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
Evaluating DOGE nearly halfway through Trump’s second term
One week after his victory in the 2024 presidential election, Donald Trump announced that he would create the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)…
Blog
Don’t expect the administrative state to disarm itself
Last week, I read two articles in the summer 2026 edition of the Cato Institute’s Regulation magazine: “Defanging the FCC” by Paul Matzko…
Blog
The week in regulations: Razorback suckers and conflict of interest requirements
Congress is considering honoring the late Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) by passing a counterproductive Russia sanctions and tariffs bill. Inflation numbers for June…
Search Posts
News Release
U.S. House passes legislation to preserve consumer choice in kitchen appliances
The U.S. House of Representatives passed HR 1615 today, a bill that would protect Americans ability to choose the type of stove they want…
Blog
Congress should block Biden’s harmful environmental regulations with power of the purse
Congress shouldn’t sit back and watch as the Biden administration proposes and finalizes costly and harmful energy and environmental regulation. Instead, it needs to…
Blog
Do more deregulation in debt limit deal
The internal GOP debate this week is over lower-case “d” default if a June 6 deadline for an increase in the debt…
Blog
Free the Economy podcast: Transparency for government, privacy for people with Brian Hawkins
In this week’s episode we talk discuss Tim Carney’s view on why big government is good for big business, Stone Washington on…
Blog
Let’s get this huge ‘hidden tax’ of regulation out into the open
Smack dab in the middle of contentious debt limit negotiations, the House Budget Committee held another in its series of hearings on American economic…
Testimony
Testimony of Wayne Crews: Removing the Burdens of Government Overreach
I appreciate the opportunity to discuss issues surrounding Removing the Burdens of Government Overreach, and I thank Chairman Arrington, Ranking Member Boyle, and Members…
Blog
A remembrance: C. Boyden Gray, 1943-2023
We mourn the passing of C. Boyden Gray. He was a man of his family, the law, and his country. Boyden served in…
The Hill
Don’t give federal agencies carte blanche on regulations — make Congress vote
The Limit, Save, Grow Act, recently passed by the Republican House of Representatives, would raise the nation’s borrowing limit through March 31 of next year…
Forbes
Congress Should Halt OMB’s Rewrite Of Circular A-4 Guidance On Regulatory Cost-Benefit Analysis
People love to gripe about red tape; but not only is there a method to the madness, there’s a certain madness to the method…
Blog
This week in ridiculous regulations: toy guns and trophy fisheries
The 2023 Federal Register topped 30,000 pages on May 8. New inflation numbers looked better on the surface, but actually got worse. A…
News Release
Economist James Broughel joins Competitive Enterprise Institute as senior fellow
The Competitive Enterprise Institute is pleased to welcome economist James Broughel as a Senior Fellow with a focus on innovation and dynamism. Dr.
Blog
Screw up the dishwashers, save the planet?
The Department of Energy (DOE) proposed more stringent energy and water efficiency standards for dishwashers Friday, despite the fact that the regulations currently…
Blog
This week in ridiculous regulations: cloudy guidance documents and potato ledprona
The number of new final regulations this year topped 1,000 last week. It was the rare 3,000-page for the Federal Register, which will likely…
Blog
Regulatory reform in the 118th Congress: Regulatory Accountability Act
In 2003, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) published Circular A-4. A-4 is little-known but crucial oversight measure for new regulations. It…
Blog
The week in ridiculous regulations: otter casualties and moving the goalpost
Fox News settled its defamation case over its false reporting on the 2020 election with voting machine maker Dominion. The Consumer Financial Protection…
Forbes
Congress Must Mobilize To Halt Biden’s Radical Administrative State Transformation
[T]he genius of the Progressives in the late 19th century was to preempt or push large sectors of the emerging future (the…
Blog
Congress shouldn’t party like it’s 2019 on national debt
Now comes the GOP’s turn to do its own version of a “lockdown.” Republicans should heed the advice of a member of the other party,…
News Release
House Republicans Helpfully Tie Government Reforms to Debit Limit Deal
House Republican leadership yesterday released the text of their debt limit deal which trades a suspension or increase in the debt limit for a…
National Review
No, Lockdown States Did Not Do Better
Many politicians, public-health figures, and media pundits continue to insist that the Covid lockdowns were a success and represent a blueprint for future pandemic responses.
