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
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…
Blog
The week in regulations: Voting by mail and $100,000 visas
The number of new final regulations in 2026 topped the 2,000 mark. President Trump escalated his trade war against Canada and issued an executive…
Blog
Free the Economy podcast: The future of financial regulation with Thomas Hoenig
In this week’s episode we cover the status of occupational licensing in the 50 states, the coming crack-up over entitlement spending,…
Search Posts
Blog
HHS Secretary: Health Insurance Industry Needs Competition… With Government
In an AP interview on Tuesday, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius called for competition in the health insurance market. No, not between…
Blog
Wasteful Regulation
The issue of “e-waste” has been receiving a lot of attention recently, mostly from critics concerned about discarded electronics being shipped off to developing…
Blog
Regulation of the Day: Clean Air in Columbus, OH
Today’s Regulation of the Day comes to us from the EPA. One would think that regulators, seeing heartening results, would pat themselves on the back…
Blog
Obama’s Speech to AMA on Healthcare Misses the Point
In a speech before the American Medical Association on Monday, June 15, President Obama pitched his plan for heathcare reform. The main thrust of the…
Op-Eds
Obama Administration = Waste, Corruption, Corporate Welfare
Rapidly-rising Medicare spending already threatens “to crush the federal budget,” and much Medicare spending is wasteful, yet the Obama Administration claims it…
Op-Eds
Retirees and Pensions Fuel GM’s Downfall
General Motors has declared bankruptcy as a result of a number of things — bad management, poor products and screwy labor relations. But in…
Blog
Senate Passes FDA Tobacco Regulation Bill; Obama Will Sign It
The Senate has just passed the FDA tobacco regulation bill by a 79-to-17 vote. The bill now goes to President Obama, who has…
Blog
Barney Frank Asked about Executive Pay Curbs; Throws Tantrum
Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) appears to be working in tandem with the Obama administration on making executive pay subject to shareholder votes. That seems…
Blog
Steve Forbes celebrates CEI’s 25th year
Steve Forbes in the Washington Times today has a very nice tribute to CEI on its 25th Anniversary. Forbes points out some of CEI’s…
Blog
FDA Poised to Regulate Tobacco, Which May Backfire
Congress is about to enact a bill to subject tobacco to FDA regulation. Mark Berlind notes one anomalous feature of the bill: it…
Blog
Eleventh Circuit Grants Rehearing in Reeves v. C.H. Robinson Worldwide, Which Gutted Statutory Limits on Sexual Harassment Claims
Can you sue your employer because your co-workers listen to raunchy radio programs? A federal appeals court is reconsidering its 2008 ruling…
Blog
Public Wants Wasteful Stimulus Package Canceled
By a margin of 45% to 36%, the American people want to cancel the $787 billion stimulus package, reports pollster Rasmussen Reports. Economist…
Newsletter
Broadband Stimulus, Fiat Takes Over Chrysler and the UN’s World Oceans Day
Business and advocacy groups flood the Federal Communications Commission with comments on the agency’s proposed national broadband plan. Italian automaker Fiat…
Blog
Regulation of the Day: Saving the Children
On June 26, the National Commission on Children and Disasters is having a meeting. They will be talking about another meeting from the day before.
Blog
Supreme Court Vacates Stay Order in Chrysler Case, Refuses to Rule on Legal Challenges At This Time
The full Supreme Court just vacated the stay that Justice Ginsburg earlier entered that had temporarily blocked the government’s plan for Chrysler. Why it…
Blog
Supreme Court Temporarily Blocks Illegal Chrysler Giveaway to UAW
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg yesterday granted a stay temporarily blocking the government’s plan for Chrysler, which would give effectively give most of…
News Release
CEI to FCC: Don’t Strangle Broadband Industry
The Competitive Enterprise Institute this week filed comments advising the Federal Communications Commission on how best to proceed with its plan for a national…
News Release
Bank Chairman to Speak Out on Banking Crisis and Capitalism at CEI 25th Anniversary Gala
This Thursday evening John Allison, Chairman of BB&T Bank, will deliver the keynote address at the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s 25th Anniversary Gala. Allison will…
Blog
Stimulus Package Kills Jobs, Drives Up Unemployment
Unemployment is now even higher than the Obama Administration said it would be if there were no stimulus package. At least 1.5 million…
Blog
Illegal Takeover of Chrysler: Pension Funds Have Standing in Indiana State Police Pension Trust v. Chrysler, LLC
Earlier, I wrote about the Indiana pension funds’ challenge to the Obama Administration’s plan to effectively give Chrysler to the UAW Union, while cheating…
Blog
Regulation of the Day: Drawbridge Schedules in Sturgeon Bay, WI
Today’s Regulation of the Day comes to us from the Department of Homeland Security (208,000 employees, $52 billion 2009 budget).
Newsletter
Chrysler in Court, the Costs of Regulation and a Global Tax on Airline Travel
A federal appeals court refuses to block Chrysler’s bankruptcy reorganization and sale to Fiat. A new study finds that compliance costs for federal regulation reached…
Washington Examiner
To Stimulate the Economy, Let it be Free
Lobbying is about the only sector of the economy experiencing a boom right now. This is a predictable effect of the tax-and-spend stimulus model favored…
Blog
Court Rebuffs Challenge to Illegal Chrysler Bailout and Takeover; Pension Funds Will Appeal to Supreme Court
A federal appeals court has refused to block the Administration’s illegal auto bailout, which rips off taxpayers and pension funds to enrich…
Blog
Regulation of the Day: Taxpayer-Funded Advertising for Mushrooms
This is the first installment of an occasional series that shines a little light on what the regulatory state is up to. Today’s Regulation of…
Newsletter
Windmills in Danger, Record Unemployment and Hurricane Season
A wind power development in Wyoming may be derailed by the Endangered Species Act. The unemployment rate rises to 9.4%. Residents in the southeastern U.S.
