for the Administrative State
The Biden Administration today released the Spring 2021 Unified Agenda of Federal Regulation, the first regulatory agenda for President Joe Biden. CEI…
Blog
Stimulating the COVID Recovery without Trillions in Spending
Over at Inside Sources, I make the case that deregulation, freer trade, and continued vaccinations will do more to open up the economy…
Blog
Why Republicans Should Abandon the Infrastructure Compromise with the White House
The GOP should go nowhere near any trillion-dollar infrastructure deal with the White House. Reasons include the already enacted stratospheric COVID spending that…
The Wall Street Journal
Flying the Politically Correct Skies
The Wall Street Journal cites Vice President for Policy Wayne Crews on Biden’s federal budget: Wayne Crews of the Competitive Enterprise…
Blog
Biden’s $6 Trillion Budget Should Warn Republicans to Drop Infrastructure Compromise
The release of the Biden $6 trillion, biggest-ever and latest-in-a-century fiscal year 2022 budget proposal is a good time to reflect…
Forbes
Post-Covid Warning: Fence Federal Regulation and Spending Before the Next Economic Shock
Does it make sense as an ongoing tenet of public policy to regard a few weeks or months of business disruption, like that characterizing…
Blog
The Endless Frontier Act to Boost Science and Tech Can Mean Endless Regulation
Related to regulatory effects of mass spending on national plans and the deadweight costs of spending, are the distortions, diversion of resources,…
Blog
EPA Follows Through on Biden Directive to Hide Guidance Documents from the Public
Before President Joe Biden signed an executive order called Revocation of Certain Executive Orders Concerning Federal Regulation that, among much else, instructed federal…
Blog
Universal Basic Income and the Custodial Administrative State
The American Families Plan (EFP), touted both before and during President Biden’s address to Congress, is still a work in progress,…
Forbes
Laws Have Mercy: Here is How Biden is Restricting Access to Regulatory Guidance Documents
A significant component of Joe Biden’s first 100 days has been the rapid reversal and work-in-process unwinding of former president Donald Trump’s efforts…
Blog
Runaway Spending and Regulation Call for an Abuse-of-Crisis Prevention Act
The escalation of spending and regulation in the face of economic shock—by means of “resets,” “New New Deals,” “new social contracts,” and “…
Forbes
The Growth-By-Deregulation Alternative To Joe Biden’s Cyclopean American Jobs Plan
Sandwiched between Joe Biden’s $1.9 American Rescue Plan and a promised American Families Plan is the American Jobs Plan (…
Blog
Federal Agencies Begin Process of Removing Guidance Document Portals
By the end of the Trump administration, several dozen federal agencies had issued final rules clarifying their use of sub-regulatory guidance documents. In one…
Blog
In Blow to Disclosure, Unified Agenda of Federal Regulations Database Removes “Deregulatory” Designation
In a setback to transparency alongside Joe Biden’s program to eliminate the disclosure of guidance documents via portals on agency websites, the…
News Release
CEI Commends Sen. Lankford for Introducing Pandemic Preparedness, Response, and Recovery Act
On Thursday, Senator James Lankford (R-OK) introduced the Pandemic Preparedness, Response, and Recovery Act. The bill would establish an independent commission…
E&E News
Dems Prep Vote To Overturn Trump-Era Methane Rule
E&E News cites Vice President for Policy Wayne Crews on the Congressional Review Act: Deploying the CRA is not even a…
National Affairs
Putting Regulators on a Budget
National Affairs cites Vice President for Policy Wayne Crews on the cost of regulation: Separately, in 2015, regulatory analyst Clyde Wayne…
Forbes
Republican Surrender To Regulatory Progressivism Is The Wind Beneath Biden’s Wings
Republican senators may have voted in lockstep against Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, but they still played a role. A year…
News Release
Covid ‘Relief’ Bill Spends Billions on Items Unrelated to Crisis Recovery and Risks Inflation
The House of Representatives is expected to vote this week on final passage of the ‘American Rescue Plan Act,’ a $1.9 trillion proposal touted…
National Review
Tyrannosaurus Regs and Regulatory Dark Matter: Biden’s Accountability Deficit on Regulation
