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 week in regulations: CAFE standards and Christmas tree promotions
Israel launched a military strike against Iran. US Senator Alex Padilla was detained for trying to ask a question at a Department of Homeland Security…
Blog
Congress should deregulate if it will not tackle entitlement spending
The Senate is currently reviewing the House version of the One Big Beautiful Bill in an effort to have President Trump sign the bill into…
Blog
Your family’s share of federal red tape last year was…
Most people can see taxes on their pay stubs, but there’s another sort of tax that’s much less visible: the cost of government regulations. These…
Search Posts
Blog
REINS Act Introduced In The House
CEI has been pushing a common-sense regulatory reform idea for years: Congress should vote on all regulations with an annual cost of $100 million or…
Blog
Economic Freedom Declines Again; Government Control Is Bad For Your Health
Economic freedom has declined under the Obama administration, and America's rank has repeatedly fallen on the Index of Economic Freedom and other rankings issued…
News Release
REINS Act Introduced in House
Washington, D.C., January 24, 2013—This week, Rep. Todd Young (IN-9) introduced the Regulations from the Executive In Need of Scrutiny (REINS) Act with 121…
Blog
Greens Complain About BPA-Free Products They Helped Spur
Anti-chemical environmental activists rarely consider the consequences of their policies. They demonize chemicals that have been used safely for decades and advance chemical bans…
Blog
Walker, Wisconsin Ranger (Strikes Again)
It’s almost too beautiful to believe. In this era of ever-expanding government power, of rising and risible rapacity in the federal Leviathan, can it really…
Blog
New Jersey State Senate Pushes Union Giveaway in Project Labor Agreement Bill
The extent and huge costs of the damage from Hurricane Sandy to New Jersey should make rebuilding the worst affected areas…
Blog
Obamacare Increases Unnecessary Medical Tests, Wastes Doctors’ Time, Drives Up Billings And Costs
President Obama claimed Obamacare would cut healthcare costs, but it actually increased them in many ways, some of which are chronicled here. Here are yet…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week In Regulation
54 new regulations, from microwave ovens to roof trusses.
Blog
TSA’s Body Scanner Shuffle Continues, Agency Still Flouts The Law On Body Scanners
A great deal of news coverage today has been given to the Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) decision to remove backscatter X-ray strip-search machines from U.S.
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Federal Regulation Update: 224 Economically Significant Rules In The Pipeline
The federal government's Fall Regulatory Plan and the Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions finally appeared the Friday before Christmas (the Spring 2012…
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Where Did All The Environmental Protection Agency Rules Go?
The Unified Agenda of Federal Regulations has always been squishy and has never bound agencies to issue solely the rules contained within; but the decline…
Blog
Washington’s Liquor Privatization Did Increase Prices, But Also Selection And Availability
Since selling off the state-owned liquor monopoly, many Washington State residents have noticed an unfortunate development; despite what proponents of privatization promised, the cost of…
Citation
Obama Issued $216 Billion in New Regulations in 2012, Showing the Need For Reform
Even though these regulations may seem harmless, the costs add up. Something needs to be done about excess regulations so that the worker can take…
Blog
Obamacare Imposes New Fees, Cost Increases On The Public
Obamacare was sold to the public based on the fallacy that it would cut healthcare costs, but each month brings additional evidence that it…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week In Regulation
52 new regulations, from nematodes to tiltorotors.
Citation
To fix government, reform its agencies
Another way would be legislation to have all laws/rules of executive agencies be subject to economic impact studies which would show the dollar amount and…
Statesman
Senators, protect us from the EPA
According Wayne Crews of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, President Obama issued 953 “major regulations” (meaning regulations with a cost of $100 million or more, or…
Blog
Qualified Mortgage Rule Is One Of Many Dodd-Frank Boots To Drop
The first thing that should be said about today's "qualified mortgage" rule is that it is just one of many new regulations the Consumer Financial…
Blog
How About Some Intellectual Diversity At The Labor Department?
As the cabinet turns: Hilda Solis announced this week that she will soon be stepping down from her post as secretary of labor. Solis, a…
Blog
Alcohol Regulation Roundup: New Year Edition 2013
With a new year comes a new opportunity to take stock in our past endeavors and renew our goals for the future. While many a…
Blog
Feds Say Hybrid Electric Vehicles Too Quiet, Noisemakers Should Be Mandated
Green paternalists often gush about the great potential for hybrid electric automobiles to reduce negative externalities, or social costs, such as local air pollution and…
Blog
Basel III Cliff May Be Averted, But Dangers Still Loom For Main Street Banks
After numerous criticisms from U.S. community banks and lawmakers of both parties, the international committee in charge of the Basel III bank capital agreement…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week In Regulation
28 new regulations, from the United Soybean Board to synthetic drugs.
