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
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 admonition…
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 to…
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 to its…
Search Posts
Op-Eds
The Stimulus Delusion
Popular delusions are always debunked, but rarely before they do a lot of harm. The ancient physician Galen believed that bloodletting, the forced removal of…
ACLU
I Went to Washington and Democracy Broke Out
Bloomberg
Obama Wrote Fewer Rules Than Bush, Cost More
Bloomberg references Wayne Crews's study on the federal regulatory burden. The administration has 219 major rules under consideration, up from 137 in 2005,…
Blog
Alcohol Regulation Roundup: Ale-oween Edition
National: Phusion Projects, the makers of the now-infamous alcoholic energy drink Four Loko, have reportedly reached an agreement with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
SCPR
E-Verify Briefing Turns Into Shouting Match
Blog
Regulation Roundup
It is illegal to slurp your soup in New Jersey restaurants, plus more.
SCPR
Weekend Reading: The True Story of Cosmetics
Washington Times
Wholesale Deception
Beer wholesalers contend that alcohol legislation they are pushing on Capitol Hill would safeguard state and local rights – but in reality, it is…
Washington Times
RedBlueAmerica: Is ‘Regularity Uncertainly’ Holding Back U.S. Economy?
Blog
Truck Drivers Don’t Need a Revised Hours-of-Service Rule
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) is poised to enact a revised hours-of-service (HOS) rule that would greatly impact commercial motor vehicle operators.
Blog
The Unemployment Discrimination Myth
The defunct American Jobs Act, which Hans skewered so well a while back, contains a provision to end “discrimination against the unemployed.” Apparently, there…
Blog
SEC Jumps into Cybersecurity Debate
Much of the cybersecurity focus this year has been on Congress’s efforts to mandate data breach notifications and security standards. Now the Securities and…
Washington Times
The EWG Provides Food for (No) Thought
Blog
Cut the Capital Gains Tax and Government Spending to Create Jobs and Promote Technological Advances
In today’s Wall Street Journal, Amity Schlaes notes that cuts in the capital gains tax were one of the key factors that paved the…
Washington Times
Sugar Policy Bitter for Consumers, Manufacturers
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Bright Light of the Week: CEI’s ‘Durbin Dollar’
Study
A FAIR Criticism
A recent report from the Federation for American Immigration Reform argues for increased immigration restrictions as a way to address the federal budget deficit. However,…
Study
The True Story of Cosmetics
Many environmental groups want to rid the world of synthetic chemicals. Now they are at war with your makeup.
Blog
White House Involved in FDA Approval of Genetically Engineered Salmon?
A couple of days ago, Talking Points Memo's Jim Kozubek reported that the Food and Drug Administration had finally decided to…
Blog
No Money, No Sense: On the Infrastructure Bank
This morning, the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee's Subcommittee on Highways and Transit held a hearing on the President Obama’s infrastructure bank proposal. In September, the…
Blog
Congress Should Reject Tying a Repatriation Tax Holiday to a National Infrastructure Bank
It was reported on Tuesday that Senate Democrats intent on creating a National Infrastructure Bank (NIB) have quietly thrown Republicans a bone on the…
Blog
Alcohol Regulation Roundup: October 7, 2011
National: A Supreme Court decision is being heralded as potentially liberating the advertising market for tobacco and alcohol as it expands first amendment protections…
Blog
CEI Podcast for October 6, 2011: How to Deregulate the Economy
Vice President for Policy Wayne Crews is author of the new CEI study, “The Other National Debt Crisis: How and Why Congress Must Quantify Regulation."…
Study
Stifling Medical Device Innovation
The United States has long been the home to cutting-edge innovations in the medical device industry. However, increasingly burdensome regulatory policy is driving pioneering research…
Blog
Barone is Right: Appeasing Protectionists Is a Bad Idea
President Obama is finally sending three pending trade agreements — with South Korea, Colombia, and Panama — to Congress for a vote. The three trade…
Blog
Poll: 14 Percent Approval Rating for Congress
Lawmakers need to do something about their do-something bias and try a deregulatory stimulus. Besides stimulating the economy, it would likely stimulate approval ratings, too.
