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
The Center Square
Study: Mixed record on permitting reform offers some hope
CEI’s James Broughel provided comments to The Center Square about a study he authored: “Pennsylvania’s a state where energy is very important to its…
Forbes
Libertarian Victory: You Mean We Can Shut Down Government Without Even Passing A Law?
It is happening again. Congress will enact another bloated, pork-laden and largely unread omnibus spending bill to complete formal appropriations for the 2024 fiscal year…
Blog
CEI briefs the public on the need for administrative law court reform
The Competitive Enterprise Institute recently hosted our first Capitol Hill event of the year, urging Congress to propose administrative law court (ALC) reform. Our…
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Op-Eds
Feeding the Green Money Tree
The Clinton-Gore administration continues to thumb it nose at the Constitution by trying to implement a global warming treaty (the Kyoto Protocol) that has not…
Citation
Regulatory ‘Right to Know’
News Release
June 22: Cost of Government Day
“Every year on April 15, million of taxpayers across the country file their 1040 forms, and are outraged at how much they have to send…
News Release
Institute Applauds Supreme Court Decision UpHolding First Amendmen Rights of Advertisers
Washington, DC, June 15, 1999 – The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) applauds yesterday’s Supreme Court decision in Greater New Orleans Broadcasting Association v. United…
Op-Eds
Constitutional Integrity (Letter to the Editor)
A May 24 editorial, “A retreat on clean air,” suggests that holding Congress to the Constitution will make solid environmental protection a “hazy, distant prospect,”…
Op-Eds
Who Makes Our Laws? (Letter to the Editor)
Surely Cass R. Sunstein is right that “greater respect for democratic government” is urgent (“The Courts’ Perilous Right Turn,” Op-Ed, June 2). But in his…
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