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
Washington Examiner
Democrats and Republicans: Unite around abundance
Inflation may finally be starting to wane, but there is no clear end in sight to the economic turmoil that Americans have experienced for nearly…
Americans for Tax Reform
Q&A on Credit Card Regulation
Americans for Tax Reform has been consistently opposed to government regulation of debit and credit card transactions. Last year, ATR opposed the Credit Card Competition…
News Release
CEI Launches “Eye on FTC” Campaign to Raise Awareness of Agency Overreach and Lack of Transparency
WASHINGTON—The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) launched a new “Eye on FTC” educational campaign today to raise awareness about overreach and a lack of…
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Publication
Another Dimension of Regulatory Dark Matter: Over 22,000 Public Notices Annually
Download Chapter 7 as a PDF Without actually passing a law, government can signal expectations and influence various industries—including health care, retirement, education, energy…
Publication
What Comes after “Trillion”? The Unknowable Costs of Regulation and Intervention
Download Chapter 4 as a PDF If real debt levels on the fiscal budget and entitlements can be vastly higher than the public is…
Publication
Swamp Things—Trump’s Discordant Regulatory Impulses Offset His Deregulatory Successes and Expanded the Administrative State
Download Chapter 2 as a PDF President Trump attempted to prune rules and costs and held down regulatory output with more enthusiasm than other…
Publication
The Presidential Dimension of Regulatory Dark Matter: Executive Orders and Memoranda
Download Chapter 6 as a PDF Executive orders, presidential memoranda, and other executive actions make up a large component of executive “lawmaking.” They merit…
Publication
Toward a Federal “Regulatory Budget”
Download Chapter 3 as a PDF When Congress spends, no one questions that disclosure is necessary for voters to hold representatives accountable. Federal expenditure…
Publication
Executive Summary – Ten Thousand Commandments 2021
Download the Executive Summary as a PDF Now a relic, spending control and deficit restraint are indispensable to a nation’s stability and long-term economic…
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