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
The week in regulations, shutdown edition: Student loans and foreigners’ biometric data
President Trump announced a trade deal with China. The Federal Reserve cut interest rates. The continued federal shutdown meant another slow week in the Federal…
Blog
Darklore Depository 2025: An unofficial inventory of guidance documents and other regulatory dark matter
Halloween can remind policy wonks that some of the ghastliest regulatory chills come not from ordinary notice-and-comment regulation buried in the daily Federal Register, but…
Blog
The week in regulations, shutdown edition: Visa fees and regional haze
President Trump demanded that the Justice Department pay him $230 million. He also cut off all trade negotiations with Canada because of a tv commercial…
Search Posts
Fox Business
Trump Early Efforts on Deregulation Could Pave Way For Increased Executive Activity: Study
Fox Business cites Vice President of Policy and Senior Fellow Wayne Crews on the Trump Administration’s record on deregulation. While he…
The Washington Examiner
‘Swamp’ Thwarts Trump With $1.9T ‘Hidden Tax’ In Regulations
The Washington Examiner cites Vice President of Policy and Senior Fellow Wayne Crews on CEI’s “Ten Thousand Commandments” report. The Competitive Enterprise Institute said…
Blog
Regulations Trump Administration Has Eliminated So Far in 2019
The Trump administration promised to roll back red tape. So how goes 2019? The 2019 Spring Unified Agenda of Deregulatory and Regulatory Actions released by the…
The Washington Times
Burdensome Federal Regulations Are ‘Hidden Tax’ Which Cost $1.9 Trillion: Study
The Washington Times cites Vice President for Policy and Senior Fellow Wayne Crews on CEI’s “Ten Thousand Commandments” report. The national debt is not the…
The Times Herald
Jerry Shenk: Regulatory Taxation Burdens us All
The Times Herald cites CEI’s 10kc report. In their review of the cost of government regulations for 2018, the Competitive Enterprise Institute estimated…
Blog
Will Antitrust End Trump’s Deregulatory Push?
Revelations that antitrust enforcers have conspired to divide jurisdiction and initiate antitrust investigations into Google and Apple (the U.S. Department of Justice) and Amazon and…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
President Trump threatened a new tariff on all Mexican goods, potentially scuttling the NAFTA/USMCA agreement. My colleague Wayne Crews went through the new Spring 2019…
Forbes
Trump’s Regulatory Reform Agenda by the Numbers (Summer 2019 Update)
The Trump administration released the Spring 2019 edition of the twice-yearly Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions.
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The number of new final regulations this year topped 1,000 last Tuesday, and President Trump and Congress entered Memorial Day weekend at odds on issues…
Blog
Regulatory Costs of Anti-Property Approaches to Environmental Concerns
Environmental regulations transfer substantial wealth and can be subject to the same political failure and regulatory pork-barreling that characterize economic regulation—perhaps more so, given the…
Blog
Costs of Loss of Anonymity in Administrative Surveillance State
The ability of citizens to communicate privately and to retain anonymity if desired are foundational rights slipping away in the regulatory panopticon of the administrative…
Blog
Regulatory Costs of Blurring Corporate and Government Roles
In keeping with the tradition of ignoring political failure in service of the administrative state, the economic and social effects of GSEs, or government-sponsored enterprises,…
Blog
Costs of Antitrust Regulation and Institutionalization of Raising Competitors’ Costs
Antitrust policy is corporate welfare, a prominent illustration of how regulation, not just spending, enables and encourages transfers of wealth by force.
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The Game of Thrones finale aired last night, though the show’s less-plausible Washington spinoff appears set to continue indefinitely, and with a rather larger budget.
Forbes
What If the Administrative State Cannot Be Reformed?
For the past couple of years I’ve been emphasizing the usefulness of an executive order from President Donald Trump on regulatory "guidance documents" to bridge the gap…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes called for breaking up the company; CEI’s Iain Murray and Kent Lassman explain why that’s a bad idea. CEI also released…
Blog
VIDEO: Report Card on Regulatory Reform
Earlier this week I had the good fortune to spend some time at the historic Mayflower hotel here in Washington, D.C. attending the Federalist Society’s 7th…
Blog
Re-Prioritizing Regulatory Reform
The 2019 edition of Wayne Crews’ Ten Thousand Commandments: An Annual Snapshot of the Federal Regulatory State is out now.