Washington’s new motto is: When you run out of other people’s money, keep spending anyway. It’s a sad state of affairs when a national…
Forbes
The Best American Rescue Plan Is An “Abuse-Of-Crisis Prevention Act”
If limits exist that constrain politicians and the legislation they can enact in the name of crisis, rescue or stimulus, it is unclear what…
Blog
Leveraging the Congressional Review Act to Shield Rather than Discipline Regulation
While the Congressional Review Act (CRA) was strongly bipartisan when it passed in 1996, supported by then-Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) and…
Politico
Biden Won’t Release White House Virtual Visitor Logs
Politico cites CEI’s 2020 edition of 10 Thousand Commandments by Vice President for Policy Wayne Crews: In addition, …
The Western Journal
Trump Program Saved $160 Billion, Cut Regulatory Costs 90% – Biden Killed It
The Western Journal cites Vice President for Policy on the impact of President Biden’s regulatory actions: “I don’t think progressives think…
Fox Business
Biden on Day 1 Scrapped Trump Rule that Helped US Save $160 Billion: Report
Fox Business cites Vice President for Policy Wayne Crews on regulations and the Biden administration: But Clyde Wayne Crews, a vice…
The Washington Times
Biden Overturned Trump Deregulation Rule That Saved U.S. $160 Billion: Analysis
The Washington Times cites Vice President for Policy Wayne Crews on regulations and the Biden administration: “Biden has jettisoned … most…
USA Today
Protecting Publius: Online Anonymity is Critical for Protecting Freedom to Dissent
The bipartisan loathing of Section 230, the liability shield that protects online platforms from being legally responsible for what their users post,…
Blog
Why Biden Cannot Simply Revoke Trump’s Executive Order 13891 Requiring the Discipline of Guidance Documents
President Joe Biden’s progressive agenda shapers have prepped dozens of executive orders for him to autograph during his first few days in office. Prominent…
News Release
CEI Backs Sen. Johnson’s Call for President Biden to Re-Instate Transparency in Agency Guidance Executive Order
Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) and 20 of his colleagues sent a letter to President Biden, requesting he reverse his decision to overturn Executive Order…
Las Vegas Review Journal
EDITORIAL: Regulatory benefits that are ‘impossible’ to quantify
The Las Vegas Review Journal cites Vice President for Policy Wayne Crews and CEI’s “10 Thousand Commandments”: Needless to say, President…
Forbes
The 2021 “Unconstitutionality Index”: 19 Federal Rules And Regulations For Every Law Congress Passes
Even in a presidential administration bent on cutting regulation like the one that just decamped for Florida, the number of rules from hundreds of…
Reason
Biden Tells Federal Bureaucrats To Approve Regulations With Benefits That Are ‘Impossible To Quantify’
Reason cites Vice President for Policy Wayne Crews on President Biden’s latest directive: “The aim is to put weight on the…
Reason
Biden Tells Federal Bureaucrats To Approve Regulations With Benefits That Are ‘Impossible To Quantify’
Reason cites Vice President for Policy Wayne Crews on the regulatory state under President Biden: “The aim is to put weight…
World Net Daily
Overlooked Biden Executive Order Could Have Greatest Harmful Impact
World Net Daily cites Vice President for Policy Wayne Crews on regulatory reform: Clyde Wayne Crews, a regulation expert at the…
Forbes
Biden Repudiates Trump Era With Revocation Of Certain Executive Orders Concerning Federal Regulation
As part of a “Day One” “flurry” of executive action, President Joe Biden issued an “Executive Order on Revocation of…
Citation
Let Them Learn
The Wall Street Journal cites Vice President for Policy Wayne Crews on Biden’s “Modernizing Regulatory Review” plan: In the meantime, Wayne Crews at…
Blog
A Look at “Modernizing Regulatory Review”
The Biden “Modernizing Regulatory Review” plan is about gutting the restraint of the past four years, and if you read statements from the proponents…
E&E News
Biden Signals ‘New Direction’ On Regulations
E&E News cites Vice President for Policy Wayne Crews on President Biden’s regulatory review process: Wayne Crews, an analyst at the…
Forbes
Status Report: What Regulations Did The Trump Administration Eliminate In 2020?