News Release
New CEI Report Explores Hurricanes, Warming
A new report from the Competitive Enterprise Institute questions alarmist predictions of increased hurricane damage resulting from human-caused global warming. The report recommends that…
Blog
Illegal, Unfair Auto Bailout That Harms Retirees and Taxpayers Challenged in Chrysler Bankruptcy
The Indiana State Teachers’ Retirement Fund is rightly challenging the diversion of tens of billions of dollars of federal TARP bank bailout money to…
Newsletter
The Costs of Regulation, Chrysler’s Bankruptcy and Teamsters on Strike
A new report from CEI finds that the annual cost of federal regulation is more than $1.1 trillion. A federal judge halts Chrysler’s planned bankruptcy…
Blog
Union Keeps Special Privileges Through Taxpayer Bailout of General Motors
The federal government is spending more than $50 billion to bail out General Motors, with no end in sight. But the UAW union…
News Release
Crushing, Hidden Tax of Federal Regulation Soars
Crushing, Hidden Tax of Federal Regulation Soars Lawmakers Fail to Scrutinize the "10,000 Commandments" of Federal Regulations Washington, D.C. June 3, 2009 – Federal…
Blog
How to Stop Another GM: Abolish Pensions
GM, of course, declared bankruptcy today. A number of things—bad management, poor products and screwy labor relations—hurt the company. But in the…
Blog
Corporate Welfare on a Vast Scale: Obama’s Cap-and-Trade Scam Threatens Economy
One of Obama’s own advisers admits that the cap-and-trade energy-rationing scheme backed by the “Obama Administration and Congressional Democrats” would “have a trivially small…
Washington Examiner
Congress Gets Flurry Of Insurance Bills
Washington Examiner
Permanent Replacement for Dinallo Likely Months Away
Blog
Wasteful Obama Auto Bailouts Disturb Even Liberal Washington Post
Even the liberal Washington Post, which endorsed Obama and has not backed a Republican for president since 1952, is getting fed up with the…
Blog
Anti-GMO Zealots vs. Starving Zimbabweans
In Zimbabwe, the most food aid-dependent country in the world, officials and self-styled “consumer activists” have begun raiding shops suspected of selling genetically-modified food,…
Study
Ten Thousand Commandments 2009
Wayne Crews' annual accounting of the hidden taxes of regulation.
Investors' Business Daily
America’s Hidden Trillion-Dollar Tax
We need a breather to take it all in: TARP, a $787 billion stimulus bill and a projected $1.845 trillion budget deficit. But lost among…
Blog
Compare and Contrast
Bjorn Lomborg, November 2007: …although it may seem almost comically straightforward, one of the best temperature-reducing approaches is very simple: paint things white. Cities…
Newsletter
The Credit Card Bill of Rights, Chrysler’s Bankruptcy and Carbon Trading
President Obama signs the credit card “bill of rights” into law. A federal bankruptcy judge prepares to rule on Chrysler’s financial future. Carbon trading is…
Blog
A Bleak Regulatory Future for the Tech Sector
May so far has been full of omens for the future of technology regulation. On Monday the 11th, the Obama administration announced that it would…
Blog
Divorce Courts Harass Our Troops and Small Businesses
Memorial Day is an opportunity to thank our troops, and open our eyes to the disgraceful way they are treated by divorce courts. The bias…
Blog
Chrysler Confronts Grim Future, Despite Billions in Taxpayer Subsidies
The federal government poured billions of dollars into Chrysler, which then went bankrupt and merged with Fiat. But Chrysler may never revive, thanks to absurdly…
Blog
Fulfilling Prophecies
CBO estimated today that unemployment will top out at around 10.5% before it recovers. Congress is doing its part to make CBO’s dire prophecy a…
Investors' Business Daily
Supreme Court To Hear Sarbanes-Oxley Challenge
A major government abuse of power is about to get much-needed scrutiny, thanks to the Supreme Court, which this week decided to hear…
Blog
Victory for Capitalism in World’s Largest Democracy
India’s Congress Party was responsible for many mistakes when it turned India into a corrupt socialist state in the 1960s and 70s, but it changed…
Blog
Adviser Admits Obama’s Tax Increases May Kill Economic Recovery
Harvard economist Martin Feldstein, warns that “the barrage of tax increases proposed in President Barack Obama’s budget could . . . kill any chance of…
Blog
Law Professors Urge Supreme Court to Review Challenge to Powerful Agency, in Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board
Tomorrow, the Supreme Court will weigh whether to decide what a federal judge called the “the most important separation-of-powers case regarding the President’s appointment…
Newsletter
Europe Investigates Intel, Obama Explodes the Deficit and Minnesota Jumps on the Banned Wagon
European antitrust officials prepare to rule in an investigation of Intel’s microchip marketing practices. The White House estimates that the deficit will explode to $1.8…
Staff & Scholars
Clyde Wayne Crews
Fred L. Smith Fellow in Regulatory Studies
- Business and Government
- Consumer Freedom
- Deregulation
Ryan Young
Senior Economist and Director of Publications
- 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