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
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Regulatory Reform in the 118th Congress: Separation of Powers Restoration Act
The separation of powers is a key aspect of American government. To decentralize power and ensure checks and balances, the Founders divided the federal government…
City Journal
Roll It Back
Medicaid, the federal-state entitlement for the poor, now provides health insurance to more than one in four Americans. Enrollments surged after the Affordable Care Act…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
An Executive Order from the Biden administration made some of the biggest system-level regulatory changes in years. It raises the threshold for “economically significant”…
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Lessons for Congress from ‘10,000 Commandments’: Regulatory Budgets
One of the lessons learned from this year’s “10,000 Commandments” study is that Congress needs to be more involved in the regulatory process. It needs…
Blog
The Changing Face of Selling Liberty Online
We’ve been publishing and promoting the study for many years, and our strategies and methods have changed as the years have gone by. When we…
USA Today
Trump is Cutting Through Regulations, but Only Congress Can Make it Last
Eventually, politicians will be forced to get spending and deficits under control, but regulatory reforms are just as important to keep the economy growing and…
Blog
‘10,000 Commandments’ at 25: What Have We Learned, What’s to Come?
Wayne Crews has ably documented the regulatory state for twenty-five years and running. But what will the next twenty-five years of “10,000 Commandments” look like?…
Blog
The Cost of Washington’s ‘10,000 Commandments’
Federal regulation cost Americans $1.9 trillion in 2017, or nearly $15,000 per U.S. household—more than Americans spend on any category in their family budget except…
News Release
Trump Administration’s Success in Tackling $2 Trillion Federal Regulatory Burden Faces Risk
While President Trump has slowed the growth of new regulation, there are warning signs that federal agencies are already on track to reverse his progress.
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