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
HHS cutting Head Start red tape shows the cost of regulatory micromanagement
Individual regulations are often defended as necessary on their own terms. But as CEI Senior Fellow Wayne Crews’ Ten Thousand Commandments documents, the…
Blog
It’s not the (government’s) thought that counts
Good intentions are not enough to create an effective regulation. An executive agency, Congress, or the White House can have the best intentions in…
Blog
The week in regulations: Roadless areas and squid quotas
The national debt topped $40 trillion. Vice President JD Vance argued for ending the dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency. The Treasury Department…
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News Release
Report: Regulations disproportionately impose costs on small businesses
A new Competitive Enterprise Institute report identifies ways that federal regulations impose unfair costs and perverse incentives on small businesses every year. “From…
Blog
New bill would increase spending transparency, more regulatory transparency needed
Galileo may not have uttered the famous words, “Measure what is measurable, and make measurable what is not so,” but the sentiment behind that…
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…
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…
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…
Blog
CEI briefs the public on the need for administrative law court reform
The Competitive Enterprise Institute recently hosted our first Capitol Hill event of the year, urging Congress to propose administrative law court (ALC) reform.
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