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
National Review
From Munitions Shortage to Ebola, Dodd–Frank Minerals Measure Makes Things Worse
A scan of news headlines warns readers of two seemingly unrelated dangers around the globe. One is a potential shortage of missiles, interceptors, and…
Blog
The week in regulations: School libraries and sport pilots
The Federal Reserve raised interest rates. Congress passed a Russia sanctions bill that gives President Trump more tariff authority. Agencies issued new regulations ranging…
Blog
Free the Economy podcast: The Overton Window with James Hohman
In this week’s episode we cover Treasury yields, oil prices, US-China-Taiwan security policy, and Trump’s $5,000 dividend checks. Our…
Search Posts
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
78 new regulations, from drones to ground beef.
Blog
Washington Says Merry Christmas With 80,000 Pages Of Regulation
There may be a federal war on coal in the ground, but Washington has plenty of coal for your Christmas stocking. The Federal Register—where federal…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
There are just eight more editions of the Federal Register remaining to be published this year. With new regulations in the last week covering everything from truck…
Blog
Obama Cements Status as King of Regulatory Bloat
Today marks a milestone for the one brandishing the Mighty Pen and Phone. The Federal Register hit 78,648 pages today. The Register is where the federal…
National Review
Omnibus Bill: Search in Vain for the Regulatory Relief
There are certainly some good things in the Omnibus Spending/Tax Extenders bills that dropped early this morning (though I…
Washington Examiner
Report: Obama Sets Red Tape Record, 545,875 Pages
The Washington Examiner cites Wayne Crews' work on the scope of President Obama's record-setting regulations: What's more, Obama still has half a month…
Blog
Omnibus with Significant Reg Relief May Be Worth Supporting
As the year-end omnibus spending bill is about to be unveiled, there will be a scramble to examine its provisions. In many policy areas, my…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
It was a comparatively slow week for regulations, though agencies still published new rules ranging from bright lamps to train doors. On to the data:…
Fox Business
The Federal Government’s Vegetative Universe
Fox Business reports on Wayne Crews' study on the hard-to-detect regulations created by federal agencies, without Congress' approval, and their economic costs. The rules hit…
Blog
Regulatory Dark Matter
How do regulations get made? Agencies have to follow specific procedures, first outlined in the 1946 Administrative Procedure Act. The trouble is that many agencies simply…
Washington Examiner
Report: Obama admin winning the new regulations race
The Washington Examiner discusses Wayne Crew's report on the thousands of regulations that agencies pass each year. Federal agencies enacted 16 regulations for every one…
Investor's Business Daily
The Growing Threat Of “Dark Matter” Regulations
Investor's Business Daily reports on Wayne Crews' study on the growing regulatory burden created by executive orders, which are hard to detect. Author…
News Release
Mapping Washington’s Lawlessness: CEI Releases Inventory of How the Federal Government Interferes in Americans’ Lives
Today, the Competitive Enterprise released the first comprehensive report on how the executive branch goes around Congress, the American people, and the Administrative Procedure…
Study
Mapping Washington’s Lawlessness
Wayne Crews writes a preliminary inventory of “Regulatory Dark Matter.”…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
With most of December still to go, the 2015 Federal Register is already the seventh largest ever, going back to 1936. It remains on pace to set the…
National Review
Highway Robbery: Bill Gives IRS Power over Passports
Iain Murray discusses the provision to the highway bill that allows the IRS to revoke passports. This Thanksgiving, we were missing a family…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
Despite a respite for Thanksgiving, the 2015 Federal Register is now on pace to set an all-time record page count. It began publication in 1936. New regulations…
Washington Examiner
Washington red tape nears new and costly record
The Washington Examiner discusses Obama Administration regulations with Wayne Crews and Ryan Young. The red tape pushed this year mimics its record in…
Daily Mail
Daily Mail editorial: Latest Obama regulations burden business growth
The Daily Mail, in their article on the regulatory burden of the Obama Administration, mentions CEI's report on the regulatory state. As the Competitive…
Blog
Washington’s Thanksgiving Turkeys: Here’s Your Chance to Fill Up on the White House’s 218 Economically Significant Rules
The president will pardon a couple turkeys again this year for Thanksgiving. The birds will take a carbon-intensive cross country flight from San Francisco International…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
The number of new regulations on the year passed the 3,000 mark last week, and the Federal Register is nearly on pace to set an all-time record…
