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
Blog
Can the Government Regulate Bitcoins?
Bitcoins themselves cannot be regulated under current law, at least not directly. But certain activities involving…
Blog
Government “Study” on Internet Tax Hides Harmful Small Business Effects
Under presidents of both parties, the Small Business Administration's Office of Advocacy has produced quality independent studies on the harmful tax and regulatory burden on…
Blog
Obamacare Fallout Continues: Obamacare “Winner” Turns Out to Be a Loser Instead
"You screwed me over," says a woman cited by President Obama as an Obamacare success story. Jessica Sanford was used as a prop in the president's "…
Blog
Dumbest Reason to Be Skeptical of Autonomous Vehicles: They Might Cost Auto Mechanics Their Jobs
Today, the House Subcommittee on Highways and Transit of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee held a hearing on “How Autonomous Vehicles Will Shape the Future…
Blog
Cataloging Washington’s Hidden Costs, Part 2: The Unmeasured Impacts of Economic Intervention
Back in Part 1 of Cataloging Washington's Hidden Costs, the topic was the incalculable cost of the loss of liberty in…
Blog
A More Unequal America
Inequality grows hand-in-hand with the growth of the regulatory state. The proliferation of regulations increases economic inequality, since powerful people and politically connected companies know how to shape and manipulate…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
66 new regulations, from corporate mergers to dried bacteria.
Blog
We Didn’t Regulate Credit Cards, We Regulated People
That was the upshot of a panel I spoke at yesterday in New York at the Atlas Liberty Forum. It looked at the impact of…
Blog
Is the FTC Already Capable of Regulating Patent Demand Letters?
The answer is no, except under special circumstances. The question itself arises from comments by Julie P. Samuels of the Electronic…
Blog
The Federal Register Is about to Top 70,000 Pages — And it’s Not Even December
This morning, the Federal Register stood at 68,980 pages. It’s the daily depository of all federal regulations proposed and final. It is our unfortunate Principia Regulatica.
Blog
Illegal Change to Obamacare Is Designed to Scapegoat Insurers, Not Restore Canceled Insurance Policies
If aliens from outer space read today's newspapers, they would assume that America is a dictatorship, not a republic, and that President Obama has the authority…
Blog
Obama Allows Illegal Health Policies, Quickly Pivots to Economy
The furor over the Healthcare.gov website that is merely supposed to automate the process of determining if one is eligible or…
Blog
Antitrust as Corporate Welfare: Imposed Concessions and Conditions on Mergers Are a Fundamental Error
As is now commonplace, American Airlines needed to relent to conditions imposed on the merger with US Airways to secure Department of Justice approval, primarily…
Blog
Under Obamacare, People Pay More for Inferior Health Plans, Lose Health Insurance They Liked
A Colorado woman who championed Obamacare lost her insurance plan. As a CBS TV station in Denver noted, "Millions of people are getting cancellation…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
78 new regulations, from toy guns to tires.
Blog
FDA Trans-Fat Ban Sets Stage to Target Sugar, Salt, and More
On November 7, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced plans to change its classification of trans-fatty acids and remove the designation "Generally Recognized…
Blog
Why Obama’s Pivot from Obamacare to Infrastructure Makes No Sense
President Obama is in New Orleans today to pivot attention to what he’ll call leveraging investment in infrastructure. From the ones and zeros of the…
Blog
Twitter, the JOBS Act, and the Return to IPO Normalcy
The headline read that the company's initial public offering price is "high," and "so is its valuation." The accompanying story explained that the latest tech…
Blog
CEI Podcast for November 7, 2013: A Prohibitive Excise Tax
A new CEI study finds that the most expensive ingredient in beer isn’t grain, hops, or equipment: it’s taxes. Study co-author and Fellow in Consumer…
Blog
Memo to Road Socialists: There Is Nothing Unlibertarian about Road Pricing
Virginia just elected Democrat Terry McAuliffe as governor, as had been predicted by every poll conducted during the past few months -- although at a…
Blog
Senate Poised to Pass Employment Non-Discrimination Act
Yesterday, the Senate voted 61-to-30 to invoke cloture on the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which would ban workplace bias based on sexual orientation or…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
92 new regulations, from student loan paperwork to government employee travel allowances.
Blog
Cataloging Washington’s Hidden Costs: Part 1: The Loss of Liberty
Measure what is measurable, and make measurable what is not so. —Quote frequently attributed to Galileo that he probably never said. Washington is teeing up…
Blog
CEI Study Supports Tax Cuts for Beer
If you’ve read Lauren French’s Politico article on the two beer tax reduction bills currently under consideration in Congress, you might think that the Competitive…
Blog
Mel Watt Fails Taxpayer, Privacy, and Transparency Tests
Former Rep. Mel Watt, D-N.C., failed his procedural confirmation vote today to head the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which oversees the government housing entities Fannie…
Blog
Towards a More Transparent Fed
Iain Murray and I have a piece in today's American Spectator breaking down the new paper we co-wrote with John Berlau.
