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
The executive order that could kill trillion-dollar bailouts
The federal government doesn’t just spend—it also regulates through spending. That’s one reason crises so often inflate Washington’s role in American life. But as I…
Blog
The week in regulations: Pool ladders and helicopters
President Trump paused his Liberation Day tariffs after financial markets crashed. Even with the pause, America’s tariffs are still among the world’s highest. Agencies issued…
Blog
Paul Atkins is an excellent choice to lead the SEC
On Wednesday, the Senate confirmed Paul S. Atkins to serve as chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). As I have stated before,…
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The E.O. 13891 Guidance Document Portal: An Exercise in Utility
Federal agencies have been required by Executive Order 13891 to create “a single, searchable, indexed database that contains or links to all guidance documents in effect.” Agencies…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The USMCA trade agreement came into effect on July 1, and three states increased their minimum wages. The unemployment rate went down to 11.1 percent.
Blog
Trump’s Regulatory Reform Agenda by the Numbers, Summer 2020 Update
The administration released the Spring 2020 Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions. Its purpose is to lay out regulatory priorities of the federal…
Forbes
How Donald Trump Has Cut Regulation – But Also Added It
Spending control and deficit restraint are indispensable to a nation’s stability and long term economic health. Before the economic lockdown, federal debt service was already…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Consumer spending rose 8.2 percent in May, a new record that gives hope for a quicker economic recovery. On the other hand, new coronavirus cases…
Forbes
Regulating Social Media Content Moderation Will Backfire And Make Big Tech More Powerful
As repeatedly noted by defenders of free speech, expressing popular opinions never needs protection. Rather, it is the commitment to protecting dissident expression that is…
Blog
Podcast: Reforming #NeverNeeded Regulations
The John Locke Foundation has released a Rebound Plan for North Carolina, where it is based—the basketball reference is a nice touch. It contains reform…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Trade protectionists have taken to calling free traders soft on China. According to John Bolton’s forthcoming book, it turns out to be the other way…
Blog
Has Trump Been a Net Deregulator?
Pierre Lemieux, in Regulation magazine, draws from the new 2020 edition of Ten Thousand Commandments to estimate the Trump administration's net impact on regulation. Trump’s…
Blog
Emergencies and the Project Manager’s Dilemma
Government agencies’ initial responses to the COVID-19 crisis were notable for one particular characteristic: incompetence. From basic errors in data collection, through failed lab safety…
Blog
A Look At Trump’s Deregulatory Record and How More of the Same Can Anchor the Next Coronavirus Recovery Package
I remembered wondering in 2017 whether the federal government would be larger or smaller after four years of Trump. The debt has now topped $25 trillion and the deficit alone…
The Washington Examiner
Trump’s Regulatory ‘Impulses’ Threaten Victories Over Swamp
The Washington Examiner cites Competitive Enterprise Institute Vice President Clyde Wayne Crews regarding regulation in the Trump administration. President Trump has continued his unprecedented rollback of…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The rate of new coronavirus cases increased last week, adding a note of caution to tentative efforts at reopening. Regulatory agencies issued new final regulations…
Blog
#NeverNeed Regulations and the Coronavirus
What is the appropriate public policy response to COVID-19 crisis? In a new short video, Kent Lassman makes the case for lifting government barriers that…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Friday’s 13.3 percent unemployment rate announcement was actually good news, and says much about the more than 600 regulations waived so far at various levels…
Blog
Trump Executive Order to Expedite Project Approvals
President Trump on June 4 issued an Executive Order intended to expedite the federal approval process for major infrastructure projects. “Economic Recovery from the COVID-19…
Blog
Pandemics, #NeverNeeded Regulations, and Ten Thousand Commandments