Forbes
Big Sexy Holiday Fun With The Fall 2015 Unified Agenda Of Federal Regulations
The U.S. Office of Management and Budget’s Fall 2015 Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions is out, appearing the weekend before Thanksgiving…
Wall Street Journal
The Sweet Gig of Being a Bureaucrat
The Wall Street Journal cites CEI's study on the costs of regulation. Yet Washington’s success has no doubt contributed to America’s troubles. The Competitive…
Blog
Less than 1 Percent of Federal Regulations Get Cost-Benefit Analysis
The Obama administration likes to assert that all the rules and regulations pouring out of Washington have positive net-benefits. Billions of dollars in postulated net…
Washington Times
An easier way to rein in big government
The Washington Times mentions CEI's research on the costs of regulation. Over the past two years, the Competitive Enterprise Institute and the National…
Blog
The Mild, Mild West: Regulation in America
Over at the newly launched U.S. edition of the U.K.-based CapX wesbite, Wayne Crews and I have a short primer on U.S. regulation: America…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
Wednesday’s Veterans’ Day holiday made it a short work week, but the Federal Register still passed the 70,000-page mark, with new regulations covering everything from Flugzeugbaus to…
Daily Caller
The Five most Damning Facts About Federal Regulation, In One Infographic
The Daily Caller features CEI’s infographic on federal regulations costs to the U.S. economy. CEI draws on their extensive report, Ten Thousand Commandments,…
Blog
Five Infuriating Facts about Federal Regulation
Each year, we produce Ten Thousand Commandments (10KC), an extensive report on the size, scope, and true cost of federal regulations. 10KC exposes the burdens put…
Watchdog.org
Even after stunning October jobs report, regulations are holding the economy back
Watchdog.org reviews October national jobs report and discuses the issue with Iain Murray who claims regulations may be slowing down economic growth. Iain…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
New rules last week covered everything from relaxed grape handling to unclaimed funerary objects.
Blog
Don’t Spare the ROD: An Inventory of Resolutions of Disapproval under the Congressional Review Act
Before Thanksgiving Day, both chambers of Congress are likely to consider so-called “Resolutions of Disapproval” to attempt to reject major, cripplingly expensive Environmental Protection Agency regulations…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
The pace of new rules has picked up recently, with 80 or more final regulations and more than 2,000 Federal Register pages for the second straight week.
Courier-Post
COMMENTARY: GOP debate’s missing question
The Courier Post published Michelle Minton's article which discusses how the GOP candidates should have approached answering the questions on fantasy football regulations during the…
Business News Daily
Title III Crowdfunding Ruling Changes Startup Fundraising for Good
Business News Daily asks John Berlau about the Securites and Exchange Commision's approval of new rules over the sales of securities through crowdfunding.
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
A normal week ended with a bang, with more than 450 pages of EPA regulations swelling Friday’s Federal Register to more than 800 pages (normal is around…
National Review
Regulatory Freeze Needs to Be Part of the Deal
Iain Murray discusses regulatory reform in the National Review: Representative Bill Flores’s Terms of Credit Act, which sought to pair the debt limit…
The Hill
What went unsaid at first Democrat debate
The Hill references Wayne Crews on the missing report to Congress on the costs and benefits of regulation. Inquiries to the SBA about…
Blog
Wayne Crews’s Essay Recognized as Part of 2015 Fisher Award
A collection of essays on the economic challenges facing the United States, as well as paths for recovery, were published by The Fraser Institute in…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
It was a short work week for the federal government due to the Columbus Day holiday. But agencies still found the time to publish new…
Daily Iowegian
Rein in Washington’s overgrowth
U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley references Wayne Crews' study on federal regulation's cost to Americans in the senator's news release. Federal regulations create a…
Boston Herald
As You Were Saying… Cut Regs to Get ‘Back to Future’
The Boston Harold cites the Competitive Enterprise's report that details the cost of federal regulations on American consumers and businesses. Yet while technology…
Milwaukee, Wisconsin Journal Sentinel
Government bureaucracy is stifling economic growth
The Milwaukee, Wisconsin Journal Sentinel highlights CEI's study on the cost of federal regulations to American consumers and businesses. Just look at the…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
The 2015 Federal Register broke the 60,000-page barrier in a big way, with new rules ranging from tuna boats to Nicaraguan archaeology. On to the…
Blog
What Will a Chaffetz Speakership Mean for Internet Freedom?