National Review
President Trump Should Rediscover Regulatory Reform
President Trump, who made regulatory reform a priority early in his term, claims to have reduced federal regulatory burdens by $23 billion in fiscal year…
News Release
Federal Government Illegally Fails to Account for at Least $1.9 Trillion in Estimated Regulatory Costs
The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) today released the 2019 edition of Ten Thousand Commandments: An Annual Snapshot of the Federal Regulatory State (10KC 2019), CEI’s annual survey of…
Products
Liberate to Stimulate
Download Chapter 11 as a PDF Policy makers frequently propose spending stimulus as a way to grow economies. It rarely goes well. A regulatory…
Products
Regulation and the Federal Communications Commission
Download Chapter 10 as a PDF The Federal Communications Commission is by no means the heavyweight among regulators as gauged by the number of…
Products
Government Accountability Office Database on Regulations
Download Chapter 9 as a PDF The various federal reports and databases on regulations serve different purposes: The Federal Register shows the aggregate number…
Products
Analysis of the Regulatory Plan and Unified Agenda of Federal Regulations
Download Chapter 8 as a PDF The “Regulatory Plan and Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions” (Agenda) is where agencies outline their…
Products
Regulatory Dark Matter: Over 22,000 Public Notices Annually
Download Chapter 7 as a PDF Without actually passing a law, government can specify parameters for various industries, including health care, retirement, education, energy…
Products
Regulatory Dark Matter: Presidential Executive Orders and Memoranda
Download Chapter 6 as a PDF Executive orders, presidential memoranda, and other executive actions make up a large component of executive “lawmaking.”…
Products
Thousands of Pages in the Federal Register
Download Chapter 5 as a PDF The Federal Register is the daily repository of all proposed and final federal rules and regulations.
Products
The Unknowable Costs of Regulation and Intervention
Download Chapter 4 as a PDF The sole official reckoning citizens get on the scale and scope of regulatory costs is an annual but…
Products
Toward a Federal “Regulatory Budget”
Download Chapter 3 as a PDF When Congress spends, disclosure is necessary for voters to hold representatives accountable. Federal programs are funded either by…
Products
On the Other Hand…Trump’s Own Regulatory Impulses Threaten to Derail Successes
Download Chapter 2 as a PDF President Trump has pruned rules and costs and held down regulatory output with more enthusiasm than other presidents.
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Not one, but two potential Federal Reserve Board nominees withdrew from consideration last week, and economic growth and unemployment remained in excellent health. Meanwhile, with…
Blog
Congressional Democratic Leaders Meet with President on Infrastructure Bill
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and other congressional Democrats met with President Trump on April 30 to discuss an infrastructure package.
Products
9,999 Commandments? Six Ways Rule Flows Have Been Reduced or Streamlined
Download Chapter 1 as a PDF This edition of Ten Thousand Commandments begins with a survey of approaches the Trump administration took in its…
Products
Ten Thousand Commandments 2019 – Executive Summary
Download the Executive Summary as a PDF Spending control and deficit restraint are indispensable to any nation’s long-term economic health. Alarm among conservatives over…
Study
Ten Thousand Commandments 2019
Ten Thousand Commandments is the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s annual survey of the size, scope, and cost of federal regulations, and how they affect American consumers,…
Blog
Republican Study Committee Releases 2020 Budget Proposal
Congress is supposed to pass an annual spending budget, though it rarely gets around to it. Instead, the government is usually funded through a mashup…
Blog
Costs of Unequal Treatment of Citizens by Abandoning Negative Rights for a Positive Rights Framework
To many classical liberals (or libertarians), it is primarily the individual’s right of self-defense that is delegated to a government. We cannot unilaterally commence the…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
While Washington’s “This Town” types geared up for the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, the rest of the country flocked to movie theaters for a much…
The Hill
Federal Reserve defies White House and Congress on Banking Regulation
President Trump and the Federal Reserve continue to clash over interest rates, but another simmering dispute concerns the regulatory burden the Federal Reserve and other…
Blog
White House Moves to Strengthen Information Quality Act
The White House Office of Management and Budget on April 24th sent a memo to heads of departments and agencies updating guidelines for implementing the Information Quality…
Blog
New Civil Liberties Alliance Sounds Alarm on Unconstitutional Government
The New Civil Liberties Alliance hosted a very interesting event this week, as part of its “Lunch and Law” speaker series, featuring remarks by Hudson…
Forbes
Here are the Next Executive Orders President Trump Should Issue on Regulatory Reform
What's next for oversight and streamlining of federal regulations? On April 11, 2019, the Office of Management and Budget's (OMB) Acting Director Russell Vought issued…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The Notre Dame cathedral in Paris caught fire and sustained heavy damage. The rebuilding will likely take years, though people began politicizing it almost instantly.
