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
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…
Search Posts
Liberty Unyielding
Protectionism Kills Jobs And Candidacies
Liberty Unyielding cited CEI on Trumps deregulation policy. In the 2016 election, the GOP benefited from farm-state opposition to the Obama administration’s bureaucratic…
Liberty Unyielding
Tuesday’s Election Was Nothing For Republicans To Smile About
Liberty Unyielding cited CEI on Trump’s deregulation policy. The ideological composition of the judiciary matters for the economy. Yesterday, a judge blocked the Trump…
Study
How Antitrust Regulation Hinders Innovation and Competition
Few economic concepts elicit such strong reactions as that of monopoly, and the policy intended to address it—antitrust regulations (called competition policy in the European…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The midterm elections finally happened. The good news is no more political ads for a while; the bad news is that a bunch of politicians…
Forbes
The Midterm Election Results Should Inspire A New Trump Executive Order On Federal Regulations
As part of its economic reform agenda, the Trump administration emphasized cutting red tape. It reaffirmed Office of Management and Budget (OMB) cost-benefit review of significant agency rules…
Blog
What Do the Midterms Mean for Regulatory Reform?
A divided Congress probably means the status quo will reign on regulation. This is a mixed bag from a free-market perspective. President Trump made…
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