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
Feeling Minnesota
Minnesota’s efforts to streamline environmental permitting under former Gov. Mark Dayton (D) initially saw some success, with reforms aimed at reducing approval times for priority…
Basketball vs. Bureaucracy
North Carolina’s permitting reforms in recent years have significantly reshaped the state’s regulatory landscape, focusing on accelerating project approvals and reducing bureaucratic delays. Key changes…
Mardi Gras for Permits
The Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality’s (LDEQ) Expedited Permit Program, established in 2006, represents an innovative approach to speeding up environmental permit approvals. This report…
Blog
We’re out of the Paris Agreement—again! How Trump can make it stick
On Inauguration Day (January 20, 2025), President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the Paris Agreement, the global climate treaty negotiated by the…
Congressional Review Act can cancel three bad appliance regs
The Congressional Review Act (CRA) is the easiest way for Congress to block some of the bad regulations enacted under the Biden administration. A resolution…
Senate debanking hearing should focus on government’s role in politicizing finance
Today the Senate Banking Committee is holding a hearing on debanking, which is the phenomenon of individuals and businesses in certain industries and with certain…
News
Bill capping credit card interest rates will curb consumer credit options: CEI analysis
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) today introduced legislation to cap credit card interest rates at ten percent, a plan that would have…
Delays and higher consumer prices incoming from US trade conflict with China: CEI analysis
President Trump’s ten percent tariffs on Chinese goods have been met with retaliatory tariffs by Beijing, indicating a trade war has begun. CEI’s senior economist…
Trump’s pick for acting CFPB director is good news for consumers & financial innovation
CEI Director of Finance Policy John Berlau praised President Trump’s pick to act as head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, following the firing of…
Op-Eds
The Daily Economy
Federal Agencies Stack Their Courts Against You
Winning a case against the federal government is difficult. Most federal agencies are well represented by an army of skilled attorneys. The Department of Justice…
WSJ Opinion
Tariffs Matter More Than Don Luskin Thinks
Donald Luskin argues that tariffs are “inherently small tax hikes because tariffs only apply to, at most, a base of $3.257 trillion—the total value of goods…
Forbes
A Banger Trump Executive Order Abolishing Regulatory Dark Matter
“[A] loathsome night-spawned flood of organic corruption more devastatingly hideous than the blackest conjurations of mortal madness and morbidity. Seething, stewing, surging, bubbling like serpents’…
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