Regulatory reform is a broad and all-encompassing policy goal of the Competitive Enterprise Institute. It is essential for entrepreneurship, innovation, and prosperity to flourish. We advocate for reform by surveying the size, scope, and cost of federal regulations. We show how they affect the U.S. economy at large and making proposals to policy makers to enact reforms.

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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Op-Eds

Volatile Gases

The European emissions trading scheme (ETS) was launched with great fanfare last year. The idea was to require certain energy-intensive industries to have a…

Antitrust

Products

Animal Rights, Human Wrongs

Animal rights extremists—whom the FBI has labeled America’s biggest domestic terrorism threat—have encountered a number of serious reverses recently. These reverses are a great victory…

Antitrust

Op-Eds

Sunset the FCC

Reforming telecommunications law is a favored subject in the halls of Congress this year. Hot issues include streamlining video franchising and addressing the "net…

Antitrust

Op-Eds

Speaking in Tongues

In Monty Python’s classic "Hungarian Phrasebook" sketch, a Hungarian tourist walks into a British tobacconist’s shop, and, consulting a faulty phrasebook, tells…

Antitrust

Op-Eds

The Long REACH of the EU

The European Union's Council of Ministers is expected to vote soon on the proposed chemicals regulation called REACH, an acronym for Registration, Evaluation, and…

Antitrust

Op-Eds

Reform FCC—Limit It!

<?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags” />U.S. communications policy is at an important inflection point. Cable, telephone and wireless companies aim to…

Business and Government

Op-Eds

All Cost, No Benefit

Tomorrow, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will hold a hearing on Sen. Jeff Bingaman's (D-N.M.) Climate and Economy Insurance Act. Originally…

Antitrust

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