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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National Review
Biden’s Regulatory Pen and Phone Must Be Replaced with an ‘Abuse-of-Crisis Prevention Act’
For folks who talk about boring topics such as federal regulation, it’s normal to discuss costs and counts. I’m one of those people. I actually enjoy writing…
Blog
A Sustained Recovery Needs a Deregulatory Stimulus
Over in The Hill, Wayne Crews and I argue that more deficit spending won’t help the COVID recovery. Regulatory reform is more powerful stimulus…
The Hill
Sustained Economic Growth Needs Congressional Regulatory Reform
Former President Trump was the first president in 30 years to take a serious interest in regulatory reform. You might have to go back to former…
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Blog
The 2021 Edition of Ten Thousand Commandments Is Out Now
How much does regulation cost? It’s hard to tell, due to a lack of transparency. The government is legally required to tell the public how…
Publication
Tens of Thousands of Pages and Rules in the Federal Register
Download Chapter 5 as a PDF The Federal Register is the daily repository of all proposed and final federal rules and regulations. Although its…
Publication
Liberate to Stimulate
Download Chapter 10 as a PDF Policy makers frequently propose spending stimulus to grow or strengthen economies. That was certainly the case in the…
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…
Staff & Scholars
Clyde Wayne Crews
Vice President for Policy and Senior Fellow
- Business and Government
- Consumer Freedom
- Deregulation
Ryan Young
Senior Fellow
- Antitrust
- Business and Government
- Regulatory Reform
Fred L. Smith, Jr.
Founder; Chairman Emeritus
- Automobiles and Roads
- Aviation
- Business and Government
Sam Kazman
General Counsel
- Antitrust
- Automobiles and Roads
- Banking and Finance
Marlo Lewis, Jr.
Senior Fellow
- Climate
- Energy
- Energy and Environment