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
The week in regulations: Farmer training and approving fireworks
Tuesday’s Federal Register contained 105 proposed regulations and 86 final regulations. Much of it was regulatory cleanup for railroads, pipelines, and mining. The reconciliation bill…

Blog
The year the red tape died? Trump’s 2025 rule count hits historic lows
At the halfway point of 2025, the federal regulatory machinery is running at an unprecedented crawl. That’s good news. As tracked annually in my…

Blog
Trump executive order establishing a portal for regulatory dark matter
Even at the insistence of Congress in 2018, 46 federal agencies could only uncover only about 13,000 of their guidance documents and policy statements…
Search Posts
Newsletter
The Competitive Enterprise Institute Daily Update
Issues in the News 1. TRANSPORTATION Communities in states such as Michigan, Florida, Texas and…
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Abolish Federal Pension Guarantee
Just as the squeaky wheel gets the grease, a government program gets Congress’ attention by going deep in the red. And the Pension Benefit Guaranty…
Newsletter
The Competitive Enterprise Institute Daily Dispatch
Issues in the News 1. TECHNOLOGY Microsoft and the EU Competition Commission have apparently reached an agreement over the Commission’s 2004…
Newsletter
The Competitive Enterprise Institute Daily Update
1. PRIVACY United Parcel Service loses computer tapes containing financial records for 3.9 million Citigroup Inc. customers. From CEI: Vice President…
Study
The Revolution Spins toward More Regulation
Full document available in pdf format. …
Op-Eds
Greens Are the Real Energy Problem, by Steven J. Milloy
<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office” /> It goes without saying that the global economy depends on the availability of…
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