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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The week in regulations: Marine terminal fires and marijuana rescheduling
The Federal Reserve held interest rates steady, and outgoing Chairman Jerome Powell will remain on the Fed’s Board of Governors when Kevin Warsh takes over.
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Free the Economy podcast: The business of Federalism with Derek Kreifels
In this week’s episode we cover childcare in the 50 states, how to fix rising healthcare costs, the new Institute for…
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The week in regulations: Pipeline safety and NFL Draft security
Federal Reserve Chair nominee Kevin Warsh had his confirmation hearing, and President Trump dropped his criminal investigation into Jerome Powell. The government is poised to…
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Chapter 5: Over 19,000 agency public notices annually
Presidents issue a few dozen memoranda and other proclamations each year. Departments and agencies, however, issue thousands of public notices in the Federal Register every…
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Chapter 4: Regulatory dark matter
Although executive actions are typically understood to deal with the internal operations of the federal government, they increasingly can have binding effects and influence private…
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Chapter 10: Federal rules affecting state and local governments
State and local officials’ concerns about federal mandates overriding their priorities resulted in passage of the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act (UMRA) of 1995. The law…
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Chapter 2: Why we need a regulatory budget
Federal spending programs are funded either by taxes or by borrowing, with interest, from future tax collections. The public can readily inspect the costs of…
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Chapter 8: Economically significant rules
From 1993 until April 2023, rules with annual economic effects of at least $100 million were classified as economically significant. Biden’s EO 14094 raised the…
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Chapter 9: Federal regulations affecting small business
The National Association of Manufacturers report reaffirmed that average annual per-employee regulatory costs vary by firm size. The smaller the organization, the higher the per-employee…
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