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Here’s how one-in, ten-out is successfully cutting rules — but not draining the swamp
It’s October already, and while there’s no real fiscal year for federal regulation, the September 30 closing of the 2026 budgetary fiscal year marks…
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Protestations aside, Washington wants to regulate AI. It also wants to run it
Washington’s latest AI summit between Trump and tech executives was billed largely as a meeting about safety. Ultimately, it was a meeting about something…
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Stop rogue government AI
Performative Washington, responsible for funding AI weaponry and R&D for years, purports to have suddenly discovered the dangers of artificial intelligence. Recent incidents…
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The rules Congress never gets to see
The 1996 Congressional Review Act (CRA) has been used to overturn only a few dozen federal regulatory directives since its enactment, most during the…
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Misalignment by design: How AI could become the operating system of the administrative state (Part 2)
Read Part 1 here. The AI deregulatory alternative: Liberalize networks and what flows through them This is where the…
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Misalignment by design: How AI could become the operating system of the administrative state (Part 1)
The AI debate asks how the federal government should regulate commercial artificial intelligence and “big tech,” with little recognition or appreciation that the government…
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The regulatory costs we still aren’t counting
Several years ago, I assembled a “Costberg” working paper surveying the largely impenetrable and undisclosed costs of regulation. The project grew out of…
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The Regulatory Plan needs a regulatory plan
As the Trump administration’s early emphasis on the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, has tapered off, so too has its emphasis…
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The Regulatory Costberg is melting — or is it? An update on Trump’s ‘one-in, ten-out’ initiative
In the first Trump administration, the longstanding Regulatory Plan and Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions (the Agenda) was instrumental in assessing…
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The Rulemakers: Which federal agencies dominate Trump’s 2026 Agenda?
Over the Independence Day holiday, the Trump administration released its 2026Regulatory Plan and Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions (Agenda), which…
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Diary of deconstruction: White House releases 2026 Unified Agenda of Federal Regulations
Since 1983, the often-tardy semiannual Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions (the Agenda) has surveyed recently completed and forthcoming rulemaking priorities across…
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Mid-year 2026: Is Washington actually deregulating?
It’s June 30, mid-year 2026 — almost America’s birthday. In terms of conventional issuance of rules and regulations in the Federal Register, the Trump…
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With apologies to The Who, agencies just met the new boss, not the same as the old boss
The Supreme Court overruling Humphrey’s Executor restores an important constitutional principle: those who exercise executive power are not protected from at-will removal and should…
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An America250 funeral for the 80-year-old Administrative Procedure Act
Clyde Wayne Crews Jr. As America approaches its 250th anniversary, another institution reaches a milestone of its own. The Administrative Procedure Act of…
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The Trump-Sanders plan to nationalize AI
“As far as economics is concerned, we have certain things that aren’t that far apart.” —President Donald Trump on Bernie…
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OPFAIL: Establishing a Congressional Office of Political Failure Analysis
For decades, reformers have proposed some version of a Congressional Office of Regulatory Analysis (CORA), a congressional counterpart to the regulatory oversight apparatus housed…
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America 250 election year rightsizing: Time to get things undone
The new 2026 Ten Thousand Commandments survey of federal regulation and reform landed at an awkward moment. Election cycles tend to crowd out serious…
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Deregulation by the numbers: One-third into 2026 — a rulebook rewrite?
At the close of the first third of the year, a spring 2026 Unified Agenda formally outlining agency priorities has yet to appear. In…
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The Little Red Hen goes digital: No data centers, no internet
The politics of data centers increasingly resemble the fable of The Little Red Hen. Everyone wants the bread — AI, cloud computing, streaming,…
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Federal regulation 1st quarter 2026 report: Bureaucracy on the back foot
Here at the close of the first quarter of 2026, the March 31 Federal Register stands at 16,115 pages, containing 609 final rules and…
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Trump’s AI plan clears the field — then occupies it
Preempting state overreach in artificial intelligence (AI) regulation is urgent — but it’s only half the job. Firm limits on federal power matter just…
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The infrastructure cartel trap
At last week’s BlackRock US Infrastructure Summit in DC, federal and state policymakers, investors, and corporate leaders gathered to map out the next…
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The missing guardrail in crisis politics: Discipline
Modern American governance has developed a troubling pattern. Economic shocks like the 21st century’s financial panics and pandemic are often met with vast expansions…
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The most powerful monopoly isn’t a corporation: Introducing the Capitol Control Quotient
Policymakers often argue over whether capitalism works and how aggressively it should be restrained. But they rarely ask the more pertinent question: where, exactly,…
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Abolish, shuffle, repeat: The SOTU’s ill omen for federal retrenchment
Shrinking the federal government and abolishing agencies sounds simple — decisive, even. In practice, however, it appears neither can be done under modern…
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Trump’s SOTU conundrum: Deregulation today, swamp tomorrow?
