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.
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Free the Economy podcast: Fighting for freedom with Kent Lassman
In this week’s episode we cover bank privacy, SNAP benefits, a new study on tariffs, and a great new podcast…
News Release
CEI leads coalition letter urging Senate action on regulatory reform bills
The Competitive Enterprise Institute today led a coalition letter to Senate Republican leaders urging passage of two important House-passed regulatory reform bills, the Guidance Out of Darkness (GOOD)…
Blog
OPFAIL: Establishing a Congressional Office of Political Failure Analysis
For decades, reformers have proposed some version of a Congressional Office of Regulatory Analysis (CORA), a congressional counterpart to the regulatory oversight apparatus housed within…
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The Competitive Enterprise Institute Daily Update
Issues in the News 1. CIVIL LIBERTIES The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence begins debate over whether to renew…
Newsletter
The Competitive Enterprise Institute Daily Update
Issues in the News 1. ECONOMIC LIBERTY The union campaign against Wal-Mart expands in the Washington,…
Op-Eds
The Problem with the Voice over IP 911 Mandate
“Today the FCC adopted a rule requiring VoIP providers to provide emergency 911 calling services and they will have only 120…
Op-Eds
If Wishes Were Horses, This Would Be the Kentucky Derby
GENEVA, Switzerland—The 58th World Health Assembly (the World Health Organization's policy-making body) under way here brings to mind the cliché about the contestants…
Op-Eds
Air Sickness: Who’s to Blame? (Part 1)
Full document available in pdf format Business travelers, family visitors, tourists—all are affected by the airline industry’s woes. But who knows what…
Study
Green Building Standards: Why Mandating a Good Idea can be Bad Policy
Full Document Available in PDF “Every hitter likes fastballs, just like everybody likes ice cream. But…
News Release
CEI’s Dinner Photos
Click here to view photos.
News Release
PhRMA President Billy Tauzin To Keynote CEI Annual Dinner
Washington, D.C., May 9, 2005—In his first address to a non-healthcare industry audience since taking the top drug industry post in January, Pharmaceutical Research and…
Op-Eds
Time to End the Breast Implant Circus
Two weeks ago, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration convened an expert advisory panel to review and make recommendations on two silicone breast implants…
Op-Eds
American Dream or American Politics?
To the Editor: Roland J. Hwang has a curious approach to the issue of the auto industry's future (“Hybrids can propel Big 3…
Op-Eds
One Bundle, Many Antitrust Laws: The Dilemma for Digital Products
Alongstanding question in the software debate is whether operating systems and components such as browsers and media players are really separate products bundled as one or…
Products
Mandated Recycling of Electronics: Creating a Mountain out of a Landfill
This article is based on the report, Mandating Recycling of Electronics: A Lose-Lose-Lose Proposition , published by CEI, February 2005. Haste maketh waste in the…
Products
One, Two, Many Broken Windows
Full Document Available in PDF Albert Einstein is often attributed with defining…
Products
Ponzi’s Scheme: The True Story of a Financial Legend
Full Document Available in PDF Many have heard…
CEI Planet
April Issue of CEI’s Monthly Planet
Full Document Available in PDF Environmentalism, RIP? Not So Fast, by Angela…
Op-Eds
What Storm-Tossed FDA Needs
President Bush's nominee to head the Food and Drug Administration, Dr. Lester Mr. Crawford, faces daunting challenges. As acting commissioner for most of…
Op-Eds
A Poor Helmsman Navigates FDA’s Perfect Storm
The President's nominee to head the FDA, Lester Crawford, faces daunting challenges. As acting commissioner for most of the past four years, Crawford…
Op-Eds
Bush’s Nominee is Wrong Guy for FDA at this Critical Time
The president's nominee to head the Food and Drug Administration, Lester Crawford, faces daunting challenges. As acting commissioner for most of the past…
Op-Eds
California’s Bogus Baby Bottle Scare
The California State Assembly is about to consider legislation intended to frighten parents about the safety of baby bottles, teethers, pacifiers and other…
Op-Eds
Anheuser-Busch Trapped In Social-Issue Snare by Steven J. Milloy
Corporate managers might want to think twice about publicly engaging in environmental and social controversies. Budweiser brewer Anheuser-Busch's managers are the latest to learn…
Op-Eds
Hysteria over Cosmetics
Europe-envy by Californians may be fine for makers of champagne and foie gras, but it's disastrous for legislators in search of sound regulatory policy.
