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
Regulators propose improvements to Clean Water Act regs: CEI analysis
Today, the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers released a pre-publication copy of a supplemental notice of proposed…
Blog
Free the Economy podcast: Maximum New York with Daniel Golliher
In this week’s episode we cover climate collusion between California and Quebec, how luxurious college campuses are breeding socialists, and government…
Blog
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…
Search Posts
Forbes
Americans Celebrate July 4th — But Can They Celebrate Independence?
News reports on Fourth of July polling pointedly distinguish between “proud to be an American” and “proud of America now,” in a way less apparent…
Forbes
What do Scholars Say About the Empirical Relationships Between Regulation and Entrepreneurship?
In the Fraser Institute’s new volume Demographics and Entrepreneurship: Mitigating the Effects of an Aging Population, chapter authors observe that the more red tape and…
Forbes
What Do Scholars Say About The Conceptual Relationship Between Regulation And Entrepreneurship?
We know that “Institutions Matter” when it comes to governance and prosperity. They have to, because the phrase returns over 200,000 Google search results.
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
It was a newsy week, with Justice Kennedy’s retirement announcement, along with some big Supreme Court decisions, including the Janus decision regarding public sector unions;…
Blog
Remarks by CEI President Kent Lassman at 2018 Annual Dinner
Remarks by CEI President Kent Lassman at our Annual Dinner and Reception on June 28, 2018, in Washington, D.C. Welcome to the CEI annual dinner. Thank you all for…
The Wall Street Journal
The Dishwasher Rebellion
The Wall Street Journal cited CEI’s on the dishwasher rebellion. The digital revolution relentlessly enables consumer products to become better, faster and cheaper.
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