At Inside Sources, Wayne Crews and Ryan Young have an op-ed summarizing the main findings of Wayne’s new 2020 edition of Ten Thousand Commandments, plus…
Blog
Time to Permanently Sunset Waived #NeverNeeded Regulations
Many regulations have proven especially harmful during the COVID-19 crisis. But many of those waivers are temporary. Those temporary waivers should be made permanent. One…
The Washington Examiner
Kill the Never-Needed Regulations Slowing the Economic Recovery
Our attention is focused on a single, terrible story like we’ve rarely seen before, a story that commands such a level of attention because it…
The Washington Examiner
New Report Reveals the Crushing Costs that Federal Regulations Impose on Average Households
The Washington Examiner cites Vice President for Policy Wayne Crews on CEI’s 2020 10kc report: Free market conservatives and libertarians well understand the…
Reason
The Pandemic Is a Reminder That Many Regulations Are Both Costly and Unnecessary
Reason cites Vice President for Policy Wayne Crews on CEI’s 2020 10kc report: Instead, to calculate the cost of these sorts of rules,…
The Washington Times
Trump Signs Broad Order to Speed Deregulation and Relax Red Tape for Economic Recovery
The Washington Times cites Vice President for Policy Wayne Crews on deregulation by President Trump: Wayne Crews, vice president for policy at the…
Fox Business
Trump signs E.O.: ‘Regulations will be cut’
Fox Business cites CEI’s 2019 publication of 10kc: As of April 28, the Trump administration had put 277 deregulation orders into place since…
Study
The Case against Social Media Content Regulation
As repeatedly noted by most defenders of free speech, expressing popular opinions never needs protection. Rather, it is the commitment to protecting dissident expression that…
Blog
Six Ways the Trump Administration Has Reduced Regulation
Apart from sector-specific executive orders and directives to federal agencies, there are six prominent ways the Trump administration has streamlined regulation that were covered in…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
CEI released the 2020 edition of Wayne Crews’s annual Ten Thousand Commandments report, which gives a big-picture view of the federal regulatory state. Regulatory agencies…
Citation
Federal Regulations Cost an Estimated $1.9 Trillion per Year: Many Rules Hinder Virus Response, Economic Recovery
The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) today released the 2020 edition of Ten Thousand Commandments: An Annual Snapshot of the Federal Regulatory State (10KC 2020), CEI’s annual survey of…
The Wall Street Journal
The Incredible Shrinking Quorum
How can Congress do its work in a time of social distancing? The Senate has remained in session as usual, but the House took steps…
National Review
How Loosening Regulations Can Fight Coronavirus and Help the Economy
If a regulation isn’t needed during a crisis, it was probably never needed at all. To his credit, President Trump signed an executive order on May…
The Washington Times
Trump Behind on Promise to Cut Two Rules for Every New One, Study Shows
The Washington Times cites CEI’s 10kc report: The Competitive Enterprise Institute’s annual report on the cost of regulations found that Mr. Trump cut regulations…
The Federalist
New Report Exposes Onerous Overregulation From The Administrative State
The Federalist cites CEI’s 10kc report: A new report from the libertarian Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) offers new insight into just how much unelected…
Blog
Out Now: The 2020 Edition of Ten Thousand Commandments
The 2020 edition of Ten Thousand Commandments is out. Wayne Crews’s annual report gives a big picture view of the federal regulatory state. There has…
The Federalist
Here Is A Catalog Of Trump’s Threats To Regulate Social Media
The major print and cable television news media outlets are abuzz with stories of Twitter fact-checking President Donald Trump’s tweets. Alleged…
Products
Liberate to Stimulate
Download Chapter 10 as PDF Policy makers frequently propose spending stimulus as a way to grow economies. It rarely goes well. A regulatory liberalization…
Products
Government Accountability Office Database on Regulations
Download Chapter 9 as a PDF The various federal reports and databases on regulations serve different purposes: The Federal Register shows the ag- gregate…
Products
Analysis of the Regulatory Plan and Unified Agenda of Federal Regulations
View Full Document as PDF The Regulatory Plan and Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions (Agenda) is the document where agencies outline…
News Release
