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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Blog
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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News Release
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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Study
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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News Release
Sen. Hillary Clinton Pushes for Faster FDA Approvals?
Contact: Jody Clarke, 202.331.2252 Washington, D.C., November 18, 2005—On her trip to Israel this week, Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) took part in a photo-op…
News Release
Supreme Court Nominee Alito Good News
Washington, D.C., October 31, 2005—The President's nomination of Third Circuit Judge Sam Alito to serve on the Supreme Court is good news.<?xml:namespace prefix…
Ideas in Action
LordD have MerCIe Vpon Vs
In some places in London, you can find scratched on old walls the imprecation, LorD haVe MerCIe Vpon Vs. The curious arrangement of the capital…
Products
CEI Planet: September – October 2005
Full Document Available in PDF No Regulation Without Representation…
Products
Batman’s Lessons
Given the enormous amounts of money advocates of bigger government throw about these days, many market liberals long to find our own “George Soros.”…
Products
No Regulation Without Representation
The exact cost of the federal regulatory state may never be fully known. As with taxes, firms generally pass along to consumers some of their…
Staff & Scholars
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Clyde Wayne Crews
Fred L. Smith Fellow in Regulatory Studies
- Business and Government
- Consumer Freedom
- Deregulation
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Ryan Young
Senior Economist
- Antitrust
- Business and Government
- Regulatory Reform
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Fred L. Smith, Jr.
Founder; Chairman Emeritus
- Automobiles and Roads
- Aviation
- Business and Government
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Sam Kazman
Counsel Emeritus
- Antitrust
- Automobiles and Roads
- Banking and Finance
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Marlo Lewis, Jr.
Senior Fellow
- Climate
- Energy
- Energy and Environment