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
This week in ridiculous regulations: Seat belts and eagle possession
This week’s roundup will be a little different than usual. Since the new year began mid-week, and I already published a breakdown of 2024’s year-end numbers, as…
Blog
Biden’s regulatory landscape: A year-end analysis
As we ring in 2025, the Federal Register reveals a noteworthy chapter in regulatory history under the Joe Biden administration. We take our traditional year-end look at it here. The 2024 Federal Register closed…
Blog
2024 Regulation roundup
All the major regulatory numbers for 2024’s new regulations are now in the books. Here are the highlights, followed by a little analysis and a preview of…
Search Posts
Blog
TSA’s Body Scanner Shuffle Continues, Agency Still Flouts The Law On Body Scanners
A great deal of news coverage today has been given to the Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) decision to remove backscatter X-ray strip-search machines from U.S.
Blog
Federal Regulation Update: 224 Economically Significant Rules In The Pipeline
The federal government's Fall Regulatory Plan and the Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions finally appeared the Friday before Christmas (the Spring 2012…
Blog
Where Did All The Environmental Protection Agency Rules Go?
The Unified Agenda of Federal Regulations has always been squishy and has never bound agencies to issue solely the rules contained within; but the decline…
Blog
Washington’s Liquor Privatization Did Increase Prices, But Also Selection And Availability
Since selling off the state-owned liquor monopoly, many Washington State residents have noticed an unfortunate development; despite what proponents of privatization promised, the cost of…
Citation
Obama Issued $216 Billion in New Regulations in 2012, Showing the Need For Reform
Even though these regulations may seem harmless, the costs add up. Something needs to be done about excess regulations so that the worker can take…
Blog
Obamacare Imposes New Fees, Cost Increases On The Public
Obamacare was sold to the public based on the fallacy that it would cut healthcare costs, but each month brings additional evidence that it…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week In Regulation
52 new regulations, from nematodes to tiltorotors.
Citation
To fix government, reform its agencies
Another way would be legislation to have all laws/rules of executive agencies be subject to economic impact studies which would show the dollar amount and…
Statesman
Senators, protect us from the EPA
According Wayne Crews of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, President Obama issued 953 “major regulations” (meaning regulations with a cost of $100 million or more, or…
Blog
Qualified Mortgage Rule Is One Of Many Dodd-Frank Boots To Drop
The first thing that should be said about today's "qualified mortgage" rule is that it is just one of many new regulations the Consumer Financial…
Blog
How About Some Intellectual Diversity At The Labor Department?
As the cabinet turns: Hilda Solis announced this week that she will soon be stepping down from her post as secretary of labor. Solis, a…
Blog
Alcohol Regulation Roundup: New Year Edition 2013
With a new year comes a new opportunity to take stock in our past endeavors and renew our goals for the future. While many a…
Blog
Feds Say Hybrid Electric Vehicles Too Quiet, Noisemakers Should Be Mandated
Green paternalists often gush about the great potential for hybrid electric automobiles to reduce negative externalities, or social costs, such as local air pollution and…
Blog
Basel III Cliff May Be Averted, But Dangers Still Loom For Main Street Banks
After numerous criticisms from U.S. community banks and lawmakers of both parties, the international committee in charge of the Basel III bank capital agreement…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week In Regulation
28 new regulations, from the United Soybean Board to synthetic drugs.
Forbes
Federal Regulation: The Costs of Benefits
The premise that national top-down regulation of the economy brings substantial net benefits dominates public policy. But forget the philosophical debate over laissez-faire vs. the…
Blog
Update On D.C.’s Driverless Car Legalization Legislation
In November, I noted in The Washington Post and here on Open Market that a bill introduced in the D.C. Council contained two dangerously flawed provisions and…
Blog
Settlement: FTC Ends Google Antitrust Investigation
Today, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) cleared Google of accusations of "Search Bias," and inappropriately harming rivals. The investigation lasted nearly…
Blog
CEI Podcast For January 3, 2013: The Fiscal Cliff Meets The Costberg
Congress made an unsatisfying compromise deal this week to avoid falling off the fiscal cliff. But Vice President for policy Wayne Crews thinks this is…
Blog
New Year, New Laws
More than 400 new laws came into effect today.
Blog
Chicago Voters Reelect Legally Insane Judge
In November, Chicago voters re-elected a legally insane judge charged with a crime of violence. "The Cook County Democratic Party…
Blog
2012’s Year-End Regulatory Report Card
Both 2011 and 2010 finished with over 81,000 pages in the Federal Register, as tallied in Ten Thousand Commandments. These were the highest page counts…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week In Regulation
54 new regulations, from handling spearmint oil to drug testing railroad workers.
