The primary focus of the Competitive Enterprise Institute since its founding in 1984 has been to promote deregulation. Government regulation of the economy blocks innovation and wealth creation. It also encourages damaging behavior such as rent-seeking and cronyism. Finally, it crowds out more effective forms of regulation such as market discipline.
The beneficial effects of deregulation were plain in the airline and freight rail industries. Deregulation begun in the Carter administration led to more flights at lower cost and to better rail infrastructure and much lower shipping costs. Yet, since the 1990s, successive administrations of different political stripes have piled on regulations, burdening the economy needlessly. We chart this problem every year in our Ten Thousand Commandments report.
The power of regulators now raises constitutional concerns. Regulators are often unaccountable, and their insulation from the checks and balances of the constitutional system suggests that they may in effect form a fourth branch of government. The use of guidance documents to avoid rulemaking procedures, for instance, can amount to government by decree. Deregulation is therefore essential to restore good constitutional order.
CEI advocates for both overall regulatory reform – changing the ways in which rules are made to make them more transparent and easier to remove – and for specific regulatory changes. Recent successes include recognition of our concerns in Executive Orders promoting deregulation and curtailing the use of guidance, and in the reflection of our comments in rules promulgated by agencies such as the Department of Labor and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Deregulation Issue Areas
Featured Posts
Allies
Antitrust and the Federal Trade Commission in 2023
Excerpt from Mark Jamison’s piece, Antitrust and the Federal Trade Commission in 2023 in the Washington Examiner. “Generally, Republicans have a limited appetite for…
Study
Terrible Tech Bills from the 117th Congress
Congress is considering an onslaught of legislation targeting the largest tech platforms in the U.S., addressing topics such as mobile apps, advertising, merger review,…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The big news is that the Food and Drug Administration is poised to follow several other countries’ lead in approving one or more coronavirus vaccines.
Studies
Trade Under Blockade
Introduction President Donald Trump threw the world trading system into disarray with his “Liberation Day” announcement on April 2, 2025. The principles behind the General…
Ten Thousand Commandments 2025
Introduction Record federal debt is contributing to record-setting regulatory burdens. While new spending programs show up in budget figures, new regulations requiring the private sector…
Aloha Approvals
Hawaii’s permitting system is at a critical juncture, faced with the dual challenges of rebuilding in the wake of the 2023 Maui wildfires and addressing…
Blog
The Dreck Equation: Charting the regulatory cosmos
Most people think of federal regulation as the 3,000 or so rules published each year in the Federal Register and archived in the Code of…
The unfinished state AI regulation debate
Following internal party negotiations, the Senate declined to include a multiyear moratorium on state artificial intelligence (AI) regulation in President Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill.”…
California’s fast-food minimum wage is super-sizing job losses
Minimum wage increases would be a fine idea if they worked the way that their fans assumed that they did: increasing the take-home pay of…
News
Inflation increased in June, tariff troubles likely cause: CEI analysis
Inflation rose 0.3 percent across all sectors in June, marking the beginning of Trump’s tariffs’ effect on prices. CEI senior economist Ryan Young…
Report advocates responsible investment, rejects crony subsidies
Today, the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) released a new report on the importance of reinstating responsible investment practices by rejecting corporate welfare strategies and…
June added 147,000 jobs to economy, increase in discouraged workers: CEI analysis
The jobs report for June showed an increase of 147,000 jobs in the economy, exceeding economists’ expectations. An increase in discouraged workers and a…
Op-Eds
National Review
Josh Hawley, friend of a friend of the working man
His mistake is thinking that the way to win over working-class voters is by supporting policies favored by union leaders. Missouri Senator Josh Hawley is the…
RealClear Markets
Book Review: Norbert Michel & Jennifer Schulp’s ‘Financing Opportunity’
America is the wealthiest nation on earth, with financial markets that are the envy of the world. Those markets have contributed to America’s rise for…
Forbes
Trump’s Deregulation Score: Mid-Year Federal Rules Tally Is The Lowest Ever Recorded
After years of relentless compounding of federal rules and regulations and Federal Register pages–capped by Joe Biden’s self-proclaimed “whole-of-government” executive actions on the likes of DEI, ESG,…
Staff & Scholars
Kent Lassman
President and CEO
- Capitalism
- Deregulation
- Innovation
Clyde Wayne Crews
Fred L. Smith Fellow in Regulatory Studies
- Business and Government
- Consumer Freedom
- Deregulation
Ryan Young
Senior Economist
- Antitrust
- Business and Government
- Regulatory Reform
Iain Murray
Vice President for Strategy and Senior Fellow
- Banking and Finance
- Trade and International
Devin Watkins
Attorney
- CEI Litigation
- Government Transparency
- Legal Studies
David S. McFadden
Attorney
- Law and Litigation
- Legal Studies
Marlo Lewis, Jr.
Senior Fellow
- Climate
- Energy
- Energy and Environment
James Broughel
Senior Fellow
- Deregulation
- Energy and Environment
- Innovation
Patricia Patnode
Research Fellow
- Banking and Finance
- Consumer Freedom
- Deregulation