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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Blog
The week in regulations: Peach diversion programs and nuclear packages
The Federal Reserve kept interest rates the same, and an increase may be on the way. Economic growth remained below average, and inflation remained…
Study
Permitting Reform for a Freer and More Prosperous Nation
Contents Special Advisors The Importance of Permitting Reform Part 1: 11 Principles for Permitting Reform Part 2: Statute-by-Statute Analysis for Permitting…
Blog
The week in regulations: Carbon nanotubes and colored sausage casings
President Trump enacted new tariffs against more than 60 countries. Some of the Canada tariffs invoke a never-used statute from the 1930 Smoot-Hawley Tariff…
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Products
Chapter 9: A Note on Rule Reviews at OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs
Tracking the effects of rules and regulations, executive orders, memoranda, and regulatory guidance is vital. These alternative regulatory actions have become powerful means of working…
Products
Chapter 13: Federal Regulations Affecting State and Local Governments
Ten Thousand Commandments primarily emphasizes federal regulations imposed on the private sector. However, state and local officials’ complaints over federal mandates’ overriding their own…
Products
Chapter 1: Biden’s Regulatory “Modernization” Continues Whole-of-Government Pursuit of Coercive Progressivism
The 2022 edition of Ten Thousand Commandments extensively surveyed the Biden administration’s executive actions, rules, and memoranda that reversed the Trump regulatory policy and attenuated…
Products
Chapter 10: Analysis of “The Regulatory Plan and Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions”
“The Regulatory Plan and Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions” (the Unified Agenda) is the document in which agencies have outlined regulatory priorities…
Products
Chapter 8: Another Dimension of Regulatory Dark Matter: Over 22,000 Agency Public Notices Annually
Along with presidential proclamations are those of departments and agencies. These are numerous and sweeping. Through various kinds of guidance documents, notices, and policy statements,…
Products
Chapter 15: Regulation without Representation: The “Unconstitutionality Index”—13 Rules for Every Law
Administrative agencies, not Congress, do most U.S. lawmaking, despite Article I of the Constitution stipulating otherwise. Congress is to blame here, as it routinely enacts…
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