Blog
Blocking the T-Mobile-Sprint Merger: Competition, Rent-Seeking, and Uncertainty
Nationwide 5G networks are coming. They will expand possibilities for everything from smartphone applications to GPS to streaming video, and will enable new technologies that…
Blog
Shed Light on Cryptocurrency ‘Dark Matter’ Regulation at SEC
A few days ago, the Trump administration issued a memorandum strongly discouraging what the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Wayne Crews has called “regulatory dark matter.” The…
DOJ
Deputy Associate Attorney General Stephen Cox Gives Remarks to the Cleveland, Tennessee, Rotary Club
Deputy Associate Attorney General Stephen Cox cited CEI’s publication, 10kc, by Vice President for Policy Wayne Crews. It is hard to fathom how…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
In a remarkable human achievement, scientists took the first-ever image of a black hole. The effort took eight telescopes on five continents, five petabytes of…
News Release
OMB Guidance on Major Rules & Regulatory Dark Matter is a Real Step Toward Stopping Regulatory Abuses
The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) yesterday released new guidance re-asserting the requirement that agencies submit major notice-and-comment rules and certain major sub-regulatory guidance…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The news cycle was more sizzle than steak last week. President Trump threatened to shut down the southern border and backed off almost immediately, so…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Pundits spent the week engaging in mortal combat over the Mueller Report, which none of them have read, and spring officially sprung with baseball’s opening…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
As tempers flared over how many “chuggas” to say before “choo-choo,” the 2019 Federal Register topped the 10,000-page mark last week and the number of…
Blog
Regulation and Neglected Costs of Authoritarianism and Over-Criminalization
Corrupt government and authoritarianism have been the historical rule rather than the exception. The U.S. Constitution’s elevation of individual rights and restraints on governmental power…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
President Trump has declared passing the new NAFTA/USMCA as his top legislative priority, but congressional ratification will not be automatic. Mexico and Canada are also…
Blog
Regulatory Costs of Delegating Lawmaking Power to Executive and Unelected Administrators
The administrative state, blessed by Congress, has dispensed with the Founders’ system of legislation fashioned solely by an elected body. Regulatory reforms call for holding…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Last week was low-drama by recent standards, but still had some important developments. The U.S. trade deficit set a record for the second year in…
Forbes
Warning Signs: How Trump’s Ascendant Regulatory Impulses Could Swamp His Deregulatory Program
President Donald Trump has pruned rules and costs and held down regulatory output with more enthusiasm than other presidents. But on the flipside of Trump’s controversial regulatory savings, Trump sports regulatory…
Blog
The Regulatory Costs of Abandoned Federalism
The deterioration of the principle of separation of powers is a signature feature of the powerful federal Administrative State. This corrosion is accompanied by a…
The Hill
Congressional Review Act Rises Again!