Op-Eds
California’s Extreme Makeover
If <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags” />California truly is the bellwether for the rest of the country, get ready for more…
Op-Eds
The Mercantilist Fallacy
The Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) is in trouble. It is so because Congress and the public have forgotten that imports are a…
Op-Eds
A Tremendously Costly Law
Early this year, an unusual full-page ad appeared in the Wall Street Journal and other financial newspapers. The ad attempted to refute claims from businessmen…
Products
A Case of Wine for the Supreme Court
Full Document Available in PDF On December 7, the United…
Products
The Drug Reimportation Controversy
As policy battles go, the drug reimportation debate is an unusual one. On its face, the federal ban on reimporting pharmaceuticals appears to violate the…
CEI Planet
February/ March Issue of CEI’s Monthly Planet
Full Document Available in PDF Featured in the February/March Issue of the…
News Release
A Solution to the Grokster Copyright Debate?
Contact for Interviews: <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags” />Richard Morrison, 202.331.2273 <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns…
News Release
Reviving Real Regulatory Reform
Full Document Available in PDF Washington, D.C., March 24, 2005—Congress and the President, now more than…
News Release
CEI Congratulates DOE on Emissions Decision
Contact: <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office” /> <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags” />Richard Morrison, 202.331.2273…
Op-Eds
Bureaucrats upending NIH
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) faces a revolt by its employees over new, draconian conflict-of-interest rules. They ban all consulting (paid or unpaid) for…
Op-Eds
Ponzi’s Scheme Still Works
Many have heard of Charles Ponzi, the 1920s flimflam — man whose name is now synonymous with con artistry The Oxford English Dictionary defines a…
Op-Eds
Misnamed Activists Are Thorns In Rose Of Agbiotech Foods
In a spin-dominated world where activists claim—often on the flimsiest of data—that this, that or the other thing causes cancer or threatens the…
Op-Eds
Risks in the Modern World: What Prospects for Rationality?
Risk refers to the likelihood that something will go wrong.[1] People naturally fear such mishaps, and risk aversion is a basic survival trait. Only non-survivors…
Op-Eds
Global Tax; or Global Tax Reform?
Am I the only one who noticed that the Kyoto Protocol (imposing artificial constraints on energy use to regulate atmospheric carbon dioxide to…
News Release
UN Sea Treaty Brings ‘Tragedy of the Commons’
Contact for Interviews: <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office” /> Richard Morrison, 202.331.2273 …
Study
The Price is Right—Or Better Be!
Full Document Available in PDF On the popular television game show “The…
Op-Eds
New Agenda Fails to Address Problems
George Bernard Shaw once observed that: “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the…
Op-Eds
Red & Green: Is the President Cutting Enough Environmental Fat?
If you believe the rhetoric from environmental activists about the Bush-administration budget, you would think that the world would come to an end if…
News Release
Bush Budget Missteps On Energy, Environment, Regulatory Reform
<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office” /> Contact for Interviews: Christine Hall, 202.331.2258, or Richard Morrison, 202.331.2273…
News Release
CEI Scholars Respond to Bush Budget
<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office” /> OVERVIEW Analysis from CEI Vice President for Policy Clyde…
News Release
Free Market Reaction to the State of the Union
Contact: Richard Morrison, 202.331.2273 Washington, D.C., February 2, 2005—President Bush’s State of the Union address tonight will expound his vision of an “Ownership Society,” in…
Study
The Viability of Municipal Wi-Fi Networks
Full Document Available in PDF Ownership of broadband networks by municipalities,…
Op-Eds
Different Technology, Similar Service
In the absence of competition, regulations serve to protect consumers against monopoly market power. This is, in theory, the reason why the telecommunications…
Products
Medicine Could Reach for Stars, FDA Willing
Full Document Available in PDF When Bill Gates and Paul Allen…
CEI Planet
CEI Planet: November 2004
Full Document Available in PDF In this issue: “Freeing the Biotech Revolution” by Henry…
News Release
Study: Consumers Could be Hurt by Federal Regulation of Insurance Industry
Contact for interviews: <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office” /> Richard Morrison, 202.331.2273 <?xml:namespace prefix = st1…
Op-Eds
Stunting Corporate Growth
<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office” /> Robert J. Samuelson [op-ed, Dec. 22] dismissed legitimate concerns about the effects of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act…
Op-Eds
The Danger of Too Much Caution
Congress has a long and ignoble history of exaggerated legislative responses to perceived health crises. They seem to be at it again.<?xml:namespace prefix…
Op-Eds
Reid May Lead on Stock Options
In the discussion of winners and losers from Election 2004, one organization that may have suffered a big blow has been overlooked. This…
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