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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DOGE cancellation theatrics change nothing in the regulatory power game
“Trump administration officials have not openly said that DOGE no longer exists.” That admission came 10 paragraphs into a widely reported “exclusive” Reuters story claiming…
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Free the Economy podcast: Sesquicentennial celebration
In this week’s episode we celebrate the show’s sesquicentennial anniversary – that is, our 150th episode. We look back at the dozens of smart,…
Blog
Shutdown lesson: Depend less on DC
The record-length shutdown showed how dependent many Americans are on Washington. This is one of the biggest flaws in the ongoing nationalization of politics. In…
Search Posts
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BPA Junk Science Headaches
Could your affection for bottled water be responsible for your bout with migraines? Apparently so, if you believe the latest headlines about the chemical…
Citation
Drowning In A Costly, Intrusive Federal Regulatory Flood
Earlier this week, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, which has a long history of highlighting Washington’s regulatory excess, said that during the first week of December,…
The American Spectator
The Legislature’s First Job Is Not to Legislate
Defenders of Sen. Harry Reid’s triggering of the “nuclear option,” ending the filibuster for all Executive Branch nominees save those to the Supreme Court, call…
Blog
Minimum Wage Increases Harm the Young, Unskilled, and Less Educated
Minimum wage increases eliminate some jobs. Real world examples abound. As a business owner explains: The minimum wage kills jobs. End of story. I am…
Blog
CEI Podcast for December 12, 2013: The Affordable Care Act’s Marriage Penalties
The Affordable Care Act's subsides and tax credits are structured in such a way as to cause thousands of dollars worth of penalties for many…
The American Spectator
Fixing the nation’s leaky waterworks
Here’s a novel idea: Why not unleash the creative talents of America’s best scientists and engineers, and allow the products and technologies they develop to…
Blog
The Volcker Winter Storm — Bad Rule, Worse Implementation
On a snowy day in Washington, several federal agencies packed some mean regulatory snowballs that will most likely overshoot their supposed destination of Wall Street…
Blog
Volcker Rule Curbs Useful, Profitable Proprietary Trading, Not Risky Lending
The government just approved a regulation called the Volcker Rule to curb proprietary trading by banks -- even though such trading did not cause the financial crisis,…
The Atlantic
How Pope Francis Misunderstands the World
Just how free the free market really is today is debatable. The United States is perceived as the paragon of free-market capitalism. And yet over…
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Busybodies in Congress Prepared to Re-Prohibit Voice Communications During Flight
After two decades with a ban on the books, the Federal Communications Commission is set to consider allowing transmitting mobile devices on aircraft. On…
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CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
95 new regulations, from mad cow disease to falconry federalism.
Fox News
Regulation Nation: Gov’t regs estimated to pound private sector with $1.8T in costs
A new report on the government's regulatory actions was released just before Thanksgiving, and it contains more than 3,300 rules -- which the Competitive Enterprise…
Blog
Retailers Only Sell Half a Loaf in their Analysis of the Costs of Interchange Fees
In a comment on my American Spectator article on the deleterious effects of debit card interchange fees on American households, Sara Durr, Spokesperson for…
Blog
President Pushes Welfare Rather than Opportunity and Social Mobility in Speech about Inequality
"President Obama on Wednesday declared that addressing income inequality would be the focus of 'all' of the White House’s efforts 'for the rest of…
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The Administration’s Regulatory Uncertainty
Groups like the Center for American Progress are claiming that the possibility of another row over the budget and debt ceiling are creating “uncertainty”…
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Hypocritical New Yorkers Whine about High Housing Prices while Supporting High-Price Policies
The New York Post today has a story on what it describes as "new hipsters fight[ing] old hipsters in Brooklyn." The gist of it…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
77 new regulations, from red porgies to homopolymers.
Blog
CEI Podcast for November 27, 2013: Toxic Turkey Day?
Senior Fellow Angela Logomasini debunks scare stories about chemicals in your family's Thanksgiving dinner, from BPA in canned foods to naturally occurring pesticides in potatoes.
Blog
Cataloging Washington’s Hidden Costs, Part 3: The Costs of Regulatory Benefits
In the first installment of "Cataloging Washington's Hidden Costs," the topic was loss of liberty; in…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
60 new regulations, from salamanders to beans from Jordan.
Fox News
Obamacare Will Kill the Middle Class
This is what it looks like when government tries to create a more perfect society by intervening in the private economy and taking away consumer…
Blog
Taxpayer-Funded Propaganda to Show the “Evils” of Private Alcohol Sales
As if there wasn’t enough money in politics, now government agencies are using taxpayer dollars—our dollars—in an attempt to influence state policy. The National Institutes…
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…
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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?"…
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