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
Is Congress even trying? 3,248 new rules vs. 175 laws
In 2024, federal agencies issued 3,248 rules and regulations, while Congress enacted only 175 laws. I refer to the simple ratio—19 rules for…
Blog
Free the Economy podcast: Draining the swamp with Jim Bovard
In this week’s episode we cover fake endangered species, Pennsylvania’s climate policy showdown, a robust defense of property rights in New…
Blog
This week in ridiculous regulations: Seat belts and eagle possession
This week’s roundup will be a little different than usual. Since the new year began mid-week, and I already published a breakdown of 2024’s year-end numbers, as…
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NCPA
Using Price Theory to Reform Overregulated America
Blog
Obamacare Costs Additional $50 Billion a Year More Than Predicted, Based on Yet Another False Assumption in Calculating its Costs
“Federal payments required by President Barack Obama’s health care law are being understated by as much as $50 billion per year because official budget forecasts…
Blog
Regulation of the Day 193: Cleaning Up After Riots
This is a different broken window fallacy than the kind one usually sees.
Blog
The “Obama Law” Devastates Impoverished People in the World’s Second Poorest Country, The Congo
People are going hungry, pulling their children out of school due to poverty, and joining criminal gangs to make ends meet in the poorest region…
Blog
The Big Repeal
Congress and the White House have typically been reluctant to repeal any laws or regulations, regardless of which party is in power. The solution? Change…
NCPA
Down on the Downgrade?
The downgrade itself was fair. However, S&P’s timing and “partisan gridlock” rationale were questionable, as is its implicit advocacy of higher taxes. Nothing really…
American Spectator
The Big Repeal
In 1787, there were four federal crimes. Now there are over 4,000. The Code of Federal Regulations runs over 157,000 pages. America is overlawyered and…
Investor's Business Daily
To Rule Means To Reign
Blog
Regulation of the Day 192: Fire Extinguishers
Britain has a Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents. It isn’t quite living up to its name, though. The group is pressing to ban…
Study
Jump, Jive an’ Reform Regulation
Full Document Available in PDF Cost-benefit analysis has long been a centerpiece of regulatory reform proposals, with…
Investor's Business Daily
The Growth Agenda and Its Enemies
Even President Obama now seems to realize that rescuing America from its financial crisis requires getting Americans back to work. What he doesn’t seem to…
Citation
Iain Murray on WMAL Morning Majority
The US government could cut up to a dozen agencies without hurting the country, says Iain Murray, vice president for strategy of the Center for…
Investor's Business Daily
The Regulatory Recession
The debt ceiling negotiations and debates over government spending have transfixed the nation for the last few weeks. President Obama’s call for a “clean” debt…
Comment
Comments to DOT in the matter of Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM), 67 Fed. Reg. 69366
Full Document Available in PDF…
Blog
Hoover Didn’t Cut Spending, and Spending Cuts Didn’t Trigger the 1937 Roosevelt Recession
The false left-wing meme of the day is that the modest spending cuts in Sunday's debt limit deal are bad, because spending cuts caused the…
Barrasso
Red Tape Review August 5, 2011
Barrasso
Government in Your Car
CEI General Counsel Sam Kazman discusses the unintended consequences of government mandates for auto manufacturers. CAFE fuel effciency standards result in smaller, lighter cars, which…
Blog
Welcome to What Recovery?
Today, August 3, 2011, marks the one year anniversary of Treasure Secretary Tim Geithner’s op-ed in The New York Times, ostentatiously titled “Welcome…
Blog
Police Shut Down Another Rogue Lemonade Stand
Abigail Krutsinger, 4, never applied for a permit and a health inspection.
One News Now
New Fuel Economy Standards Could Hurt More Than They Help
Letters
Letter on Voluntary Reporting Comments
I am writing on behalf of the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), a non-profit free-market public policy group based in Washington, D.C. This letter responds to…
Comment
Comments on Draft Report to Congress on the Costs and Benefits of Federal Regulation
SUMMARY OF CEI COMMENTS: CEI’s comments cover the following four areas. Consumers’ Right to Know: CEI has long advocated the consumer’s “Regulatory Right to Know.”…
Blog
License to Rent-Seek
Few regulations are more blatantly anti-competitive than occupational licensing.
Blog
Regulation of the Day 191: Sippy Cups
New York’s state legislature just passed a bill requiring warning labels to be put on all sippy cups sold in the state.
