There are two main areas in which Congress can enact meaningful reform. The first is to rein in regulatory guidance documents, which we refer to as “regulatory dark matter,” whereby agencies regulate through Federal Register notices, guidance documents, and other means outside standard rulemaking procedure. The second is to enact a series of reforms to increase agency transparency and accountability of all regulation and guidance. These include annual regulatory report cards for rulemaking agencies and regulatory cost estimates from the Office of Management and Budget for more than just a small subset of rules.
In 2019, President Trump signed two executive orders aimed at stopping the practice of agencies using guidance documents to effectively implement policy without going through the legally required notice and comment process.
Featured Posts
Blog
Free the Economy podcast: Political drinking with Jarrett Dieterle
In this week’s episode we cover student loans, revenue from tariffs, democracy in Hong Kong, and the impact of podcasts…
Blog
From cuts to costs: Why federal paperwork keeps piling up
The Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) release of the 2023 Information Collection Budget (ICB) paints a troubling picture of not just of growing federal…
Blog
This week in ridiculous regulations: Mergers and mail
The 2024 Federal Register topped 90,000 pages and is now the second-longest ever, dating back to 1936, with more than a month still to go.
Search Posts
Blog
Free the Economy podcast: Political drinking with Jarrett Dieterle
In this week’s episode we cover student loans, revenue from tariffs, democracy in Hong Kong, and the impact of podcasts…
Blog
From cuts to costs: Why federal paperwork keeps piling up
The Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) release of the 2023 Information Collection Budget (ICB) paints a troubling picture of not just of growing federal…
Blog
This week in ridiculous regulations: Mergers and mail
The 2024 Federal Register topped 90,000 pages and is now the second-longest ever, dating back to 1936, with more than a month still to go.
Blog
The ‘Carbon’ Futures Trading Commission vows to decarbonize futures trading
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) recently approved one of its most controversial guidance document to date. Under this new policy, the CFTC will…
Blog
Republicans should wait for real permitting reform in the new Congress
The 2024 election has dramatically shifted the political landscape, with Republicans securing control of both chambers of Congress and the White House. As Washington prepares…
Blog
Biden’s regulatory report is in, but key costs remain in the shadows
The election is over and among much else, federal regulations are emerging front and center for the incoming administration. While the federal debt sits…
Blog
Biden’s 2024 Federal Register page count already second highest ever
We’ve not closed the Book of Regulation for 2024, Biden’s final calendar year in office, but we can mark a milestone nonetheless. The Federal Register…
Blog
This week in ridiculous regulations: Cable pricing and outer space arms trafficking
Donald Trump won a second term. The change in power might mean a second regulatory midnight rush between now and the inauguration. An initial rush…
Blog
A 2024 CEI HALLOWEEN SPECIAL: A new inventory unmasking federal agency guidance documents
In my new Halloween-themed article at Forbes, I explore the eerie expanse of federal agency guidance documents. We have to try to have a…
Blog
The origins and lessons of the ‘Satanic Panic’ of the 1980s
Moral panics are just one of those things that free societies seem to go through on a regular basis. The “satanic panic” was the big…
Blog
The compliance crisis: Unveiling the regulatory loopholes agencies love
While federal regulatory reform is critical, it’s equally important that existing oversight laws be followed. Unfortunately, many of these laws are routinely disregarded, with little…
Blog
Next time, let’s try emergency powers that shrink government
As the nation deals with the aftermath of successive natural disasters, the need for a renewed debate on federal emergency powers is increasingly clear. While…
Blog
#NeverNeeded regulations hindering hurricane recovery
It may be time to revive the #NeverNeeded campaign to assist the Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton recovery efforts. The idea behind #NeverNeeded…
Blog
This week in ridiculous regulations: Refrigeration products and off-road vehicle debris
Iran fired 180 missiles at Israel. Hurricane Helene devastated North Carolina. Longshoremen went on strike. The unemployment rate dropped to 4.1 percent. The…
Blog
This week in ridiculous regulations: Bent coins and Irish potato taxes
The leader of the Hezbollah terrorist group died in an Israeli military strike. The 2024 Federal Register is poised to reach 80,000 pages this week.