Blog
EPA Regulations Cost How Much?!
Over at the Daily Caller, I summarize my recent CEI Regulatory Report Card on the EPA. Recommended if you don't feel like reading the entire…
Forbes
Obama’s Regulatory Cliff Draws Near
The scope is staggering. According to the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the overall regulatory burden has reached $1.8 trillion annually, and $215.4 billion in compliance costs…
Daily Caller
EPA costs US economy $353 billion per year
Transparency is the lifeblood of democracy. Washington needs more of it, especially in the all-too-opaque world of regulation. The…
Blog
Community Reinvestment Act Induced Banks To Take Bad Risks, Economic Study Finds
The Community Reinvestment Act, which "prods banks to make loans in low-income communities,” encouraged banks to make riskier loans, concludes a recent study…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week In Regulation
68 new regulations, from summer flounder fishing to switching contractors.
Blog
Fear The Regulatory Cliff, Not The Fiscal Cliff
Economist Bruce Bartlett notes that by cutting the federal budget deficit, the much-feared fiscal cliff will actually increase the size of the economy in the…
Blog
CEI Podcast For December 19, 2012: The EPA Regulatory Report Card
Fellow in Regulatory Studies Ryan Young talks about the need for more transparency in the world of regulation, as well as CEI's new EPA Regulatory…
Blog
Stuck in Time: Italy’s Politics
Things have a way of repeating themselves. This is especially true in Italy, where politics have been stuck in a time loop for the…
Blog
Path To Transparency: The EPA Regulatory Report Card
Transparency is in short supply in the world of regulation. How many rules does an agency have in the pipeline? How much will they cost?…
Study
Regulatory Report Card: Environmental Protection Agency
The quality of regulation depends heavily on its transparency. Taking to heart Justice Louis Brandeis’ stated belief that sunshine is the best disinfectant, the purpose…
Blog
The Regulatory Reduction Commission
In today's Washington Times, Wayne Crews and I write about a reform that has nearly two decades of bipartisan support, has a proven track record…
News Release
EPA Lacks Transparency, Is Far Costlier Than Other Agencies
WASHINGTON, D.C., Dec. 19, 2012 – Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations now cost Americans an estimated $353 billion per year—almost twice the regulatory costs of…
Washington Times
Federal rules cost $10,000 per employee
What do the Progressive Policy Institute, former Sen. Phil Gramm of Texas, former presidential candidate Herman Cain and the Competitive Enterprise Institute have…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week In Regulation
69 new regulations, from Spanish translations of used car buyers guides to shortnose suckers.
Blog
Regulation Roundup
Montreal mulls requiring dogs to be bilingual, USDA regulates polydactyl cats, plus more.
Blog
PolitiFact Is The Liar Of The Year
PolitiFact falsely depicted Michael Cannon, the director of health policy studies at the Cato Institute, as suggesting that state law overrides federal law, erroneously…
Blog
CEI Podcast For December 12, 2012: Ending The Beer Monopoly
Fellow in Consumer policy Studies Michelle Minton argues that the beer industry in America is essentially a monopoly. In her new paper "Avoid a Monopoly…
One News Now
Regulations Aplenty
Ryan Young, fellow in regulatory studies at the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), reports that as of December 3, 2012, 3,392 final rules have been published…
Forbes
Regulation Vs. Jobs: Assessing The Employment Impact Of Rules and Regulations
One might think there’s some official acceptance that the thousands of regulations issued annually in Washington have a dampening impact on job creation. But no;…
Blog
Obama’s Dangerous Italian Labor Rhetoric
[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="260"] President Obama spoke in Detroit on Monday[/caption] President Obama condemned yesterday Michigan’s forthcoming transition to a right-to-work state. He claimed,…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week In Regulation
94 new regulations, from apricots to civilian flights in Iraq.
Blog
CEI Podcast For December 6, 2012: Rising Public Sector Pay
Senior Fellow Matt Patterson discusses why public sector workers make substantially more money than their private sector counterparts.
Blog
When Gridlock Is Good: The Case Of The Toxic Substances Control Act
When it comes to traffic, gridlock is never good. And in politics, it's a big problem when lawmakers can't agree on a plan to rescue…
Blog
Beyond The Fiscal Cliff, Bipartisan Regulatory Reform
If I'm reading this right, the Progressive Policy Institute wants to roll back some over-regulation. It's not clear how much, but it does seem to…
Blog
What Is Green Chemistry?
