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
![Congress should heed GAO’s new regulatory reform recommendations](https://cei.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/regulatory-dark-matter-papers-1-578x324-c-default.png)
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…
![Report: Federal Regulatory Agencies Abuse Power with Guidance Documents](https://cei.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/GettyImages-1466389987-578x324-c-default.jpg)
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…
![Restoring Good Guidance Practices](https://cei.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/GettyImages-1466389987-578x324-c-default.jpg)
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…
Search Posts
Op-Eds
Taking the Scare Out of Biotech Crops
In the late 1990s, political scientist Gregory Conko had been studying food and pharmaceutical regulation as a fellow of the Competitive Enterprise Institute,…
Op-Eds
Eco-Fascism Going Global
Full text available as pdf<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office” /> We can say this for environmental…
Op-Eds
Antitrust: Sherman’s March Across the Globe
President Bush’s bipartisan Antitrust Modernization Commission held its first meeting in July. But after 114 years, America’s antitrust regulatory regime is overdue for burial, not…
Op-Eds
Lessons from the Gas Price Spike
<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office” /> Labor Day weekend marked the end of summer and its high seasonal demand…
Products
CEI Planet: September 2004
Full document available as a pdf. Tort Law “to Make Law,” by Ivan Osorio and Elizabeth Jones …
Products
Nanotech’s Choice: Pork or Innovation?
Staff & Scholars
![](https://cei.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/IMG_9026-scaled-500x500-c-default.jpg)
Clyde Wayne Crews
Fred L. Smith Fellow in Regulatory Studies
- Business and Government
- Consumer Freedom
- Deregulation
![](https://cei.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/IMG_9141-scaled-500x500-c-default.jpg)
Ryan Young
Senior Economist
- Antitrust
- Business and Government
- Regulatory Reform
![](https://cei.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Smith_Fred-Final-scaled-500x500-c-default.jpg)
Fred L. Smith, Jr.
Founder; Chairman Emeritus
- Automobiles and Roads
- Aviation
- Business and Government
![](https://cei.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/IMG_8717-scaled-500x500-c-default.jpg)
Sam Kazman
Counsel Emeritus
- Antitrust
- Automobiles and Roads
- Banking and Finance
![](https://cei.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/IMG_8422-scaled-500x500-c-default.jpg)
Marlo Lewis, Jr.
Senior Fellow
- Climate
- Energy
- Energy and Environment