With House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s (R-Calif.) gaffe regarding the Benghazi investigation, the race to replace outgoing Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) appears much more open. Days later,…
Blog
Agency Overload: Meet the Federal Bureaucracy One-Page Word Cloud
There exist various counts of agencies in the federal bureaucracy, but no particular tally is regarded authoritative. The “Agency List” page maintained at FederalRegister.gov probably…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
In another busy week, federal agencies issued new regulations for everything from tomato plants to airplane seats. On to the data: Last week, 76 new…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
A slow week closed with a bang, with Friday’s Federal Register containing 15 proposed regulations, 25 final regulations, and 502 pages. Throughout the week, new regulations cover…
Blog
Education Department Power Grabs Criticized in Congress
Yesterday, The College Fix published an interesting story titled “Department of Education shredded for lawless overreach in Senate hearing.” It was about Congress getting annoyed with…
Blog
Jeb Bush Unveils Regulatory Reform Agenda
Traditionally, presidents named Bush have not been friends of limited government. George H.W. Bush raised taxes after his famous “read my lips” speech, and oversaw…
Blog
You Won’t Believe All the Ways Federal Agencies Issue Rules
Recently, I’d pointed out that we don’t really know how many federal agencies there are. That implies we don’t know how many rules and regulations…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
Agencies last week proposed 51 new regulations, and finalized 77 other rules covering everything from aluminum to Peruvian citrus. On to the data: Last week,…
Blog
Rebuilding Liberty with Charles Murray
My colleague Fred Smith has a new review up, this time of Charles Murray’s most recent book By the People: Rebuilding Liberty without Permission. Murray argues that…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
It was a short work week due to the Labor Day holiday, but agencies still found the time to finalize new regulations covering everything from…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
A new International Trade Commission regulation gives a useful reminder of the holy trinity of price regulation: if a company charges a higher price than its…
Blog
How to Fix Regulation without Representation
Before it departed for its August recess, the House passed the Regulations from the Executive In Need of Scrutiny (REINS) Act. It would require Congress…
Wall Street Journal
The Off-Grid Administration
The Wall Street Journal discusses CEI's discovery of the "Richard Windsor" EPA emails: In August the Competitive Enterprise Institute filed a motion in…
The Blaze
‘No Authoritative List’: Federal Gov’t Lacks Precise Number on Just How Many Bureaucracies Exist
Wayne Crews discusses the murky number of federal agencies with The Blaze. Wayne Crews, vice president for policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute,…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
As the 2015 Federal Register topped 50,000 pages, federal agencies issued new regulations for everything from bicycles to tuna. On to the data: Last week, 73 new…
Blog
Nobody Knows How Many Federal Agencies Exist
As bureaucracy sprawls, nobody can say with complete authority exactly how many federal agencies exist. The twice-annual Unified Agenda of Federal Deregulatory and Regulatory Actions, which…
Blog
CEI’s Battled Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
Nearly 2,000 Federal Register pages contain regulations for everything from pay ratios to apricots. On to the data: Last week, 76 new final regulations were published in…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
The number of this year’s new regulations zoomed past the 2,000 mark, though the pace is still slower than usual. This week’s new rules cover…
Blog
Regulations Endanger Democracy
The House has passed some key regulatory reform measures this year, including the REINS Act most recently (which stands for “Regulations from the Executive In Need…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
As it zoomed past the 45,000-page mark, the 2015 Federal Register saw new regulations covering everything from space particles to raspberries. On to the data: Last week,…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
One of this week’s 55 proposed regulations is a 264-page Interior Department regulation to prevent water stream pollution from coal mines. Final rules published cover…
News Release
CEI on REINS Act – Fixing Regulation Without Representation
Today the U.S. House of Representatives are voting on the Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny (REINS) Act. For years, Competitive Enterprise Institute’s…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
The Dodd-Frank financial regulation bill turned five years old this week (see CEI analysis here, here, and here). Other than that, it was business as…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
It was a busy week for the Federal Register, which included a 629-page proposed regulation from the EPA for greenhouse gas emissions and fuel economy for…
Blog
Sunsetting Federal Regulations
An average of around 70 rules and regulations are issued every week. There were 3,554 in 2015, and have been 1,693 in 2015 as of…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
The newest batch of federal regulations cover everything from municipal fireworks shows to Venezuelan sanctions. On Monday, the Federal Register will likely pass the 40,000-page mark. On…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
It was a short work week due to the July 4 holiday, but regulators still managed to publish 34 proposed regulations and more than 90…
Blog
Independence Day? Yeah, Right: A Fourth of July Roundup of Federal Regulation
Congress is in recess and can’t do any more damage as the Fourth of July approaches, but federal agencies remain in business until they enjoy…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
The big news from last week was the Supreme Court’s King v. Burwell decision, which upheld the IRS’ right to issue regulations directly contradicting legislation passed by…
Blog
One Nation, Ungovernable? Confronting the Modern Regulatory State
(Note: What follows is a hyperlinked version of the introductory paragraphs to the chapter of the same name in the new Fraser Institute/Mercatus…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
The Federal Register passed the 35,000-page mark with new regulations covering everything from food additives to chimpanzees. On to the data: Last week, 81 new final regulations…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
It was a prolific week for the Federal Register, with more than 1,700 pages covering everything from real estate appraisal to water banks. On to the…
Blog
How Many Significant Regulations Escape Congress’ Notice?