Bookending four years of its infamous one-in, two-out requirement for issuing significant new regulations, the Trump administration quietly just released its status roundup called…
Washington Examiner
Biden Poised to Be the Biggest Regulator in History
The Washington Examiner cites Vice President for Policy Wayne Crews on regulatory reform: “Biden has signaled in all areas that the…
Blog
The Danger in Blurring the Private and Public Boundaries with Government Regulation
The recent decisions of many technology companies to remove users and customers from their platforms have deeply divided Americans. Many Americans feel censored and…
Forbes
Donald Trump’s Year In Regulation, 2020
Today, Thursday, December 31, is the last federal workday of 2020. This presents the opportunity to review the heft of the Federal Register and its…
Blog
Trump’s 2020 Unified Agenda on Regulation: An Update on One-in, Two-out
As just explored at Forbes, the Trump administration in early December released the fall 2020 edition of the twice-yearly …
Blog
White House’s 261 Big Rules in the Pipeline Herald More Regulation than Deregulation
No matter the presidential administration, federal agencies issue thousands of rules and regulations every year, compared to a relative handful of laws passed by…
Forbes
Some Trump Executive Orders On Regulation Need To Be Kept No Matter What
Some see federal regulatory intervention as unaccountable and unrestrained. That was and remains a key focus of the Donald Trump reform agenda. Executive…
Wall Street Journal
Trump’s Already Won
Wall Street Journal cites Senior Fellow Clyde Wayne Crews on federal red tape. From the start of his presidency, Mr. Trump paired tax reform…
News Release
DOJ Suit Against Google Seeks to Expand Antitrust Standard Beyond Consumer Harm
The Department of Justice filed a lawsuit today alleging Google has broken antitrust laws with its search function and digital advertising practices. Associate Director…
Forbes
House Antitrust Report Targets Big Tech Monopoly Power And Urges Breakup
The House Judiciary Committee’s Antitrust Subcommittee this week released the 400-page findings of its 16-month investigation into the “state of…
News Release
House Report on Tech and Antitrust Ignores the Consumer Harm Standard
Today the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial and Administrative Law released a report advocating changing antitrust laws and using them to break…
Forbes
Federal Paperwork Consumes The Equivalent Of 16,267 Human Lifetimes
As the latest edition of the federal Information Collection Budget of the United States Government(ICB) from the White House Office of Management…
News Release
CEI Experts Applaud Sens. Lankford, Johnson, and Portman for Independent Regulatory Commission Legislation
On Thursday, Senators James Lankford (R-OK), Ron Johnson (R-WI), and Rob Portman (R-OH) introduced the Pandemic Preparedness, Response, and Recovery Act. The…
News Release
DOJ-Recommended Changes to Section 230 Would Lead to More Moderation of Conservative Speech
The Department of Justice today asked Congress to make changes to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a provision that protects any website…
Forbes
Trump’s Executive Order 13,891 Creates Portals For Federal Agency Guidance Documents; And Here They Are
In a leap forward for governmental disclosure and accountability, federal agencies late last year were directed to scrub their guidance documents and post online…
News Release
New CEI Report Finds Bipartisan Embrace of Harmful, Interventionist Tech Policies
Neither major political party holds a monopoly on bad ideas when it comes to federal policy towards the technology sector, according to…
Blog
Executive Order 13,891 Sub-Regulatory Guidance Document Portal Tops 70,000 Entries
Congress makes laws. Agencies make rules, but they also issue guidance documents in heretofore unknown quantity. The year 2019 brought Executive Order…
Study
Terrible Tech 2.0
View Full Document as PDF Executive Summary If you are looking for bipartisanship in Washington, D.C., the technology policy sector may…
Forbes
What Comes After Trillion? Coming To Terms With The Impenetrable Costs Of Government Intervention
“We print it digitally,” Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said of money. They sure do. Real…
News Release
Regulatory Report Card Act Brings Accountability to Government, Wins Praise from CEI Expert
Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Arizona) introduced a Regulatory Report Card Act directing the Comptroller General of the United States to issue regulatory scorecards to agencies. The…
Blog
America’s “Unconstitutional Slop” Predates Trump’s Executive Actions on Pandemic Economic Relief
The logic of the administrative state dictates the expansion of itself in response to any crisis. Executive actions play a game rigged against limited government.
Blog
When Spending Is Regulation: The Grand Unification Theory of Government Growth
Alongside helplessness in the face of a looming $27 trillion debt, debating administrative state policy hasn’t been much help in forestalling federal government growth.