Blog
Iowa’s ‘Lean-in’ approach to successful permitting reform
The State of Iowa has made significant strides in improving its environmental permitting processes, thanks to innovative reforms spearheaded by the state’s Department of Natural…
Blog
Pen and phone power: How presidential documents are changing the rules
Presidential executive orders and directives have long played a pivotal role in shaping federal policies and regulations. As President Obama famously remarked in 2014, “I’ve…
Blog
Congress decides, not agencies: The significance of the REINvented REINS Act
It’s been repeated a million times that in our constitutional republic, lawmaking power belongs to Congress. But over the years, this authority has increasingly shifted…
Washington Examiner
Congress needs to end regulation without representation
Taxation without representation is the antithesis of freedom and runs counter to the basic principles guiding our nation. So why is regulation without representation not…
News Release
‘Ten Thousand Commandments’ report on federal regulation exposes Washington’s big costs, little accountability
The Competitive Enterprise Institute today released its annual report on the federal regulatory state, Ten Thousand Commandments by Clyde Wayne Crews. Federal regulatory…
Products
Chapter 5: Regulatory dark matter: Executive orders and memoranda
Although executive actions ostensibly deal with the internal operations of the federal government, they increasingly can have binding effect and influence private behavior. Executive orders,…
Products
Chapter 6: More than 22,000 agency public notices annually
Along with the few dozen presidential memoranda and other proclamations are the thousands that issue from departments and agencies. Through various species of guidance documents,…
Products
Chapter 13: Needed: An agenda for rightsizing Washington
Rule counts regularly topped 4,000 in the 1990s. That is the wrong comparison for Biden’s lower rule counts. His fewer rules have higher costs, are…
Products
Chapter 4: The expanding Code of Federal Regulations
The page count in the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR)—where the Federal Register’s rules come to rest in small print in bound volumes of magenta,…
Products
Chapter 7: A note on rule reviews at OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs
Yesterday’s rule review, where the review authority sought to restrain government intervention and minimize costs, is different from today’s rule review. Now the would-be overseer…
Products
Chapter 12: The 2024 Unconstitutionality Index: 44 rules for every law
Article I of the Constitution notwithstanding, administrative agencies rather than Congress do most of the lawmaking in the United States. Congress enacts weighty legislation but…
Products
Chapter 10: Federal regulations affecting state and local governments
State and local officials’ concerns over federal mandates’ overriding their own priorities and prerogatives resulted in the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act of 1995, the requirements…
Products
Chapter 11: Government Accountability Office database on rules and major rules
The federal government’s regulatory reports and databases serve different purposes. The Federal Register presents all proposed and final rules affecting the private sector, as well…
Products
Chapter 2: Why we need a regulatory budget
Well before Biden’s unique transformations, policymakers recognized a role for regulatory restraint, transparency, and disclosure. Federal programs are funded either by taxes or by borrowing,…
Products
Chapter 8: The “Regulatory Plan and Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions”
Along with the Report to Congress, Federal Register, and Code of Federal Regulations, another vehicle for regulatory disclosure is the spring and fall editions of…
Products
Chapter 9: Federal regulations affecting small business
The aforementioned National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) report found that average annual per-employee regulatory costs to firms vary by firm size in a way that…
Products
Chapter 3: Page counts and numbers of rules in the Federal Register
The Federal Register is the daily repository of all proposed and final federal rules and regulations. Although its number of pages is often cited as…
Study
Ten Thousand Commandments 2024
The hidden tax of regulation has proved appealing to lawmakers who feel the pressure of a national debt topping $34 trillion. Off-budget regulations requiring private…
Products
Chapter 1: Biden’s whole-of-government regulatory philosophy
Prior editions of Ten Thousand Commandments extensively surveyed the Biden administration’s whole-of-government campaigns and the role of executive actions, rules, and memoranda in their pursuit.