News Release
Congress Should Start Quantifying Federal Regulation
Washington, D.C., October 4, 2011—Lawmakers in the nation’s capital seem to be desperate to secure a big fix for the broken American economy. But as…
Study
The Other National Debt Crisis
Runaway federal regulation represents the biggest threat to our economy today. To address the problem, lawmakers first need to define it and quantify its costs.
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Clean Air’s Dirty Residue
A lot has been made of recent court filings in which the Environmental Protection Agency suggested that it needed 230,000 more bureaucrats to regulate…
http://cei.org/sites/default/files/Washington Examiner 10-16-2011.jpg
Time Out for Federal Regulation
At the moment, the Federal Register stands at 61,247 pages–for 2011 alone. You can see the Code of Federal Regulations from space. Assuming this perturbs…
Fox News
Eight Ways to Keep People Out of Work
Fox News cites Wayne Crews's article on the cost of regulatory burden to make the case that ignoring the costs of regualtion will keep peolple…
Blog
Regulation Roundup
Massage parlors are illegal in well-named Horneytown, North Carolina, plus more.
Fox News
Today’s Red Tape Would Have Killed Home Depot’s IPO
Your editorial “The Anti-Solyndras” (Sept. 22) is right on target in detailing the devastating impact of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 on job and…
Fox News
Debit Durbin
Read the headlines — and your bank statement — and weep, but don’t say TAS didn’t warn you. As I detailed here in February…
Blog
Right on Cue
In this morning's CEI Podcast, my colleague John Berlau predicted that the new price cap on debit card swipe fees would lead to the end…
Blog
CEI Podcast for September 29, 2011: The End of Free Debit Cards
Every time you use your debit card, the merchant has to pay a fee to the company that issued your card, usually about 1 percent…
DC Velocity
Freedom to Move: Interview with Marc Scribner
Blog
Automatic Economic Stabilizers or Stable Economic Rules?
Former Obama OMB Director Peter Orszag (who joined Citigroup earlier this year as vice chairman for global banking) over at The New Republic thinks we’ve…
Blog
Blame Not Banks — But Big Box and Big Government — For Free Checking’s Demise
Read it and weep, but don't say OpenMarket didn't warn you. Thanks to Dodd-Frank's Durbin Amendment, price controls on interchange fees --…
Blog
FDA Approves Device To Help Doctors Detect Skin Cancer
There's an unusual bit of good news out of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. In March 2010 and again last November, the…
DC Velocity
Unauthorized Practice of Law (UPL) Regulation Tends to Serve Interests of Lawyers, Not Consumers
DC Velocity
Lawyers Use Ban on Unauthorized Practice of Law to Restrict Speech & Competition
For Construction Pros
NRMCA: President’s Jobs Plan At Odds With Administration Regulatory Action
For Construction Pros discusses Wayne Crews's report on the size of the federal regulatory burden. Highlighting the magnitude of numerous new regulations, this…
Blog
Pull Out of Basel III: The Moral Hazard of Government Ratings
Recently and for different reasons, two high-profile players from different parts of the financial sector -- JPMorganChase CEO Jamie Dimon and respected banking analyst…
Blog
Obamacare Will Increase Health Insurance Premiums by 55 to 85 Percent in Ohio, Study Says
The Charleston Daily Mail’s Don Surber points to a recent study “that shows that 790,000 Ohioans will lose their private health insurance and premiums…
Blog
Regulation Roundup
In Seattle, Washington, the maximum length allowed for concealed weapons is 6 feet, plus more.
Blog
Flushing Oral Oncology Drugs Down the Toilet?
An interesting article in the Journal of Clinical Oncology (via yesterday's Jerusalem Post) argues that the U.S. Food and…
Blog
Dodd-Frank Financial Law Uses Regulations to Outsource American Jobs
American jobs will soon be outsourced due to the Dodd-Frank financial "reform" law passed in 2010 with strong support from the Obama administration. That law…
Blog
Government Fines Businessman for Creating Jobs
A CEO recently told Congress about how he was fined for hiring too many people: “I incurred more than $500,000 in legal bills to…
Blog
Regulation of the Day 197: Planking
Threats to freedoms even as trivial as planking should not be taken lying down.
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