Blog
Happy Halloween! FAA to Allow Portable Electronic Devices During All Flight Phases
A month ago, a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Aviation Rulemaking Committee (ARC) recommended that the agency drop its ban on portable electronic device (PED)…
Blog
CEI Podcast for October 30, 2013: Bringing Transparency to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
George Mason University law professor and Mercatus Center senior scholar Todd Zywicki discusses his paper, "The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau: Savior or Menace?"…
Blog
Don’t Let FTC Shut Down Legit Credit Repair Services
Next to the infamous Healthcare.gov, the website that featured the most bugs of the last month was FTC.gov, the site of the Federal Trade Commission. During…
Blog
Questions for Janet Yellen
Even if it is nominally independent, the Federal Reserve is arguably the government’s most important agency. It has control over the price system, the most…
Blog
Racial Preferences in Obamacare, and Discrimination, Too, Based on Weird Ideology
The Daily Caller has an interesting story about race-conscious provisions and racial preferences contained in Obamacare. It's a subject that has received remarkably little…
Blog
An Alarmist Vocabulary: Chemical Is “Linked To,” “Study Suggests,” “Consistent With”
Headlines continue to appear to claiming that a recent study has shown that the chemical bisphenol A increases the risk of miscarriage, which I addressed…
Blog
Racial Preferences and Red Tape Grow Under Federal Dodd-Frank Act
Last Friday on National Review's The Corner, Roger Clegg wrote about the 2010 law governing the financial sector, the Dodd-Frank Act, and the racial "diversity quotas"…
Letters
REINS Act coalition letter
We, the undersigned public interest organizations, write to urge you to support the Regulations from the Executive In Need of Scrutiny Act of 2013 (the…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
78 new regulations, from energy-efficient urinals to interstate turtle requirements.
Citation
The heavy price of regulations
Moreover, countless other federal, state, local and international regulatory authorities are busy interpreting, implementing and imposing rules under thousands of laws, ordinances and treaties. The…
News Release
Senate Action on $2 Trillion Gov’t Regulatory Burden Urgently Needed
WASHINGTON, Oct. 28 — Regulatory reform is urgently needed to get our economy and businesses out of the doldrums, and there’s a House-passed bill that…
Blog
Contradictory Financial Regulations Cause Problems
It’s a case of “When Regulations Collide.” As we’ve seen in the energy field, contradictory regulations cost jobs as employers struggle to comply with…
Blog
Glitches and Errors Widespread on Obamacare Health Insurance Website
In addition to the Obamacare web site glitches that left people unable to purchase insurance despite hours or days of trying, the website dramatically…
Blog
Alcohol Crimes Decline in Washington After Liquor Sales Privatization
In the lead up to Washington State voters approving privatization of liquor sales in the state, opponents claimed—as they always do—that the increased availability and…
Blog
The Implications of Kludgeocracy
Steven Teles tells us in the fall issue of National Affairs that over the next decades, the challenge of "kludgeocracy" will come to the forefront of…
Blog
More Bipartisan Opposition to Obama Administration’s Move to Block Airline Merger (Including Rahm Emanuel)
Another day, another round of public bipartisan opposition to the Obama Department of Justice’s lawsuit to block the pending American Airlines and US Airways merger.
Blog
FTC Likely to Approve Office Depot, Office Max Merger
According to news sources, the Federal Trade Commission is likely to approve the merger of Office Depot and OfficeMax, the second- and third-largest office…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
Shutdown edition: 3 new regulations. Two Coast Guard safety zones and a catch limit for herring.
Blog
Loosened Laws in New Jersey Result in Brewery Boom
Only a year after New Jersey Governor Chris Christie signed a bill into law that would allow breweries in the garden state to sell beer…
Blog
CEI Podcast for October 17, 2013: Supreme Court to Review EPA Carbon Emission Regulation Lawsuit
CEI is a co-petitioner in the case.
Blog
More than a Third of House Dems Oppose Obama’s American-US Airways Merger Lawsuit; What Real Pro-Competition Policy Looks Like
Bipartisan opposition to the Obama administration’s reckless assault on the pending merger of American Airlines and US Airways is growing. While the end of the…
Blog
The Shutdown Is Over: What Now for Regulation?