Report: Trump Deregulation Proceeds, But Threatened by Trump Regulation
The Competitive Enterprise Institute issued a report today on the burden imposed by federal government regulations: Ten Thousand Commandments: An Annual Snapshot of the Federal Regulatory…
Products
Regulatory Dark Matter: Over 22,000 Public Notices Annually
Download Chapter 7 as a PDF Without actually passing a law, government can signal expectations, specify parameters for and influence various industries—including health care,…
Products
Regulatory Dark Matter: Presidential Executive Orders and Memoranda
Download Chapter 6 as a PDF Executive orders, presidential memoranda, and other executive actions make up a large component of executive “lawmaking.” They merit…
Products
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.427 Although its…
Products
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…
Products
Toward a Federal “Regulatory Budge”
Download Chapter 3 as a PDF When Congress spends, no one questions that disclosure is necessary for voters to hold representatives accountable. Federal expenditure…
Products
Swamp Things – Trump’s Discordant Regulatory Impulses Threaten to Derail His Successes and Expand the Administrative State
Download Chapter 2 as a PDF President Trump has pruned rules and costs and held down regulatory output with more enthusiasm than other presidents.146 Trump…
Products
9,999 Commandments? Six Ways Rule Flows Have Been Reduced or Streamlined
Download Chapter 1 as a PDF This edition of Ten Thousand Commandments begins with a survey of approaches the Trump administration took in its…
Study
Ten Thousand Commandments 2020 – Executive Summary
Download the Executive Summary as a PDF Spending control and deficit restraint are indispensable to a nation’s stability and long-term economic health. Yet alarm…
Study
Ten Thousand Commandments 2020
Ten Thousand Commandments is the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s annual survey of the size, scope, and cost of federal regulations, and how they affect American consumers,…
Blog
Trump’s Executive Order on #NeverNeeded Regulations
In an op-ed in National Review, CEI Senior Fellow Ryan Young takes a look at President Trump’s new Executive Order directing agencies to get rid…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
President Trump issued an Executive Order encouraging agencies to keep #NeverNeeded regulations waived during the coronavirus permanently off the books. Meanwhile, regulatory agencies issued new…
Blog
Trump Signs Executive Order to Spur Economic Recovery through Deregulation
President Donald Trump on May 19 signed an executive order titled, Regulatory Relief To Support Economic Recovery. The order gives cabinet secretaries and agency heads emergency powers to suspend or even eliminate regulations…
News Release
#NeverNeeded Regulation Report: Lift Regulations that Make Energy More Expensive
Lower-income households spend more of their budget on energy costs than more affluent ones, which is why regulations that increase the cost of energy have…
News Release
New Executive Order to Stimulate Recovery by Deregulating Builds on CEI’s #NeverNeeded Campaign
The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) commended President Trump’s decision today to sign a new Executive Order directing cabinet members and agency heads to immediately identify…
Study
Lift #NeverNeeded Regulations that Make Energy More Expensive
Low-income households, which are more likely to suffer from unemployment and other stresses during the COVID-19 crisis, spend much more of their household budget on…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Retail sales declined 16.4 percent in April, setting a new record low for the second month in a row. Congress returned to Washington, putting the…
Citation
#NeverNeeded Regulation Report: White House Can Speed Up COVID-19 Recovery by Cutting Regulations without Congress
In a new paper released today, CEI Vice President for Policy Wayne Crews outlines several deregulatory measures the White House could take without Congress that…
Study
Pen, Phone, and Eraser?
There have now been several layers of congressional rescue-and-stimulus response to the coronavirus crisis, and there will be more “phases” to come. Given partisan discord,…
News Release
Congress Should Work With Trump Administration to Reduce Regulatory Barriers to COVID-19 Recovery
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi introduced a proposed fourth COVID-19 recovery package that would spend roughly $3 trillion but contains no significant regulatory relief.
