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
News Release
CEI study: Congress should establish limits on regulatory power to ensure agencies are not answering major policy questions
Many of the biggest policy decisions affecting the lives of Americans are made by federal agencies, not Congress. According to a new report from…
Study
Congress, Not Agencies, Should Answer Major Policy Questions
Many of the biggest policy decisions affecting the lives of Americans are made by federal agencies, not Congress. During the Biden administration, this has included…
Blog
Congress should heed GAO’s new regulatory reform recommendations
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a December 2023 report titled “Options for Enhancing Congressional Oversight of Rulemaking and Establishing an Office of Legal…
Search Posts
Forbes
Congress Must Mobilize To Halt Biden’s Radical Administrative State Transformation
[T]he genius of the Progressives in the late 19th century was to preempt or push large sectors of the emerging future (the environment,…
Blog
Congress shouldn’t party like it’s 2019 on national debt
Now comes the GOP’s turn to do its own version of a “lockdown.” Republicans should heed the advice of a member of the other party, Rahm…
News Release
House Republicans Helpfully Tie Government Reforms to Debit Limit Deal
House Republican leadership yesterday released the text of their debt limit deal which trades a suspension or increase in the debt limit for a number…
National Review
No, Lockdown States Did Not Do Better
Many politicians, public-health figures, and media pundits continue to insist that the Covid lockdowns were a success and represent a blueprint for future pandemic responses. Illinois…
Blog
Biden Executive Order Harms Transparency
The Biden administration recently issued an Executive Order making major changes to the regulatory system, although almost nobody noticed thanks to culture war drama…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Headline CPI inflation went down slightly, but a deeper look shows that things got slightly worse. Meanwhile, agencies issued new regulations ranging from low-fat…
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