The Spring 2015 Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions was released in late May, presenting recently completed actions and ongoing priorities of the federal…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
New regulations last week covered everything from growing cherries to airport security fees to preventing collisions at sea. On to the data: Last week, 65…
Blog
Obama Has Issued More “Economically Significant” Rules in 6.5 Years than Bush Did in Eight
It happens to be the case that, in terms of overall counts of rules and regulations published in the Federal Register as final rules, the George W.
Blog
Here Are All 205 “Economically Significant” Rules in the Spring 2015 Unified Agenda of Federal Regulations
The Spring 2015 Unified Agenda of Federal Deregulatory and Regulatory Actions was released by the Obama administration just before Memorial Day weekend. It’s less of a…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
It was a four-day work week because of the Memorial Day holiday, but regulators still had a busy week, with new regulations covering everything from…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
The big regulatory news from last week was the publication of the semiannual Unified Agenda, which lists most upcoming regulations from rulemaking agencies at various…
Forbes
A Comprehensive Regulatory Reform Agenda, Barack Obama Veto Pen Notwithstanding
Congress passes a few dozen laws each year, but regulators meanwhile issue several thousand rules and regulations. On top of that, “regulatory dark matter“…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
It was a slow week despite more than 1,300 Federal Register pages, with just 36 proposed regulations and fewer than 50 final regulations, ranging from spearmint oil…
US News
The Real Cost of Regulation
Peter Roff cites Wayne Crews' work on the cost of regulation in U.S. News. These costs are not insignificant. As the Competitive Enterprise Institute…
Fox Business
Cost of Federal Regulation: $1.88 trillion
Fox Business features Wayne Crews' Ten Thousand Commandments report. The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) is out with its annual report that estimates that the U.S.
Blog
Ten Thousand Commandments 2015: A Fact Sheet
Ten Thousand Commandments is the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s annual survey of the size, scope and cost of federal regulations, and how they affect American…
News Release
Report Reveals Hidden Tax of Federal Regulation Reaches $1.88 Trillion
In the latest edition of Ten Thousand Commandments released today, the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) reveals the latest on the large, growing “hidden tax”…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
Last week’s raft of new rules covers everything from school lunch workers to Flugzeugbau gliders. On to the data: Last week, 65 new final regulations…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
The 1,000th new regulation of 2015 was published in Friday’s Federal Register, which itself hit the 25,000-page mark on the year. Even so, agencies are still…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
The big news in regulation for the week came from Canada, which made official its one-in, one-out policy for new regulations. New regulations from agencies…
Blog
Balanced Budgets and Regulatory Budgets
The Joint House-Senate Conference Meeting on the federal budget has begun. Chairman Tom Price of Georgia remarked: Completing a budget is one of…
Study
No Spoof
Several states had serious doubts about the validity of tax credits for individuals purchasing insurance on Obamacare's federally facilitated exchange as early as 2011. Questions still remain,…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
It was a fairly typical week, with nearly 70 final regulations and more than 50 proposed regulations hitting the books, covering everything from potato handling…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
Along with last wwek’s usual slew of final regulations covering everything from power plants to televisions, an additional 55 proposed regulations also hit the books.
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
New rules published in the last week include everything from the IRS and Executive Office of the President declaring themselves exempt from select transparency laws,…
Blog
The Republican Budget and Middle Class Economics
Yesterday the House Republicans released their “Balanced Budget for a Stronger America” and the Senate Republicans will release their budget proposal today. House Republicans…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
An otherwise slow week ended with a bang on Friday, with 27 new regulations, or nearly half the week’s total, covering everything from calorie counts…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments on the King v. Burwell case last week. The decision, likely to appear in June, will determine in part whether regulatory…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
The FCC, inspired by a law passed in 1934, unveiled its controversial plan to regulate the Internet as a public utility. Beyond that it was…
Staff & Scholars
Clyde Wayne Crews
Fred L. Smith Fellow in Regulatory Studies
- Business and Government
- Consumer Freedom
- Deregulation
Ryan Young
Senior Economist and Director of Publications
- 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