Washington's state bureaucrats are soliciting proposals from "public and private sector firms to help create a technically competent and vibrant Green Chemistry Center to help…
Blog
More Lawsuits Against Doctors, Hospitals Due To Senate Amendment 3215 To NDAA
Earlier, I wrote about a proposed amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act for 2013, which would dramatically increase lawsuits against schools and…
Blog
Official Time: Officially Outrageous
Would you be upset if you learned that your local tax dollars were funding a rival sports team in another state? Of course, but that, thankfully, is…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week In Regulation
88 new regulations, from phone bill formatting to food labels.
Blog
Intrade Is Only The Latest CFTC Outrage
Every so often, a government agency will do something so outrageous it will shock even even everyday critics of "big government," as well as draw…
Blog
Good Riddance! — SEC’s Schapiro Sabotaged Startup Law Supported By Obama
When President Obama appointed Mary Schapiro to head the Securities and Exchange Commission four years ago, I kept an open mind and was even cautiously optimistic.
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week In Regulation
32 new regulations, from dehumidifiers to solid waste.
Forbes
Regulatory Uncertainty Drives A Fish Farmer To Foreign Waters
Feeding 7 billion people is no small challenge. As it has from time immemorial, high quality protein harvested from the sea plays a major role…
Blog
CEI Podcast For November 21, 2012: Will Hostess Survive?
Senior Fellow Matt Patterson breaks down the controversy surrounding confection maker Hostess' perilous position.
Blog
Investment Falls Off A Cliff, Threatening Economy
Investment has fallen "off a cliff" reports The Wall Street Journal, as companies worry about the "fiscal cliff" at the start of next year,…
Blog
Overhyped Energy Drink Reaction
As has been reported extensively, the Food and Drug Administration has received several recent reports of alleged side-effects sustained by consumers who have ingested energy…
Blog
Liberal Judges: Equality Is Unconstitutional
On Thursday, a federal appeals court, dividing along ideological lines in an 8-to-7 ruling, struck down a provision of the Michigan state constitution prohibiting racial…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week In Regulation
48 new regulations, from medical paperwork to longshoremen’s headwear.
Blog
The Basel Cliff — Basel III’s Poisonous Recipe For The Economy
As if the "fiscal cliff," with its prospects of looming tax hikes, were not enough, big and small banks—and in turn consumers and businesses who…
Blog
Quote Of The Day: Knowing One’s Limits
Alfred Kahn's lesson for regulators: "Do you want to be precisely wrong or approximately right?"…
Blog
Businesses Against Deregulation
The trucking industry went to extraordinary lengths to fight deregulation in the 1970s.
Blog
Jeffrey Sachs: Macro-Keynsianism Is “Outdated And Outmoded”… So, We Need Micro-Keynsianism!
Jeffrey Sachs, the harbinger of bad policy, has written his first post-election column in the Financial Times, “Obama has four years to transform America’s…
Blog
Immigration Reform Resurrected!
Nothing makes politicians see the light like losing. Even while immigration restrictionists reassure themselves that the GOP’s immigration message is fine despite losing as…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week In Regulation
61 new regulations, from organic food residue to amateur rocketry liberalization.
Blog
D.C. Councilmember Mary Cheh Still Doesn’t Understand Driverless Cars
Last Sunday, The Washington Post published my op-ed criticizing the approach taken by Councilmember Mary Cheh's introduced legislation to legalize driverless cars in Washington,…
Blog
The Election Is Over: What Now For Regulation?
A midnight rush is on the way, though it will likely be smaller than if Romney had won the election.
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week In Regulation
60 new regulations, from dishwashers to falconry.
Blog
Alabama Unions Vs. Privacy: Organized Labor’s War On The Secret Ballot
By Matt Patterson and Crissy Brown Tomorrow, Alabamans will have the opportunity to enshrine the secret ballot into their state constitution. A proposal before voters called Amendment…
Blog
“Status-Quo-ism” Of Italian Politicians Is Economically Perilous
Italian media report all sides of Italy’s political spectrum are calling for early elections. Unfortunately, that means a return of the unreformed Italian political class…
Forbes
You Can Sense The Desperation in the Air
The Competitive Enterprise Institute reports that the Obama administration issues a new regulation every two hours, and the Heritage Foundation has reported that during the…
Blog
Never Look A Gift (Clause) Horse In The Mouth
In America, it is impossible to snuff out money from politics. As long as government has the power to dish out favors to politically connected…
Blog
Sandy Beaches, Meet Hurricane Sandy
In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, many reminisce of 2005's Hurricane Katrina. With at least a dozen East Coast states in a declared state of…
Blog
CEI Podcast For November 1, 2012: Is Google’s Search Dominance Permanent?