Testimony
Wayne Crews testimony before the Committee on House Administration: “Congress in a Post-Chevron World”
Introduction Chairman Steil, Ranking Member Morelle, and Members of the House Committee on Administration, thank you for the opportunity to testify today on issues surrounding…
News Release
CEI study: Congress should establish limits on regulatory power to ensure agencies are not answering major policy questions
Many of the biggest policy decisions affecting the lives of Americans are made by federal agencies, not Congress. According to a new report from…
Study
Congress, Not Agencies, Should Answer Major Policy Questions
Many of the biggest policy decisions affecting the lives of Americans are made by federal agencies, not Congress. During the Biden administration, this has included…
Blog
Congress should heed GAO’s new regulatory reform recommendations
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a December 2023 report titled “Options for Enhancing Congressional Oversight of Rulemaking and Establishing an Office of Legal…
News Release
Report: Federal Regulatory Agencies Abuse Power with Guidance Documents
A new report by Competitive Enterprise Institute and Paragon Health Institute scholar Dr. Joel Zinberg, Restoring Good Guidance Practices: How to restrain the administrative…
Study
Restoring Good Guidance Practices
Executive summary Federal agency guidance documents form a large and expanding part of the administrative state’s regulatory universe. These informal documents including memoranda, bulletins, and…
Study
Champagne Regulations on a Beer Budget
Regulation is often regarded as akin to a tax, albeit one that takes place off of the government’s books. Similar to a value-added tax, it…
News Release
Report: Regulations disproportionately impose costs on small businesses
A new Competitive Enterprise Institute report identifies ways that federal regulations impose unfair costs and perverse incentives on small businesses every year. “From an equity…
Blog
New bill would increase spending transparency, more regulatory transparency needed
Galileo may not have uttered the famous words, “Measure what is measurable, and make measurable what is not so,” but the sentiment behind that admonition…
Blog
This week in ridiculous regulations: airline fees and greenhouse gas reporting
The Federal Register grew at nearly triple its usual pace last week. It is on pace for its first-ever 100,000-page year. GDP growth slowed to…
The Center Square
Study: Mixed record on permitting reform offers some hope
CEI’s James Broughel provided comments to The Center Square about a study he authored: “Pennsylvania’s a state where energy is very important to its…
Forbes
Libertarian Victory: You Mean We Can Shut Down Government Without Even Passing A Law?
It is happening again. Congress will enact another bloated, pork-laden and largely unread omnibus spending bill to complete formal appropriations for the 2024 fiscal year…
Blog
CEI briefs the public on the need for administrative law court reform
The Competitive Enterprise Institute recently hosted our first Capitol Hill event of the year, urging Congress to propose administrative law court (ALC) reform. Our…
Forbes
The Quiet Threat To Science Posed By ‘Indigenous Knowledge’
“Indigenous knowledge” is in the spotlight thanks to President Biden, who issued an executive order within days of taking office, aimed at ushering…
Forbes
The GAO Weighs In On Regulatory Reform Options For Congress
The Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) December 2023 Options for Enhancing Congressional Oversight of Rulemaking and Establishing an Office of Legal Counsel ought not be overlooked by Congress,…
Blog
Attention regulators: Be on the lookout for the ALERT Act
It has been almost a quarter-century since the federal government performed an assessment of the aggregate costs of regulation of regulatory intervention. Late last year,…
News Release
House Oversight and Accountability Committee advances pro-transparency ALERT Act
The House Oversight and Accountability Committee today advanced H.R. 262, the All Economic Regulations are Transparent (ALERT) Act sponsored by Rep. Bob Good (R-VA).
Blog
Use the Congressional Review Act to strike rules not reported to Congress and GAO
Significant attention is likely to turn to Joe Biden’s ambitious regulatory agenda before summertime. That’s because rules the administration finalizes “late”—during the last 60 in-session…
Blog
This week in ridiculous regulations: address labels and consumer reviews
Yet another federal shutdown crisis was averted, this time until March. The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee marked up the PROVE It Act,…
Blog
This week in ridiculous regulations: Independent contractors and emergency haddock action
Happy MLK-government snow shutdown days, everyone. There was more shutdown drama last week. The US launched strikes against the Houthis, one of three factions trying…
Letters
NTU Coalition Letter on Important Needed Tax Reforms
Dear Majority Leader Schumer, Speaker Johnson, Minority Leader McConnell and Minority Leader Jeffries, On behalf of the undersigned organizations who represent the interests of taxpayers,…
Blog
Unconstitutionality Index going into 2024: 46 rules for every law
The Biden’s administration’s 3,018 rules and regulations of 2023 is fairly typical of agency output these days. But while rule counts remain relatively stable,…
Blog
