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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Regulatory Reform in the 118th Congress: Separation of Powers Restoration Act
The separation of powers is a key aspect of American government. To decentralize power and ensure checks and balances, the Founders divided the federal government…
City Journal
Roll It Back
Medicaid, the federal-state entitlement for the poor, now provides health insurance to more than one in four Americans. Enrollments surged after the Affordable Care Act…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
An Executive Order from the Biden administration made some of the biggest system-level regulatory changes in years. It raises the threshold for “economically significant”…
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General Motors Accused of Fraud Over Misleading Claim That It Paid Back Taxpayers; CEI Files FTC Complaint
The Competitive Enterprise Institute filed a complaint today against General Motors with the Federal Trade Commission, over…
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The NEW reason for fomenting pig flu panic – “Use up those vaccines!”
According to Reuters, the U.S. has 71 million unused H1N1 swine flu vaccine doses. And damned if it isn’t determined to use up every…
Op-Eds
“Financial Deform: So-Called U.S. bank Reform Does Little But Hurt Taxpayers”
The CEO of Goldman Sachs, the Wall Street firm the SEC has accused of fraud, has endorsed the so-called financial “reform” bill…
Op-Eds
GM’s Tricky Payback
President Obama’s tax-cheat treasury secretary, Tim Geithner, is trumpeting the fact that General Motors has paid back a small fraction of what taxpayers…
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Bogus Financial “Reform” Bill Regulates Internet, Does Nothing About Corrupt Government-Sponsored Mortgage Giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
The so-called financial “reform” bill backed by President Obama gives federal bureaucrats new powers over the Internet, while doing nothing about the corrupt government-backed…
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ObamaRail: Great for Railfans, Bad for Transportation
In 2000, Florida voters approved a constitutional amendment (the “Monorail Initiative“) authorizing the creation of a high-speed intercity rail network. However, as the economy…
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