Associate Director of Technology Studies Ryan Radia argues that Google's current dominance as an Internet search engine service is a fragile thing. Creative destruction is…
Forbes
President Obama’s Hidden Tax
Regulations are often called a hidden tax; but in President Obama’s case, it’s literally true. Despite the written commitment to transparency and…
Blog
Obamacare Will Increase Health Insurance Costs In California, Washington, D.C., And Elsewhere
California officials concede that their state’s Obamacare exchange will hike premiums for policyholders by up to 25 percent. In the District of Columbia, small…
Blog
Fred Weekly: Rent-Seeking Vs. Advancing Capitalism
In this latest episode of “Fred Weekly,” CEI President and Founder Fred L. Smith, Jr., discusses advancing free markets in an increasingly politicized world. Watch…
Free Beacon
U.S. Faces Regulatory Cliff: Looming rules could drive up costs, report says
William Yeatman, an environmental regulation expert at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, said Inhofe’s steep price tag is no exaggeration. “This has been a…
Blog
Italy’s Greatest Economic Threat: Italian Politicians
Italian ex-Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi told news sources last week that his party -- Popolo della Libertà -- would soon decide whether or not to…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week In Regulation
77 new regulations, from animal drugs to phone bills.
Blog
Regulatory Delays May Be Responsible For Slightly Better GDP Growth
This morning, data released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis showed third-quarter growth of gross domestic product (GDP) at 2 percent. This beat expectations slightly as, according to…
Blog
Pepco Caves On Contract Dispute To Avoid Union Strike
Talk about having your negotiating adversary over the barrel. Pepco and the International Brotherhood of Electric Workers’ Maryland-based Local 1900 had been in contract gridlock…
Blog
Regulation In Theory Vs. Practice
Externalities, asymmetric information, and monopolies are useful concepts for understanding how regulators should behave. But the important thing is how they do behave.
Blog
Police (Union) Brutality: Montgomery County Police “Effects” Bargaining Bludgeons Public Safety
This November, voters in Montgomery County, Maryland, will decide whether the police chief or union boss should determine public safety policy. The voter initiative, which will appear…
Blog
PolitiFact Smears Supreme Court, Provides False Political Talking Point For Democratic Party
Earlier, the left-leaning "fact-checker" PolitiFact made the false claim the Supreme Court had declared employees are barred from suing over pay discrimination even…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week In Regulation
71 new regulations, from gas mileage to certifying seafarers.
Reason
Yes, Romney and Obama, Government Regulation Encourages Outsourcing
Last month, CEI's Wayne Crews told the House Judiciary Committee: “For the broader ‘significant’ category of rules (economically significant rules plus rules considered officially significant…
US News
Red Tape Is Strangling the Recovery
Last year alone, federal agencies issued 3,807 final rules according to data compiled by Wayne Crews of the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
Blog
Of Mice, Mushrooms, And Formaldehyde
According to New York Times journalist Nicholas Kristof, the chemical industry is engaged in a grand conspiracy to hide the fact your kitchen cabinets…
Blog
Dodd-Frank’s Democratic Dissenters — From Brian Schweitzer To Debbie Wasserman Schultz
"For some reason, some Republicans in Congress are still waging an all-out battle to delay, defund and dismantle these commonsense new rules." That was, in…
US News
Is U.S. Economic Growth Over?
[E]stimates of how economically burdensome the regulatory state is range from the Obama administration lowball estimate of a mere $67 billion [PDF] annually to the…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week In Regulation
38 new regulations, from amateur rocket operations to the definition of “night.”…
Blog
The Missing Transparency: Where’s The Unified Agenda?
When it comes to government transparency, it is essential to throw at least some sunlight on the problem. Over at the Daily Caller, Wayne Crews…
Blog
Jobless Youth: Southern Europe’s Ticking Time Bomb
Forget austerity and bailouts. Southern Europe has an even bigger problem: a glut of unemployed young people. If this trend continues, workforces will regress in…
Blog
At Brookings, Susan Crawford Fostering Internet Competition
Yesterday, the Brookings Institute held a panel that purported to discuss “Fostering Internet Competition”. But who is to do the fostering? Federal regulators, of course.
Daily Caller
Missing: Regulatory transparency
Every spring and fall, as certain as the turning of the seasons, the General Services Administration’s Regulatory Information Service Center (RISC) issues a new edition…
Blog
Liberal Lawmakers To Rethink California “Green Chemistry”
California's Green Chemistry regulations have proven so unruly even the state's liberal lawmakers have begun to question the cost. The state legislature passed the…
Blog
RIP Prince Roy of Sealand, Seasteading Pioneer
For as long as there have been states, there have been people seeking to escape state authority. Throughout most of history, such escape has meant…
Blog
Where Is Obama’s Unified Agenda Of Federal Regulations?
Two primary federal documents by which we judge the regulatory record of the administration are missing in action this year. We at least can say,…
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