Regulatory reform is a broad and all-encompassing policy goal of the Competitive Enterprise Institute. It is essential for entrepreneurship, innovation, and prosperity to flourish. We advocate for reform by surveying the size, scope, and cost of federal regulations. We show how they affect the U.S. economy at large and making proposals to policy makers to enact reforms.

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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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…

Regulatory Reform

News Release

Bracing for e-prohibition on wine?

<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office” /> Contact for interviews:     <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags” />Richard Morrison,…

Free Speech

Op-Eds

Stock Option Expense Jousting

After hearing constant tirades about <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags” />U.S. foreign policy offending “the world,” a majority of American voters…

Regulatory Reform

Op-Eds

Fear Factor

Environmental activists seeking to halt the worldwide spread of the advanced technologies they fear see <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags” />China…

Health and Safety

Op-Eds

RFID Tags and Privacy

  • By: Stub

  Radio frequency identification (RFID) technology promises many consumer benefits. With RFID, goods on trucks, in trains, and in warehouses can be inventoried without unloading…

Regulatory Reform

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