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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This week in ridiculous regulations: flax revenue and female test dummies
President Trump announced reciprocal tariffs. At this point it is uncertain how they would be implemented. Agencies issued new regulations ranging from butterfat testing to…

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Agenda for Congress: Regulation
CEI’s new Agenda for Congress is out now. Each chapter contains pro-market policy recommendations in areas where CEI has expertise. Here are four principles…

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This week in ridiculous regulations: Automatic brakes and horse protection amendments
Sixty-seven people died when a military helicopter and a passenger jet collided near Reagan Airport. President Trump issued an Executive Order to stop all federal…
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Executive Summary – Ten Thousand Commandments 2023
The cost of government extends well beyond what Washington taxes. Federal regulations add another $1.939 trillion to Americans’ annual burden. Federal environmental, safety and health,…
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Chapter 2: Competition Policy That Exiles Competitive Enterprise Harms Equity
Biden has repeatedly claimed, “I’m a capitalist.” He also rightly says that capitalism without competition is “exploitation.” However the top-down vision Biden promotes, which is…
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Chapter 11: Notable Rules and Rulemakings by Agency
In recent Unified Agenda editions and in other venues, federal agencies have noted the regulatory initiatives listed below, among many others pending or recently completed.
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Chapter 14: Government Accountability Office Database on Regulations
The federal government’s reports and databases on regulations serve different purposes: The Federal Register details and depicts the aggregate number of proposed and final rules—both…
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Chapter 16: Liberate to Stimulate: Framing an Agenda for Rightsizing Washington
It should be hard to enact bad law and regulation, not to get rid of them. A whole-of-government spending and regulatory agenda like the one…
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Chapter 12: Federal Regulations Affecting Small Business
Given discrepancies seen in the final rule counts, the overall counts of both small business rules and significant small business rules could also be understated.
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