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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Fraud in More Ways Than One
The news of the federal fraud charges against billionaire Texan financier Sir Allen Stanford (he got the knighthood from his dual citizenship from Antigua)…
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Will Lisa Jackson turn the Clean Air Act into a gigantic de-stimulus package?
Earlier this week, in a letter to Sierra Club climate council David Bookbinder, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said the Agency would reconsider, via…
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Michigan Steps Aside for Stimulus
Oregonian brewers looking for a new home may want to consider moving to Michigan where a state authority may just understand the principle…
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Bad McCarty! Bad!
Will regulators never learn? You can’t force businesses to actively pursue a business model that is unprofitable. Florida’s Governor Charlie Crist and Insurance regulator Kevin…
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Null Government
Well, the Spendulus/Stimulus will be signed into law within minutes. We’ll soon learn that even this Leviathan-In-A-Box is only the beginning of the Age…
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“Spendulus” conference report has passed the House
But thought you might be interested in one congressman’s last-minute appeal to sanity. You, dear reader, are a person things are done to.
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