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
Flawed guidance for monetizing nature should be withdrawn
The Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) has proposed new guidance aimed at improving how federal agencies account for environment-related costs and…

Frederick News Post
A new proposal for constitutional restoration
Now that Congress has gotten past debt-ceiling drama, next up is wrangling the nation’s budget for the coming year. A budget is about policy and…

Forbes
Once-Promising Guidance Document Disclosures Are Stagnating Under Biden: Inventory and Observations
Laws passed by Congress are archived by subject matter in the U.S. Code. The rules and regulations that incubate in the daily Federal…
Search Posts
News Release
Environmental, Other Regulations Under Scrutiny
Washington, D.C., December 20, 2002—From energy conservation standards for washing machines to labels on genetically modified food, many federal regulations are coming…
Study
How to Drive Competition in a “Deregulated” Market
View Full Document as PDF…
Op-Eds
EPA’s $32 Trillion Negligible Risk
It is no surprise that federal agencies often tailor their interpretation of the facts and the law to support various policy goals. It should…
Study
CEI Senior Fellow Publishes New Book On EPA’s Regulatory Enforcement
Out Of Bounds, Out Of Control: Regulatory Enforcement At The EPA CEI Senior Fellow James DeLong Publishes New…
Products
August/September 2002 Edition of CEI Update
Full Document Available in PDF Articles in this edition: “Nothing But Hot…
Op-Eds
Getting The Rails Back On Track
As the recent crash of an Amtrak passenger train in Maryland illustrates, our nation's railroad tracks are in dire need of maintenance or replacement.
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