Study
Narrow the Focus of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Food and Drug Administration
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) may well have taken their eye off the ball by…
The Wall Street Journal
Amazon’s Pandemic Success Story
There’s one bright spot in the dismal pandemic economy. Amazon is trying something that no company has attempted before: supplying the essential needs of 325 million Americans…
Youtube
VIDEO: Iain Murray Discusses #NeverNeeded Regulations and COVID-19
Vice President for Strategy and Senior Fellow Iain Murray joins Dana Loesch to discuss #neverneeded regulations and COVID-19…
The Epoch Times
Federal, State, and Local Governments Shed Over 170 Regulations to Fight Pandemic
The Epoch Times cites CEI on #neverneeded regulations: Even more regulations can be scrapped to empower American industry to help with the crisis,…
Bloomberg Law
Covid-19 Revives Debate over Economic Benefits of Deregulation
Bloomber Law cites Vice President for Strategy and Senior Fellow Iain Murray on #neverneeded regulations: Direct government aid won’t be enough to get…
CATO
Regulation after COVID-19
The CATO Institute cites CEI on #neverneeded regulations: Many of these regulations have no sound public justification whether in or outside of an…
The Federalist
South Africa’s Coronavirus Repression Signals Worse To Come
The Federalist cites CEI on #neverneeded regulations: Think tanks and researchers are working hard to shine a light on just how destructive artificial…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The first full week of May featured a continuing pandemic, the biggest unemployment increase in U.S. history, a hailstorm in the D.C. area, freezing temperatures…
The Federalist
A Proposed 13-Point Trump Agenda For Economic Stimulus By Reforming Regulation
I remembered wondering in 2017 whether the federal government would be larger or smaller after four years of Trump. We had our answer even before the…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The 2020 Federal Register passed 25,000 pages, and is poised to surpass last year’s page count by more than 1,000 pages. The number of final…
Blog
CEI Files New Challenge to the Administration’s Fuel Economy Standards
CEI General Counsel Sam Kazman discusses the issue with Walter Kreucher, one of the petitioners in the case, Walter Kreucher, a retired automotive engineer who…
Blog
The Economy after COVID-19 Will Be Different from Before, Part One
As governors begin to lift restrictions on economic activity, polling data show that Americans are generally still afraid of the virus and have changed their…
Blog
Like the Sun Not Rising in the East?
The Federal Register, the official daily government publication of regulations, proposed rules, and similar items did not go online today. We were awaiting today’s Federal…
Blog
The Coronavirus Outbreak Highlights Importance of the Artificial Intelligence Debate
Tracing of individuals and other measures involving artificial intelligence are in the news with respect to managing individuals’ reentry into the economy in the wake…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
New unemployment applications were down to 4.4 million last week. This is still more than an order of magnitude greater than the pre-coronavirus record. With…
Blog
DEREGULATION IN AN EMERGENCY: The President’s Emergency Powers Include Not Just Imposing Regulations on Industry, but also Suspending Regulations
Across the country, governors have suspended harmful regulations on an emergency basis due to the COVID-19 crisis. The improvements that have resulted have got people…
Blog
Congress Has Already Introduced Bills to Reform #NeverNeeded Regulations
Policy makers have already waived more than 350 regulations and counting that were slowing the pandemic response and harming economic recovery. But with a 185,000-page…
Reason
Federal Regulations Are Making the Grocery Store Supply Crunch Worse
Reason cites Senior Fellow Gregory Conko on FDA food regulations: “It’s not terribly unreasonable to have these sort of minimal safety rules remain…
Washington Examiner
COVID-19 is Changing Politics in Ways Good and Bad
The Washington Examiner cites CEI’s #NeverNeeded campaign: At the same time, a great many petty regulations are being scrapped. Rules on plastic bags,…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Please do all you can to keep yourself and your loved ones safe. Hopefully Congress will also act on some of the #NeverNeeded regulations that…
Blog
California’s #NeverNeeded AB5 Is Harming the Coronavirus Response
California’s AB5 law was already backfiring before the COVID-19 pandemic hit. It has cost thousands of jobs—many of which are home-based. During a time of…
Blog
VIDEO: Road Map to Reopening
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce hosted a fascinating video conference this week entitled “Big Picture: Road Map to Reopening,” with the Chamber’s Suzanne Clark and…
Washington Examiner
How The White House “Guidance For Regulation Of Artificial Intelligence” Invites Overregulation
Excessive top-down federal funding and governance of scientific and technology research will be increasingly incompatible with a future of lightly regulated science and…
Blog
How to Spot a #NeverNeeded Regulation
Not every regulation on the books is directly harming the COVID-19 response. There are a lot of other regulations that need reform, but the #NeverNeeded…
Inside Sources
Post-Virus Economics – Working Toward a Small Business Recovery
When the stay-at-home orders are lifted, we’ll be in a race to get millions of Americans back to work. Large companies will be in a…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
When Congress convenes next week, it will likely begin work on a Phase 4 stimulus bill. CEI analysts have made the case that addressing #NeverNeeded…
Real Clear Markets
An Effective Pandemic Response Would Be Deregulation
During a pandemic, regulations should not get between sick people and health care, or between hungry people and food. This also applies in normal times.