Forbes
Federal Regulation: The Costs of Benefits
The premise that national top-down regulation of the economy brings substantial net benefits dominates public policy. But forget the philosophical debate over laissez-faire vs. the…
Blog
Update On D.C.’s Driverless Car Legalization Legislation
In November, I noted in The Washington Post and here on Open Market that a bill introduced in the D.C. Council contained two dangerously flawed provisions and…
Blog
Settlement: FTC Ends Google Antitrust Investigation
Today, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) cleared Google of accusations of "Search Bias," and inappropriately harming rivals. The investigation lasted nearly…
Blog
CEI Podcast For January 3, 2013: The Fiscal Cliff Meets The Costberg
Congress made an unsatisfying compromise deal this week to avoid falling off the fiscal cliff. But Vice President for policy Wayne Crews thinks this is…
Blog
New Year, New Laws
More than 400 new laws came into effect today.
Blog
Chicago Voters Reelect Legally Insane Judge
In November, Chicago voters re-elected a legally insane judge charged with a crime of violence. "The Cook County Democratic Party…
Blog
2012’s Year-End Regulatory Report Card
Both 2011 and 2010 finished with over 81,000 pages in the Federal Register, as tallied in Ten Thousand Commandments. These were the highest page counts…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week In Regulation
54 new regulations, from handling spearmint oil to drug testing railroad workers.
Blog
EPA Regulations Cost How Much?!
Over at the Daily Caller, I summarize my recent CEI Regulatory Report Card on the EPA. Recommended if you don't feel like reading the entire…
Forbes
Obama’s Regulatory Cliff Draws Near
The scope is staggering. According to the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the overall regulatory burden has reached $1.8 trillion annually, and $215.4 billion in compliance costs…
Daily Caller
EPA costs US economy $353 billion per year
Transparency is the lifeblood of democracy. Washington needs more of it, especially in the all-too-opaque world of regulation. The…
Blog
Community Reinvestment Act Induced Banks To Take Bad Risks, Economic Study Finds
The Community Reinvestment Act, which "prods banks to make loans in low-income communities,” encouraged banks to make riskier loans, concludes a recent study…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week In Regulation
68 new regulations, from summer flounder fishing to switching contractors.
Blog
Fear The Regulatory Cliff, Not The Fiscal Cliff
Economist Bruce Bartlett notes that by cutting the federal budget deficit, the much-feared fiscal cliff will actually increase the size of the economy in the…
Blog
CEI Podcast For December 19, 2012: The EPA Regulatory Report Card
Fellow in Regulatory Studies Ryan Young talks about the need for more transparency in the world of regulation, as well as CEI's new EPA Regulatory…
Blog
Stuck in Time: Italy’s Politics
Things have a way of repeating themselves. This is especially true in Italy, where politics have been stuck in a time loop for the…
Blog
Path To Transparency: The EPA Regulatory Report Card
Transparency is in short supply in the world of regulation. How many rules does an agency have in the pipeline? How much will they cost?…
Study
Regulatory Report Card: Environmental Protection Agency
The quality of regulation depends heavily on its transparency. Taking to heart Justice Louis Brandeis’ stated belief that sunshine is the best disinfectant, the purpose…
Blog
The Regulatory Reduction Commission
In today's Washington Times, Wayne Crews and I write about a reform that has nearly two decades of bipartisan support, has a proven track record…
News Release
EPA Lacks Transparency, Is Far Costlier Than Other Agencies
WASHINGTON, D.C., Dec. 19, 2012 – Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations now cost Americans an estimated $353 billion per year—almost twice the regulatory costs of…
Washington Times
Federal rules cost $10,000 per employee
What do the Progressive Policy Institute, former Sen. Phil Gramm of Texas, former presidential candidate Herman Cain and the Competitive Enterprise Institute have…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week In Regulation
69 new regulations, from Spanish translations of used car buyers guides to shortnose suckers.
Blog
Regulation Roundup
Montreal mulls requiring dogs to be bilingual, USDA regulates polydactyl cats, plus more.
Blog
PolitiFact Is The Liar Of The Year
PolitiFact falsely depicted Michael Cannon, the director of health policy studies at the Cato Institute, as suggesting that state law overrides federal law, erroneously…
Blog
CEI Podcast For December 12, 2012: Ending The Beer Monopoly
Fellow in Consumer policy Studies Michelle Minton argues that the beer industry in America is essentially a monopoly. In her new paper "Avoid a Monopoly…
One News Now
Regulations Aplenty
Ryan Young, fellow in regulatory studies at the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), reports that as of December 3, 2012, 3,392 final rules have been published…
Forbes
Regulation Vs. Jobs: Assessing The Employment Impact Of Rules and Regulations
One might think there’s some official acceptance that the thousands of regulations issued annually in Washington have a dampening impact on job creation. But 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