The Hill cited Vice President for Policy and a Senior Fellow Wayne Crews on regulatory dark matter. This problem increases considerably when you…
The Cato Institute
Bloomberg Unwittingly Vindicates Stigler
The Cato Institute cited Vice President for Policy and a Senior Fellow Wayne Crews on the Trump administration and regulatory reform. Thankfully, we…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The Michael Cohen hearing shenanigans gobbled up the headlines, but actual substantive news happened regarding talks with China and North Korea—in particular, a planned tariff…
The Daily Signal
VIDEO: Hope for an Overregulated Nation
Senior Fellow Wayne Crews joined “The Bill Walton Show” on the Daily Signal to explain how to return the U.S. to the path of greater…
Blog
Costs of Regulatory Takings and Property Value Destruction
Takings issues noted here are just the beginning of government neglect of the institution of private property, notable especially in emergent sectors. But the disdain…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The federal government was on a four-day work week in honor of George Washington’s birthday, but agencies still found time to issue regulations ranging from…
Blog
VIDEO: You’ve Come a Long Way, Regulatory Reform
Our friends at the American Enterprise Institute are doing a great job leveraging their many decades of experience in Washington, D.C. They've been raiding their…
Blog
Regulatory Costs and the Loss of Liberty
From classical liberal and individual rights perspectives, the administrative state is an affront to liberty almost by definition.
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Congress and President Trump passed a spending bill to avoid another shutdown, but President Trump’s national emergency declaration over a non-emergency provides a troubling precedent…
Blog
Unmeasured Meta-Costs of the Administrative State
In my recent Forbes column “Rule of Flaw and the Costs of Coercion: Charting Undisclosed Burdens of the Administrative State,” I discuss some of the…
News Release
CEI Report Calls for Elimination of EPA’s Flawed Integrated Risk Information System
A new report released today by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) shows EPA’s Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) has significant problems with methodology, relies on…
Study
EPA’s Flawed IRIS Program Is Far from Gold Standard
Environmental activists claim that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) represents the gold standard for risk assessment.[i] In…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The delayed State of the Union speech happened on Tuesday, but contained no surprises on the policy front. The length of the Federal Register doubled…
News Release
CFPB Starts Rollback of Flawed Payday Loan Rule
Today the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced plans to roll back its controversial Obama-era rule against payday lending. CEI financial policy expert Daniel Press welcomed…
News Release
America’s Economic Revival Has Been Based on Environmental Deregulation and Increased Energy Production
Tonight, President Trump delivered his State of the Union address from the well of the House Chamber at the U.S. Capitol, focusing on topics including…
Blog
Administrative Procedure Act Limitations: Process and Oversight Shortcomings
The Administrative Procedure Act of 1946 (APA) set up the foundation of the public consultation rulemaking procedure. Part one of this two-part glance at APA…
Fox Business
Trump’s State of the Union Address in Five Words
He need only focus on five words to convey his vision: less regulation and less dependency in America.
Fox News
Super Bowl – Here’s Why it’s a Big Deal That You Can Place Your (Legal) Bets on the Big Game
For the first time since 1992, Americans outside of Nevada can legally wager on the outcome of the Super Bowl. This comes thanks to a recent…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The Midwest froze, but the Federal Register began to heat up. As I predicted earlier, the first three post-shutdown editions were slow. Then Thursday’s edition…
Blog
A Brief Outline of Undisclosed Costs of Regulation
In my recent Forbes column “Rule of Flaw and the Costs of Coercion: Charting Undisclosed Burdens of the Administrative State,” I discussed checks on the…
Forbes
Rule of Flaw and the Costs of Coercion: Charting Undisclosed Burdens of the Administrative State
Bloated by Congress’s delegation of most lawmaking, the Administrative State sits in America’s middle seat with its elbows out.
Blog
Administrative Procedure Act Limitations: Cost Measurement and Disclosure
U.S. Circuit Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III noted in a 2017 journal article that regulation sometimes contains “too much detail,” changes too “frequently and capriciously,” creates backlogs and…
Blog
The Shutdown Is Over: How Does that Affect Regulation?