Blog
How SEC Accounting Regulations Hindered National Stockpile—and Still May Be Doing So
In a new report, CEI experts outline #NeverNeeded regulations that are frustrating responses to the pandemic and its aftermath. Among those is an obscure Securities…
Blog
Deregulation Is an Effective Pandemic Defense
In a new op-ed in RealClearMarkets, Iain Murray and Ryan Young outline the major points of CEI’s just-released #NeverNeeded paper, which identifies regulations harmful to…
Real Clear Markets
How To Make The Phase 4 Coronavirus Response All About Regulatory Reform (Not Just Spending)
When it comes to spending money we don’ t have and calling it rescue, the nation has been there, done that, bought the t-shirt. We…
The Washington Examiner
List: 30 Regulations that Stymied Trump’s Virus Response
The Washington Examiner cites CEI’s latest report on #NeverNeeded regulations: “Many regulations have proven to hinder or delay appropriate policy responses. Other regulations…
News Release
Report: Repeal #NeverNeeded Regulations to Help COVID-19 Response
COVID-19 relief bills have so far focused on keeping businesses and households afloat during the pandemic closures and quarantines, but the federal government should continue…
PJ Media
After $2 Trillion Coronavirus Stimulus, America Must Get Its Fiscal House Back in Order
PJ Media cites CEI on #neverneeded regulations: The federal bureaucracy also needs to be simplified. Businesses may be willing to pay more in…
Study
How Repeal of #NeverNeeded Regulations Can Help Responses to the COVID-19 Crisis
A number of factors are combining to stress the American economy in the spring of 2020—the global and domestic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, an…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Quarantine and stay-at-home orders will likely last through the end of April in many places. In more heartening news, governments are rolling back numerous #NeverNeeded…
Inside Sources
Bogus Lawsuits Continue to Haunt American Businesses
Inside Sources cites CEI’s joint coalition letter on the midnight litigation campaign: As the Obama administration began its midnight litigation campaign, a coalition…
Washington Examiner
Prepare for the next pandemic with a commission to kill #NeverNeeded regulations
The coronavirus pandemic needs a long-term policy response.
Blog
The #NeverNeeded Regulatory Reduction Commission
In a new Washington Examiner op ed, CEI Senior Fellow Ryan Young proposes a Regulatory Reduction Commission to act as a permanent watchdog to prevent #NeverNeeded…
Forbes
Phase 4 Coronavirus Infrastructure Spending To Start At $2 Trillion
There’s still a chance for what next juggernauts America’s way to be made more sensible. We can liberalize infrastructure and the regulation of it rather than…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Coronavirus deaths topped 1,000 in the U.S. last week, while new cases continued to double every few days. Meanwhile, agencies issued new final regulations ranging…
Blog
VIDEO: Reforming Antitrust for Global Competitiveness
The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation recently hosted its latest virtual event, “Reforming Antitrust Policy for an Era of Global Competitiveness.” ITIF President Rob Atkinson…
Blog
Regulation, Not Offshoring, Is Hindering Industry from Ramping up Production
In his latest Bloomberg column, Noah Smith argues that offshoring production led to the current shortage of medical masks and equipment in the face of…
News Release
CEI Experts Blast Attempts to Politicize COVID-19 Relief Bill
While the nation suffers, Washington has descended into an unseemly squabble over the latest COVID-19 relief bill. Politicians from all quarters are attempting to expand…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Governments are responding to the coronavirus with a getting rid of harmful regulations on restaurants, schools, and stores. Most of these rules were never needed…
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