Blog
An Executive Order 13,891 Guidance Document Portal Update: Another Lap to Go
President Donald Trump’s October 9, 2019 Executive Order 13,891 (E.O. 13,891) and a subsequent White House Office of Management directive to amplify and clarify it…
News Release
House Hearing with Big Tech Companies Unwarranted on Antitrust Grounds
The Subcommittee on Antitrust, Administrative and Commercial Law of the House Judiciary Committee is holding a hearing Wednesday noon on ““Online Platforms and Market Power,…
Forbes
Antitrust Showdown In Congress: Big Tech, Meet Big Government
There’s a contradiction in the Trump, and by extension Republican, deregulatory agenda that could inadvertently threaten the recovery of an already wavering economy.
Blog
Trump Administration Celebrates Red Tape Reduction, Promising More
The White House hosted a midsummer celebration on the South Lawn of the Trump administration’s reforms and reductions of unneeded “job killing regulations” and red…
Forbes
Donald Trump Showcases Four Years Of Red Tape Reduction At White House Event
The White House hosted a midsummer South Lawn celebration showcasing the Trump administration’s reforms and reductions of “job killing regulations”…
Blog
The E.O. 13891 Guidance Document Portal: An Exercise in Utility
Federal agencies have been required by Executive Order 13891 to create “a single, searchable, indexed database that contains or links to all guidance documents in effect.” Agencies…
News Release
House Infrastructure Spending Bill Serves as Green ATM
House Democrats will vote today on the INVEST in America Act (H.R. 2), a massive $1.5 trillion infrastructure spending bill. CEI experts across a spectrum…
Blog
Trump’s Regulatory Reform Agenda by the Numbers, Summer 2020 Update
The administration released the Spring 2020 Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions. Its purpose is to lay out regulatory priorities of the federal…
Forbes
How Donald Trump Has Cut Regulation – But Also Added It
Spending control and deficit restraint are indispensable to a nation’s stability and long term economic health. Before the economic lockdown, federal debt service was…
Forbes
Regulating Social Media Content Moderation Will Backfire And Make Big Tech More Powerful
As repeatedly noted by defenders of free speech, expressing popular opinions never needs protection. Rather, it is the commitment to protecting dissident expression that…
Bloomberg Law
Trump Spring Regulatory Agenda Back on Track After Virus Pause
Blog
A Look At Trump’s Deregulatory Record and How More of the Same Can Anchor the Next Coronavirus Recovery Package
I remembered wondering in 2017 whether the federal government would be larger or smaller after four years of Trump. The debt has now topped $25 trillion and the deficit alone…
The Washington Examiner
Trump’s Regulatory ‘Impulses’ Threaten Victories Over Swamp
The Washington Examiner cites Competitive Enterprise Institute Vice President Clyde Wayne Crews regarding regulation in the Trump administration. President Trump has continued his unprecedented rollback of…
Inside Sources
Pandemic Should Spur Large Scale Deregulation to Aid Recovery
Regulations are a big obstacle in fighting the coronavirus. They are also a major obstacle to economic recovery.
The American Conservative
Embracing The Idea Of Unregulated Fake News Everywhere
Recently a controversy arose over a CBS News shot of a supposed line for coronavirus testing that turned out to include staged medical staff posing…
The Washington Examiner
New Report Reveals the Crushing Costs that Federal Regulations Impose on Average Households
The Washington Examiner cites Vice President for Policy Wayne Crews on CEI’s 2020 10kc report: Free market conservatives and libertarians well understand the…
Reason
The Pandemic Is a Reminder That Many Regulations Are Both Costly and Unnecessary
Reason cites Vice President for Policy Wayne Crews on CEI’s 2020 10kc report: Instead, to calculate the cost of these sorts of rules,…
The Washington Times
Trump Signs Broad Order to Speed Deregulation and Relax Red Tape for Economic Recovery
The Washington Times cites Vice President for Policy Wayne Crews on deregulation by President Trump: Wayne Crews, vice president for policy at the…
News Release
Congress Has a Duty to Protect Bias, ‘Harmful Content,’ and Dissident Speech Online
Last week, President Trump signed an Executive Order intended to pave the way for regulation of speech on social media and reinterpreting a provision of…