Donald Trump’s 2026 State of the Union (SOTU) address presents an opportunity to confront the federal spending, entitlement, and regulatory behemoth in a new…
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Merger relief vs. the consolidation regulators ignore
A federal court’s decision blocking a 2024 Federal Trade Commission’s expanded merger-disclosure rule is welcome. But its significance risks being overstated. Skirmishes over…
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Trump’s deregulation meets invisible rulemaking: The real 2026 challenge
After a brief shutdown, most fiscal year 2026 appropriations have been enacted, despite continued debate over Department of Homeland Security (DHS) funding. We may…
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The executive order explosion: When counting counts
What stands out in the Trump administration is the unnerving tension between executive orders (EOs) that shrink government and those that expand it.
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Lots of good in the RSC’s “Restoring America’s Golden Age” Budget Blueprint
The Republican Study Committee’s new 119-page Budget for the 119th Congress, Restoring America’s Golden Age, covers a wide range of policy priorities—notably a 10-year…
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The 2026 Unconstitutionality Index: 18 rules for every law
Article I of the Constitution vests enumerated legislative powers solely with Congress. In practice, however, administrative agencies do most of the lawmaking. Congress enacts…
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AI and the electricity blackout America needs
The Washington Post’s latest coverage of the so-called “data center rebellion” highlights a trend building across America: communities rising up against server farms…
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Trump slashed rulemaking in 2025. The hard part starts in 2026
The new year, 2026, marks nearly the first full year of Donald Trump’s second administration. It’s a moment to assess whether regulatory liberalization has…
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Deregulation’s year-end illusion
As the year winds down, The Trump administration is congratulating itself on deregulation. In a White House statement and in what it described…
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Trump’s AI order: Preempting the states without unleashing Washington
A new Trump executive order, “Ensuring a National Policy Framework for Artificial Intelligence,” pushes back on most state law and rulemaking affecting AI.
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Trump’s baby accounts: Wealth builder or redistribution trap?
A White House roundtable this week spotlighted Michael and Susan Dell’s $6.25 billion philanthropic contribution seeding newborn investment “Trump Accounts” beyond the…
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Two cheers for ending Humphrey’s Executor
Oral arguments in Trump v. Slaughter begin today. While debates over the legitimacy of presidential removal authority and the degree of Senate…
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Stop the snapback: Congress can make small-business deregulation stick
This week, CEI sent a letter to Congress urging the House to pass Rep. Beth Van Duyne’s (R-TX) H.R. 2965, the Small…
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DOGE cancellation theatrics change nothing in the regulatory power game
“Trump administration officials have not openly said that DOGE no longer exists.” That admission came 10 paragraphs into a widely reported “exclusive” Reuters…
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A tariff-funded UBI? Trump just gave progressives their blueprint
Donald Trump’s pitch for a $2,000 “tariff dividend” check to be issued sometime next year (during election season) is being marketed as a…
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An executive order to make freedom mandatory
The White House Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) new “Streamlining the Review of Regulatory Actions” memorandum signals a potentially transformative shift in…
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The deregulation machine hits bureaucratic resistance
A new White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) memo, “Streamlining the Review of Deregulatory Actions,” poses an ambitious test: can agencies…
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Darklore Depository 2025: An unofficial inventory of guidance documents and other regulatory dark matter
Halloween can remind policy wonks that some of the ghastliest regulatory chills come not from ordinary notice-and-comment regulation buried in the daily Federal Register,…
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Has Washington bought off the deregulatory movement?
Back during the Biden administration, I noted how rising federal spending and regulation seemed to swap unfunded mandates for funded ones – turning what…
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The hidden growth of government in an age of less red tape
Recent editions of Ten Thousand Commandments detail how regulatory red tape mushroomed under Biden. For vulnerable small business, the Small Business &…
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Shutdown? Take the win
Last-ditch negotiations are underway as another fiscal year comes to a close on October 1. It’s that familiar crossroads: a threatened shutdown if…
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A provisional look at the Trump 2.0 deregulation record
Early in his first term, Donald Trump ordered agencies to eliminate at least two rules for every “significant” one added – rules generally carrying…
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GOOD Act markup: The first step in illuminating regulatory dark matter
The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee (HSGAC) is soon expected to mark up the Guidance Out of Darkness (GOOD) Act, an important…
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Trump’s Unified Agenda of deconstruction: Writing rules to erase rules
“It is the policy of my Administration to focus the executive branch’s limited enforcement resources on regulations squarely authorized…
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There’s something wrong with the Federal Register
The Trump-era Federal Register website has been glitching recently. Nearly two weeks ago, I noted on X/Twitter (tagging both @USNatArchives and @FedRegister) that…