During the partial shutdown, the Federal Register slowed to a crawl. Published every weekday, an average day’s edition consists of about 270 pages and contains…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The partial shutdown ended on Friday, though only on a three-week deal. This likely will not show up in the Federal Register’s page and rule…
Reason
Georgia’s ‘Mimosa Mandate’ Is a Victory for Alcohol Freedom
Reason cited Senior Fellow Michelle Minton on alcohol regulations: Why stifle alcohol sales when they’re clearly the miracle elixir society needs? Michelle Minton…
Newsmax
Don’t Let Red Tape Stunt Innovative Cryptocurrency
As cryptocurrency and the associated blockchain celebrate their tenth birthdays, the new “Free to Prosper” agenda for the 116th Congress — published by my…
Blog
What If Trump’s Regulations Exceed His Regulatory Rollback Savings?
President Donald Trump has pruned rules and costs at a quicker pace than other presidents. But could his other policies torpedo that?…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Last week, people got worked up over hamburgers and a television commercial about razors. Meanwhile the partial federal shutdown continued, and a bill to introduce…
National Law Review
Think-Tank Calls for RFS Repeal
The National Law Review cited CEI’s Agenda for the 116th Congress: On January 8, 2019, the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), a non-profit…
News Release
CEI Asks Court to Invalidate the FCC’s Costly Conditions on 2016 Charter Cable Merger
The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) and four cable customers yesterday filed the opening brief in their challenge to the wide-ranging conditions imposed by the FCC…
Forbes
If the Government Shutdown Falls Short of Armageddon, We Should Rethink the Other 75 Percent Too
If the longest-ever partial (25%) federal government shutdown persists, might Americans catch on that not everything the federal government does and regulates should remain national…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
On Saturday the partial government shutdown became the longest ever. The news cycle was wall-to-wall wall and shutdown coverage, though Rep. Sean Duffy (R-WI) introduced…
The American Spectator
Is DOJ Undermining Trump’s Commitment to Drain the Swamp?
The American Spectator cited Senior Fellow Michelle Minton on online betting and the Department of Justice: Michelle Minton of the Competitive Enterprise Institute,…
JDSupra
A Year-End Regulatory Report Card
JDSupra cited CEI’s Agenda for the 116th Congress. With the close of 2018, the Competitive Enterprise Institute released a report asking “how is…
Reason
The DOJ Shouldn’t Reignite the Fight Against Intrastate Gambling
Reason cited research by Senior Fellow Michelle Minton on state gambling regulations and the Department of Justice. Research into a history of the Wire…
The Washington Examiner
Oil and Ethanol Industries Renew Hostilities Over Mandate
The Washington Examiner cited CEI’s Agenda for Congress, regarding the EPA’s ethanol mandate: The mandate requires refiners to blend a range of biofuels…
The Washington Times
Go Ahead and Prosper
The Washington Times cited President Kent Lassman and CEI’s report, Free to Prosper: A Pro-Growth Agenda for the 116th Congress: The Competitive Enterprise…
Blog
Agenda for the 116th Congress: Regulatory Reform
The first chapter in the new Competitive Enterprise Institute agenda for Congress, “Free to Prosper,” is on regulatory reform. Most of the Agenda is about reforming…
Forbes
Working Together, We Can Keep Country People off the Internet (Just Kidding; Jumpstart 5G This Way)
A buddy of mine living in Charlottesville was wishing for more subsidized rail to travel to Washington. I told him it was cheaper for me…
Daily Caller
Conservatives Give Congress their Top Ten Energy Priorities for 2019
The Daily Caller cited CEI’s report, Free to Prosper: A Pro-Growth Agenda for the 116th Congress: Free-market think tank the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI)…
The Washington Examiner
CEI Warns Lawmakers that a ‘Green New Deal’ Would Risk a Humanitarian Crisis
The Washington Examiner cited CEI’s latest report, Free to Prosper: A Pro-Growth Agenda for the 116th Congress and Director of the Center for Energy and Environment, Myron Ebell:…
The Washington Times
‘Free to Prosper’: Competitive Enterprise Institute Offers Congress A Pro-Growth Agenda
The Washington Times cited CEI’s latest report, Free to Prosper: A Pro-Growth Agenda for the 116th Congress: The Competitive Enterprise Institute has released a handy…
Blog
A Free-Market Agenda for the 116th Congress
After a contentious election season, we look forward to the nation’s elected representatives rolling up their sleeves and getting to work. Divided party control in…
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