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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Congress should heed GAO’s new regulatory reform recommendations
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a December 2023 report titled “Options for Enhancing Congressional Oversight of Rulemaking and Establishing an Office of Legal…
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Report: Federal Regulatory Agencies Abuse Power with Guidance Documents
A new report by Competitive Enterprise Institute and Paragon Health Institute scholar Dr. Joel Zinberg, Restoring Good Guidance Practices: How to restrain the administrative…
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Restoring Good Guidance Practices
Executive summary Federal agency guidance documents form a large and expanding part of the administrative state’s regulatory universe. These informal documents including memoranda, bulletins, and…
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Will Congress Open the Market for Online Television?
<?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags” />Washington, D.C., February 15, 2006—The future of video content online could begin today in the Senate…
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Free Enterprise Fund and Competitive Enterprise Institute to Announce Constitutional Legal Challenge to Sarbanes-Oxley
WHAT: Sarbanes-Oxley was rushed into law in 2002 with good intentions following unprecedented corporate scandals. Yet, elements of Sarbanes-Oxley now serve as classic examples…
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The Competitive Enterprise Institute Daily Update
Issues in the News 1. LEGAL & CONSTITUTIONAL Finance company BB&T announces that it will refuse loans to developers attempting to…
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MSA Opposition Brief
Full Document Available in PDF…
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CEOs Should Mind Their Own Business
President Coolidge once said the business of America is business. He might have added that the business of business is to pursue profits,…
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The Competitive Enterprise Institute Daily Update
Issues in the News 1. FINANCE Government agencies target mortgage brokers for alleged “predatory lending” practices CEI Expert Available for…
Staff & Scholars
Clyde Wayne Crews
Fred L. Smith Fellow in Regulatory Studies
- Business and Government
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Ryan Young
Senior Economist
- Antitrust
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Fred L. Smith, Jr.
Founder; Chairman Emeritus
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Sam Kazman
Counsel Emeritus
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Marlo Lewis, Jr.
Senior Fellow
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