American small businesses are paying through the roof for regulations
In a new column at Forbes, I take look at the National Association of Manufacturers’ (NAM) update of its …
Yale Journal on Regulation
CEI Report on Agency Adjudication Reform
CEI’s Ryan Young and Stone Washington were cited in Yale Journal on Regulation in relation to a new CEI Report on Agency Adjudication Reform: Today,…
News Release
Biden’s Unified Agenda report on regulations has two main problems
On December 6, the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs at last released its regulatory blueprint for the coming year, the fall…
Blog
Equity shmequity: How US government’s ‘discounting’ policy hurts the global poor
The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) recently finalized its Circular A-4 guidance on regulatory analysis, constituting the first update to the guidance in…
Blog
Ten Thousand Commandments 2023 is out now
The 2023 edition of CEI’s flagship annual study, Wayne Crews’s Ten Thousand Commandments, is out now. For those not familiar, 10KC gives a big-picture…
News Release
Report: Federal regulatory burden undermines economy, financial security
A new report from the Competitive Enterprise Institute tallies the huge and growing cost federal regulations impose on American businesses and families – $1.939…
Products
Chapter 5: Page Counts and Numbers of Rules in the Federal Register
The Federal Register is the daily repository of all proposed and final federal rules and regulations. Although its number of pages is often cited as…
Products
Chapter 3: Getting Beyond a Federal Regulatory Budget and the Limitations of Administrative Reform
Federal programs are funded either by taxes or by borrowing, with interest, from future tax collections. When Congress spends, no one questions that disclosure…
Products
Chapter 6: The Expanding Code of Federal Regulations
The page count in the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), where the Register’s rules come to rest in small print, is not as dramatic…
Products
Chapter 9: A Note on Rule Reviews at OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs
Tracking the effects of rules and regulations, executive orders, memoranda, and regulatory guidance is vital. These alternative regulatory actions have become powerful means of working…
Products
Chapter 13: Federal Regulations Affecting State and Local Governments
Ten Thousand Commandments primarily emphasizes federal regulations imposed on the private sector. However, state and local officials’ complaints over federal mandates’ overriding their own…
Products
Chapter 1: Biden’s Regulatory “Modernization” Continues Whole-of-Government Pursuit of Coercive Progressivism
The 2022 edition of Ten Thousand Commandments extensively surveyed the Biden administration’s executive actions, rules, and memoranda that reversed the Trump regulatory policy and attenuated…
Products
Chapter 10: Analysis of “The Regulatory Plan and Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions”
“The Regulatory Plan and Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions” (the Unified Agenda) is the document in which agencies have outlined regulatory priorities…
Products
Chapter 8: Another Dimension of Regulatory Dark Matter: Over 22,000 Agency Public Notices Annually
Along with presidential proclamations are those of departments and agencies. These are numerous and sweeping. Through various kinds of guidance documents, notices, and policy statements,…
Products
Chapter 15: Regulation without Representation: The “Unconstitutionality Index”—13 Rules for Every Law
Administrative agencies, not Congress, do most U.S. lawmaking, despite Article I of the Constitution stipulating otherwise. Congress is to blame here, as it routinely enacts…
Products
Chapter 4: The Unknowable Costs of Regulation and Intervention and a $1.939 Trillion Estimate
The federal government undertakes little review of federal regulation to ensure that regulations individually do more good than bad each year, and it performs no…
Products
Executive Summary – Ten Thousand Commandments 2023
The cost of government extends well beyond what Washington taxes. Federal regulations add another $1.939 trillion to Americans’ annual burden. Federal environmental, safety and health,…
Products
Chapter 2: Competition Policy That Exiles Competitive Enterprise Harms Equity
Biden has repeatedly claimed, “I’m a capitalist.” He also rightly says that capitalism without competition is “exploitation.” However the top-down vision Biden promotes, which is…
Products
Chapter 11: Notable Rules and Rulemakings by Agency
In recent Unified Agenda editions and in other venues, federal agencies have noted the regulatory initiatives listed below, among many others pending or recently completed.
Products
Chapter 14: Government Accountability Office Database on Regulations
The federal government’s reports and databases on regulations serve different purposes: The Federal Register details and depicts the aggregate number of proposed and final rules—both…
Products
Chapter 16: Liberate to Stimulate: Framing an Agenda for Rightsizing Washington
It should be hard to enact bad law and regulation, not to get rid of them. A whole-of-government spending and regulatory agenda like the one…
Products
Chapter 12: Federal Regulations Affecting Small Business
Given discrepancies seen in the final rule counts, the overall counts of both small business rules and significant small business rules could also be understated.
