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
Blog
This week in ridiculous regulations: airline fees and greenhouse gas reporting
The Federal Register grew at nearly triple its usual pace last week. It is on pace for its first-ever 100,000-page year. GDP growth slowed to…
The Center Square
Study: Mixed record on permitting reform offers some hope
CEI’s James Broughel provided comments to The Center Square about a study he authored: “Pennsylvania’s a state where energy is very important to its…
Forbes
Libertarian Victory: You Mean We Can Shut Down Government Without Even Passing A Law?
It is happening again. Congress will enact another bloated, pork-laden and largely unread omnibus spending bill to complete formal appropriations for the 2024 fiscal year…
Search Posts
National Review
The Threat from Biden’s ‘Whole of Government’ Regulatory Approach
When the U.S. federal administrative state began its march from novelty to leviathan over a century ago, few likely imagined the tangle of rules it would…
Blog
Ten Thousand Commandments 2022 Released
The 2022 edition of Wayne Crews’s Ten Thousand Commandments report is out now. Now in its 28th year, it has its usual panoply of…
Products
Chapter 7: A Note on Notice and Rule Reviews at OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs
Tracking the effects of rules and regulations, executive orders, memoranda, and regulatory guidance is vital. These alternative regulatory actions have become powerful means of working…
Products
Chapter 6: Another Dimension of Regulatory Dark Matter: Over 21,000 Agency Public Notices Annually
Along with presidential proclamations are those of departments and agencies. Without actually passing a law, government can signal expectations, specify parameters for, and influence…
Products
Chapter 1: Biden’s Regulatory “Modernization” Expanding Government Affirms the Unworkability of Administrative State Rule
Where recent editions of Ten Thousand Commandments began by surveying of approaches the Trump administration took to streamline red tape as well as of Trump’s…
Products
Chapter 2: Beyond a Federal “Regulatory Budget”
Federal programs get funded either by taxes or by borrowing against a promise to repay with interest from future tax collections. When Congress spends, no…
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