Feds Using Blog Posts, Informal Docs To Skirt Regulatory Process

The Daily Caller reports on Wayne Crews's research on federal agencies use of guidance documents to create regulations. 

Federal agencies are increasingly using informal guidance documents, memoranda and blog posts to create rules and skirt the formal regulatory process, and Congress must stop them, a new Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) white paper finds.

The federal government has no complete survey on the use of what CEI calls “regulatory dark matter.” The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) only reviewed 14 out of “thousands” of documents created by federal officials in 2014, CEI said.

Congress should use the Congressional Review Act to reject agency rules and guidance documents and withhold appropriations for specific agency actions it hasn’t authorized, CEI said. Congress should also make sure OMB reviews all agency guidance, however informal, for financial impact, the paper stated.

“Regulation and guidance cannot be controlled without downsizing the federal government and strengthening democratic accountability,” CEI said. “That requires reining in the colossal bureaucracies that enable rule by unelected experts.”

Read the full article at the Daily Caller.