Blog
Biden Executive Order Harms Transparency
The Biden administration recently issued an Executive Order making major changes to the regulatory system, although almost nobody noticed thanks to culture war…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Headline CPI inflation went down slightly, but a deeper look shows that things got slightly worse. Meanwhile, agencies issued new regulations ranging from…
Blog
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…
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…
Blog
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…
News Release
Biden’s ‘Modernizing Regulatory Review’ Executive Order Will Undermine Review
President Biden yesterday issued an “Executive Order on Modernizing Regulatory Review,” by which “modernizing” apparently means undermining transparency and disclosure and pushing a…
Forbes
Regulatory Reform’s Role In Addressing The Debt Limit
Spring is here, the first quarter is over, and the federal debt limit is back in play. Again. The cap was last …
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Finland, which borders Russia, is joining NATO. Former President Donald Trump was indicted by a grand jury. Meanwhile, agencies issued new regulations…
Forbes
The “Guidance Out Of Darkness Act” Is The Low-Hanging Fruit Of Regulatory Reform
We often marvel that we don’t actually know how many federal agencies exist. And the number of “commissions” and programs (many…
News Release
Senator Ron Johnson and 15 GOP Colleagues Introduce Guidance Out of Darkness Act in 118th Congress
Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) introduced the Guidance Out of Darkness (GOOD) Act this week, a bill aimed at bringing transparency to agency guidance…
Forbes
Laws Against Laws: A 118th Congress Regulatory Reform Agenda For Rightsizing Washington
It’s all right to be little-bitty. — Alan Jackson, “Little Bitty,” Everything I Love, 1996 It ought to be harder to enact…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
President Biden released a $6.8 trillion proposed budget. The labor force grew by 311,000 people in February. Meanwhile, agencies issued new regulations…
Blog
Regulatory Reform in the 118th Congress: The ALERT Act
Transparency is a vital part of good government. It is also lacking in the regulatory process. H.R. 262, The All Economic Regulations are…
News Release
Biden Budget Amounts to Top-Down Central Planning, Lacks Needed Reforms
President Biden today unveiled his latest budget submitted to Congress. CEI experts take a dim view of the agenda of excess spending and…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
CEI published a new paper on right-to-repair legislation and held a hill briefing about regulatory reform and other topics. Meanwhile, agencies issued…
Forbes
Biden’s 2024 Federal Budget Proposal Extends Helicopter Government
It appears that instead of a federal fiscal budget that sticks to the basics, we are growing accustomed to an ambitious central government that…
Blog
Regulatory Reform Bills in the 118th Congress: The Article I Regulatory Budget Act
The federal government is supposed to put out an annual budget to track its spending. Why doesn’t it do the same thing for regulation?…
Forbes
Regulation Without Representation: A Quick Revisit Of The “Unconstitutionality Index”
Administrative agencies rather than the elected Congress do the bulk of U.S. lawmaking despite the strictures of Article I of the…
Blog
Regulatory Reform Bills in the 118th Congress: The GOOD Act
Regulatory dark matter is a serious problem. Agencies are supposed to run new regulations through a formal process which includes publishing a draft version…
Blog
Regulatory Reform Bills in the 118th Congress: The REINS Act
Every new session of Congress is a new chance to enact substantive regulatory reform. This post inaugurates an occasional series highlighting reform bills that…
Washington Examiner
Democrats and Republicans: Unite around abundance
Inflation may finally be starting to wane, but there is no clear end in sight to the economic turmoil that Americans have experienced for…
Americans for Tax Reform
Q&A on Credit Card Regulation
Americans for Tax Reform has been consistently opposed to government regulation of debit and credit card transactions. Last year, ATR opposed the Credit…
News Release
CEI Launches “Eye on FTC” Campaign to Raise Awareness of Agency Overreach and Lack of Transparency
WASHINGTON—The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) launched a new “Eye on FTC” educational campaign today to raise awareness about overreach and a…
Blog
Congress Should Require the Administration to Adopt a Regulatory Budget in Exchange for Raising the Debt Ceiling
Every once in a while, the escalating drama of Washington policy debate has a genuine problem behind it. The suddenly heated focus on the need…
Larry Kudlow Show
RADIO: CEI’s Wayne Crews Joins The Larry Kudlow Show
Fred L. Smith Fellow in Regulatory Studies Wayne Crews joined The Larry Kudlow Show to discuss the hidden tax of federal regulations.
News Release
CEI Regulation Expert Wayne Crews Becomes “Fred L. Smith, Jr. Fellow in Regulatory Studies”
Longtime regulation policy expert Clyde Wayne Crews is now the inaugural “Fred L. Smith, Jr. Fellow in Regulatory Studies” at the Competitive Enterprise…
National Review
Puerto Rico Libre
The first airplane my father ever boarded was the one that took him from Puerto Rico to New York to attend the United States Military…
News Release
White House Finally Releases “Unified Agenda” on Upcoming Regulations, Signaling a Rise in Big, Costly New Regulations
Today, at last, the White House released the fall 2022 Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions, where federal regulators report on what they have planned…
Forbes
118th Congress Should Confront Biden Administration On Overdue Regulatory Cost Benefit Reports
Not later than February 5, 2001, and on the first Monday in February of each year thereafter, the President, acting through the Director of…
The Hill
Congress can promote growth by lowering regulatory barriers for consumers and businesses
Three quarters of Americans surveyed by Gallup say they disapprove of the way Congress handles the job of governing. We also know…
News Release
CEI Releases Pro-Growth Regulatory Reform Agenda for the 118th Congress
Today the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) offered a set of important policy reforms for the 118th Congress to consider when it convenes…
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