Study
Ten Thousand Commandments 2023
View Full Report Here Ten Thousand Commandments is the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s annual survey of the size, scope, and cost of federal regulations, and…
Products
Chapter 7: The Presidential Dimension of Regulatory Dark Matter: Executive Orders and Memoranda
Executive orders, presidential memoranda, presidential directives, ersatz fact sheets of recent administrations, and other executive proclamations make up a substantial component of what has replaced…
Comment
Comment to FAST-41 Steering Council on reducing scope of mining industry
John G. CossaGeneral CounselFederal Permitting Improvement Steering Council1800 M St. NW, Suite 6006Washington, DC 20036 Submitted via Regulations.gov November 22, 2023 RE: Permitting Council Docket…
Blog
White House report reveals tens of billions in new annual regulatory costs
A consolidated Draft Report to Congress on the Benefits and Costs of Federal Regulations hit the shelves at the end of October, catching…
News Release
CEI supports Rep. Foxx’s amendment to halt OMB’s A-4 rewrite
The House of Representatives will soon consider an amendment from Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) to the 2024 Financial Services and General Government spending bill…
Testimony
Regulatory streamlining in Pennsylvania would boost opportunities for state residents
Introduction Good morning, members of the Senate Majority Policy Committee. My name is James Broughel and I am a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise…
The Gazette
Grassley’s USDA spending reforms would protect farmers and taxpayers
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is spending billions of dollars each year for programs that Congress never specifically authorized. Fortunately, Sens. Chuck Grassley, (R-IA.)…
Blog
This week in ridiculous regulations: Junk fees and pool pumps
Hamas attacked Israel, and another tragedy is unfolding in the Middle East. Claudia Goldin won the economics Nobel for her work on women in…
Blog
This week in ridiculous regulations: Gag harvests and helium contracts
Populist Republicans got rid of Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy. In a classic bit of political strategy, they did not have a replacement in…
News Release
CEI Supports Legislation from Sen. Rick Scott to Cut Back on Outdated, Duplicative, and Unnecessary Rules
Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) recently introduced the Unnecessary Agency Regulations Act, a bill that directs the Office of Management and Budget’s Office of Information…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations: Tea Experts and Coin Batteries
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited America. The federal government is a week away from a potential partial shutdown. Sen. Bob Menendez was…
Blog
Flawed guidance for monetizing nature should be withdrawn
The Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) has proposed new guidance aimed at improving how federal agencies account for environment-related costs and…
Forbes
Regulatory Reforms Belong In The FY2024 Budget Deal
Certain regulatory reforms with deep bipartisan endorsement should be incorporated into contentious fiscal budget agreements, particularly when spending cuts are difficult (which is always). We’re…
Frederick News Post
A new proposal for constitutional restoration
Now that Congress has gotten past debt-ceiling drama, next up is wrangling the nation’s budget for the coming year. A budget is about policy and…
Forbes
Once-Promising Guidance Document Disclosures Are Stagnating Under Biden: Inventory and Observations
Laws passed by Congress are archived by subject matter in the U.S. Code. The rules and regulations that incubate in the daily Federal…
Forbes
Beware: The Biden Administration Refers To “Economically Significant” Regulations In The Past Tense
The past few days have brought renewed attention to Biden’s Executive Order 14,094 on “Modernizing…
Study
Four Principles for Real Permitting Reform
Federal legislators continue to focus on permitting reform. For example, the Senate is reportedly1 working on more ambitious reform than those recently enacted in the…
Blog
This week in ridiculous regulations: soybean standards and pain medication limits
The FTC issued its new draft merger guidelines. Meanwhile, agencies issued new regulations ranging from milk marketing to Postal Service snitches. On to the…
News Release
House Oversight and Accountability Committee unanimously advances regulatory reform legislation
Earlier today, the House Oversight and Accountability Committee advanced 41 to 0 the Guidance Out of Darkness (GOOD) Act from Rep. James Comer (R-KY).
Blog
This week in ridiculous regulations: historical captain permits and apricot marketing
The Supreme Court agreed to hear CEI’s Moore v. U.S. tax case in its upcoming term. It also handed down rulings in controversial cases…
Daily Caller
Don’t Stop At College — End Race-Based Admissions In Public Schools
There’s an important battle brewing in our public schools between equity and treating students equally under the law. Equitable treatment of one class of students…
Blog
Bidenomics? Here are the 297 costliest rules in the president’s Spring 2023 Unified Agenda
Federal agencies issue thousands of rules, regulations and guidance documents every year compared to the relative handful of laws enacted by Congress.
Staff & Scholars
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
Fred L. Smith, Jr.
Founder; Chairman Emeritus
- Automobiles and Roads
- Aviation
- Business and Government
Sam Kazman
Counsel Emeritus
- Antitrust
- Automobiles and Roads
- Banking and Finance
Marlo Lewis, Jr.
Senior Fellow
- Climate
- Energy
- Energy and Environment