The next day or two will also be slow ones for the Federal Register. But then there will be a flood of new rules as…
Citation
Regulatory overreach is the new normal
The Federal Register lists proposed and final rules, notices, corrections and presidential documents. According to the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the 1939 Federal Register was 2,620…
Citation
Regulating The Citizenry: What Really Happened During The Partial Government Shutdown
During the partial government shutdown, other agencies were also busy regulating the American people. As the Competitive Enterprise Institute reports, the federal government set…
Blog
How Is the Shutdown Affecting Regulation?
Short answer: not much. Over at the Daily Caller, I go over some data from this shutdown, as well as the two Gingrich-Clinton showdowns.
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
Shutdown edition: 6 new regulations, from Basel III to bridge repair.
Daily Caller
How the shutdown is impacting regulation
For the seventeenth time since current budgeting rules were adopted in 1976, the federal government is shut down. Seventeen years of relative peace have devolved…
Daily Caller
Regulatory scrutiny must be part of a deal
We all know how this is going to end. A deal will be made. Both sides will claim victory. Their bases will claim they sold…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
113 new regulations, from drawbridge schedules to viticultural areas.
Blog
Twitter IPO a Vindication of Bipartisan JOBS Act
Almost two years ago, I wrote a Wall Street Journal op-ed entitled, "Making It Legal to Tweet for Investors." In the op-ed, I described bipartisan bills…
Blog
Regulators and Justice
The federal government cajoled JP Morgan into acquiring Bear Stearns. Now they are punishing JP Morgan for crimes allegedly committed by Bear Stearns prior to…
Blog
Regulatory Transparency Is Decidedly Lacking
The Office of Management and Budget reviewed a grand total of 47 regulations last year, or a little more than 1 percent of the total.
Washington Times
The real cost of federal regulations
When the news broke that the National Security Agency has been monitoring Americans’ communications, the Obama administration was reluctant to discuss if it…
Blog
Obamacare Quadruples Rates for Some, Subsidizes Some Wealthy Who Retired Early
Due to Obamacare, North Carolina "will see individual-market" health insurance rates "triple for women, and quadruple for men." In Tennessee, Obamacare will…
Blog
Green Policies Translate Into Less Food, Higher Prices
Thanks to misguided bureaucracy and fear mongering from environmental activists, myriad valuable products are disappearing from the marketplace. Walmart, Proctor & Gamble, and…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
80 new regulations, from bird hunting to fluted kidneyshells.
Washington Times
Sunday pops
But Competitive Enterprise Institute numbers crunchers easily identified billions upon billions of dollars of the fattest of fat. But, then again, it’s pretty difficult to…
Blog
Environmental Regulations Threaten Refining Sector Jobs
I had the privilege of meeting with Charlie Drevna, President of American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers this week. He had some extremely interesting things to…
Blog
Don’t Nudge On Me
In a recent New York Times column, David Brooks describes American culture as “mentally lazy.” Overcoming that, he argues, requires a dose of what he calls…
Blog
Labor Department Imposes Disability Hiring Quotas, Even in Divisions that Don’t Get Federal Contracts
The Obama Labor Department has just finalized rules that will effectively require businesses that get federal contracts to adopt a 7 percent hiring quota for the…
Blog
The Regulatory Improvement Commission
Senators Angus King (I-Me.) and Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) are introducing a bill that would create just such a commission. Over at The American Spectator, Wayne…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
76 new regulations, from pet stores to food containers.
The American Spectator
The Regulatory Improvement Commission
There are regulations for everything from restaurant menus to walk-in freezers’ energy efficiency. Almost no one denies that the nation’s economy is saddled with some…
Blog
CEI Podcast for September 20, 2013: The EPA’s Latest Attempt to Ban Coal
A proposed rule issued today by the EPA would effectively ban new coal-fired power plants from being built. According to William Yeatman, Assistant Director of…
Blog
Executive Branch Review of Federal Regulations — Still Highly Incomplete
In the 2014 fiscal budget proposal, the White House praised regulation of auto safety, energy efficiency and credit cards, and claimed, "…
Blog
Ignoring the Government’s Role in the Financial Crisis, Five Years Later
When it comes to reporting on the 2008 financial crisis, many journalists are experts at ignoring the elephant in the room: the government's role in…
Blog
More Harm from “Disparate Impact” Regulations
Earlier, we wrote about the Obama administration’s attempt to inject a race-conscious “disparate impact” provision into colorblind anti-discrimination laws like the Fair Housing Act,…
Blog
Mississippi Should Tell CFPB to “Stop Spying on Me”
The federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is coming to Mississippi Wednesday and Thursday with a public forum on "access to information." A vital question for Mississippians to…
Blog
Congress to Mark Up Small Business Regulatory Flexibility Bill
The Regulatory Flexibility Act directs federal agencies to assess the effects of their rules on small businesses. How’s that going? A new book…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
61 new regulations, from banned avocados to sweet corn insurance.