One News Now
Bad Foundation
Most attempts at financial reform have been burdensome, created unintended consequences and have been harmful to economic growth. But compared to the Dodd-Frank Wall Street…
Blog
Bipartisan Regulatory Reform
Usually, "bipartisan" means "twice as stupid." But for real regulatory reform to happen, both parties need to be involved.
Blog
The Limits of Government-Funded Psychology: 9/11 Counseling Backfires
After school shootings, psychologists fan out and provide “grief counseling” to student bodies, but it’s far from clear that this does any good. Critics say…
Blog
Regulation of the Day 190: How to Behave While in a Forest
Since time immemorial, Cook County, Illinois has had very strict personal conduct regulations for its forests. Among other things, it has been illegal to:…
Fox News
Reforming Regulation, Bit by Bit
President Obama recently issued an executive order directing independent agencies to comb through their books and repeal unneeded regulations. This is, as he put it,…
Blog
Stop Messing with My Daughter’s Happy Meal!
There are apples and other fruit sitting around my house, and my four-year-old daughter can eat an apple anytime. By contrast, she seldom gets to…
Blog
Regulation of the Day 189: Naming Your Baby
New Zealand’s Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages has a list of names that are verboten for newborn babies.
National Center for Policy Analysis
Special Interest at Heart of CARE Act
National Center for Policy Analysis
The Wisdom of the Debt Ceiling
Even though I often disagree with his conclusions, I’ve long been a fan of New Yorker correspondent James Surowiecki. In his articles and his book,…
Blog
Mandatory Data Retention Rears its Ugly Head Again
This morning the House Judiciary Committee began markup on H.R. 1981, the “Protecting Children from Internet Pornographers Act of 2011,” which would among other things force…
Blog
Thousands of Jobs and Billions in Wealth Wiped Out by Dodd-Frank Conflict Minerals Provision
Thanks to the "conflict minerals" provisions of the 2010 Dodd-Frank law, thousands of the world's poorest people will lose their jobs. Why? Simply because they…
Blog
Regulation of the Day 188: Cat Licenses
San Diego's city government is going through tough financial times. But legislators have found a lucrative possible revenue source: the city’s 373,000 cats. The city…
National Center for Policy Analysis
False Prophets of Debt-Ceiling Doom
If I didn’t know any better, I’d be on the lookout Tuesday for the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. With Aug. 2 just around the…
Blog
Government Promoted the Risky Non-Traditional Mortgages that Triggered the Financial Crisis
Ed Pinto, who was an executive at Fannie Mae long before it went into the toilet and nearly took the financial system down with it,…
Blog
Regulation of the Day 187: Pedicabs
The DC City Council wants to require pedicab passengers to wear seatbelts.
Blog
More Confusion on Breast Cancer Screening
When the federal government's Preventive Services Task Force recommended in November 2009 that most women under age 50 should stop having regular…
National Center for Policy Analysis
Inhofe Bill Would Shine Sunlight on Regulation Costs
Study
A CARE-less Rush to Regulate Alcohol
Wine, beer, and spirit wholesalers have a long history of employing state laws to secure a guaranteed slice of the market. Recent court cases have…
Blog
Killed by Regulations: New Century Brewing, RIP
Add another name to the list of the dead as a result of actions taken by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). I certainly feel a…
Blog
Regulation of the Day 186: Missing Children
Covington, Kentucky police ordered a grieving grandmother to take down fliers of her missing granddaughter from city property.
Blog
Steve Wynn: Obama is the “Greatest Wet Blanket to Business and Progress and Job Creation in My Lifetime”
Even Democratic businessmen are getting disenchanted with the Obama administration and its knee-jerk hostility to anything that creates jobs or wealth. Las Vegas mogul…
National Center for Policy Analysis
Dodd-Frank’s Fannie Trap
One year ago today, President Obama signed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. Despite the “Wall Street” moniker, the tentacles of Dodd-Frank’s…
National Center for Policy Analysis
Failure is Not a (Government) Option
At his press conference on the debt ceiling negotiations, President Obama lamented that he’d rather “be talking about stuff that everybody welcomes, like new [government]…
National Center for Policy Analysis
One Year Later: Frank-Dodd “Reform” Leaves Fannie and Freddie Intact
Blog
Competitors: Stop That Merger!
Real competition happens in the market. Not in Washington.
National Center for Policy Analysis
Put a Ceiling on Overregulation
President Barack Obama may have inadvertently revealed one area of common ground with the Republicans during his recent news conference laying out sharp differences with…
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