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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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…
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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…
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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,…
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‘Gundy’ Decision Could Signal Fundamental Reform of Administrative State
It is hard to describe how important the Supreme Court decision last week in Gundy v. United States is. In one sense, nothing changed—no case…
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Costs of Deadweight Effects of Federal Spending and of ‘Budget’ or ‘Transfer’ Rules
Theoretically, policymakers distinguish between economic and social regulation when examining and reporting on costs, effects, and employment.
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Guidance Documents of the Week
Guidance documents are statements of policy issued by your favorite alphabet soup of agencies, which more often than not translate into law, despite rarely going…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Wednesday, the day before the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s 35th anniversary gala dinner, saw no new final regulations published in the Federal Register. This may be…
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Australia Needs an Administrative Procedure Act
In the United States, there is an intellectual movement going on the likes of which have not been seen in nearly a century. The administrative…
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For Better Policy, Congress Should Stop Punting to Executive Agencies
Yesterday the Federalist Society’s Regulatory Transparency Project and Article I Initiative hosted a fascinating panel discussion here in Washington, D.C. about the dynamic relationship between…
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Clyde Wayne Crews
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Fred L. Smith, Jr.
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