Forbes
Obama Addresses Economy And ‘The Financial Crisis Five Years Later’
Today and this week, President Obama will address The Financial Crisis: Five Years Later in an effort shift attention back to domestic economic…
Blog
CEI Opposes Risky, Race-Conscious Federal Lending Requirements in Supreme Court Case
“Disparate impact” is a term in anti-discrimination law for when a neutral policy happens to affect minorities more than whites. One example is a standardized…
Blog
Green Market Pressure Takes Toll on Consumer Choice
When environmentalists don’t have the political power to regulate away consumer choice, they sometimes can get industry to do the job for them. Most recently,…
Blog
Update on American Airlines-US Airways Merger: Judge Approves American’s Bankruptcy Plan
Today, Judge Sean Lane of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York approved American Airlines’s reorganization plan to exit bankruptcy protection,…
Forbes
Slow-Growth Policies Fuel Income Gap
The Competitive Enterprise Institute pegs the annual cost of environmental and other federal regulation at $1.8 trillion. A study cited by the U.S. Chamber of…
Blog
Paul and Udall Push Bipartisan Credit Union Business Lending Regulatory Reform
Today, the Credit Union National Association (CUNA) is launching its "Don't Tax Tuesday" in which credit unions and their supporters tweet members of Congress…
Blog
Before Net Neutrality Eats the World (Part 15): Can We Please End This. Please.
Today, Monday, September 9, 2013, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit will hear oral arguments in Verizon’s challenge…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
58 new regulations, from foreign tax credits to growing dates in Riverside County, California.
Blog
Before Net Neutrality Eats the World (Part 14): What Should Congress Do?
(Note: On September 9, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit will hear oral arguments in Verizon’s challenge of…
Blog
Before Net Neutrality Eats the World (Part 13): What FCC Should Do Now
(Note: On September 9, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit will hear oral arguments in Verizon’s challenge of…
Blog
Before Net Neutrality Eats the World (Part 12): Why Net Neutrality Threatens Homeland Security and Cybersecurity
(Note: On September 9, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit will hear oral arguments in Verizon’s challenge of…
Blog
Scholars React to President’s Call to Shrink Law School from Three Years to Two
We earlier discussed (and agreed with) President Obama’s suggestion that law schools cut their length of study to two years from the current three…
Blog
Before Net Neutrality Eats the World (Part 11): The Inappropriateness of Compulsory Transparency
(Note: On September 9, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit will hear oral arguments in Verizon’s challenge of…
Blog
Ronald Coase, Nobel Prize-Winning Economist, Dies at 102; CEI Releases Interview Footage From 2004
Ronald Coase, the University of Chicago economist who won the 1991 Nobel “for his discovery and clarification of the significance of transaction costs and…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
81 new regulations, from “shared responsibility payments” to Segelflugzeugbau sailplanes.
Blog
MoveOn admits: “[I]f younger, healthier people don’t participate, then costs will skyrocket and Obamacare will fail.”
MoveOn.org yesterday sent me an appeal asking for $5 to help fund a $250,000 social media campaign supporting ObamaCare targeted to reach young adults. Here’s…
Blog
Before Net Neutrality Eats the World (Part 10): Who’s Discriminating Online?
(Note: On September 9, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit will hear oral arguments in Verizon’s challenge of…
Blog
CEI Podcast for August 29, 2013: Consequences of Net Neutrality
Have a listen here. In 2010, the FCC issued regulations to implement net neutrality. The resulting legal challenge is about to hit the D.C.
Blog
Before Net Neutrality Eats the World (Part 9): How to Expand Consumer Choice and Access to Content
(Note: On September 9, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit will hear oral arguments in Verizon’s challenge of…
Blog
Before Net Neutrality Eats the World (Part 8): The Essential Elements of Non-Destructive Rulemaking
(Note: On September 9, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit will hear oral arguments in Verizon’s challenge of…
Blog
Historians Should Learn the Economic Way of Thinking
Simon Schama is one of the world’s great historians. Indeed, I am currently having my children watch his magisterial “History of Britain,” and they are…
Blog
Before Net Neutrality Eats the World (Part 7): Mandatory Dumb Pipes? But Why Sacrifice Genius?
(Note: On September 9, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit will hear oral arguments in Verizon’s challenge of…
Blog
Before Net Neutrality Eats the World (Part 6): Does “Market Failure” Demand Neutrality Regulation?
(Note: On September 9, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit will hear oral arguments in Verizon’s challenge of…
Blog
President Obama: Cut Law School from Three Years to Two
President Obama, a lawyer who once was a lecturer at the University of Chicago, recently urged law schools to reduce the length of study from three years…
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