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 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…

Blog
The week in regulations: Nuclear fees and unintentional otter injuries
The possible war with Iran did not escalate. The reconciliation bill debate continued, as did presidential pressure on the Federal Reserve to lower rates. U.S.
Search Posts
Op-Eds
Bureaucrats upending NIH
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) faces a revolt by its employees over new, draconian conflict-of-interest rules. They ban all consulting (paid or unpaid) for…
Op-Eds
Ponzi’s Scheme Still Works
Many have heard of Charles Ponzi, the 1920s flimflam — man whose name is now synonymous with con artistry The Oxford English Dictionary defines a…
Op-Eds
Misnamed Activists Are Thorns In Rose Of Agbiotech Foods
In a spin-dominated world where activists claim—often on the flimsiest of data—that this, that or the other thing causes cancer or threatens the…
Op-Eds
Risks in the Modern World: What Prospects for Rationality?
Risk refers to the likelihood that something will go wrong.[1] People naturally fear such mishaps, and risk aversion is a basic survival trait. Only non-survivors…
Op-Eds
Global Tax; or Global Tax Reform?
Am I the only one who noticed that the Kyoto Protocol (imposing artificial constraints on energy use to regulate atmospheric carbon dioxide to…
News Release
UN Sea Treaty Brings ‘Tragedy of the Commons’
Contact for Interviews: <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office” /> Richard Morrison, 202.331.2273 …
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