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
Free the Economy podcast: Draining the swamp with Jim Bovard
In this week’s episode we cover fake endangered species, Pennsylvania’s climate policy showdown, a robust defense of property rights in New…
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…
Search Posts
Blog
Techno-Phobic California Politicians “NHTSA” Google’s Driverless Car
Last week, I wrote about Google’s amazing new self-driving car, which CEI General Counsel Sam Kazman and I had the opportunity to test-ride in…
Blog
Congress Must End Taxpayers Vulnerability to Government Waste
Fraud and abuse continue to be a barrier to effective government. According to the Cato Institute’s 2009 report, fraud or improper payments in government…
Blog
Regulating Obama’s Regulators — And Those of Future Presidents
This month, President Obama released a new Executive Order building upon and making permanent the quest for regulatory savings in his…
Blog
A Fit of Sanity on ITAR
Over at Space Politics, Jeff Foust reports that the House has passed a bill allowing the administration to remove satellites from…
Hawaii Reporter
Grassroot Perspective: Regulators Run Wild, the West Side’s Story, and More
From Malia Hill's column in The Hawaii Reporter: Credit must be given to whoever thought up the title for the new report on…
Blog
Facebook, Overregulation, and the “Cheers IPOs”: Unshackling the Next Facebook and Its Investors
Whether or not a retail investor buys shares of Facebook when it finally goes public tomorrow -- and OpenMarket provides public policy, rather than investment,…
Hawaii Reporter
Horses In the Dining Room?
From Rep. Jason Chaffetz’ op-ed in The Daily Herald: Some 1.65 million lawsuits are filed each year over enforcement of federal regulations…
Bloomberg
Light Bulb Battle Pits Tea Party Against Manufacturers
From Ari Natter's article in Bloomberg: “I think that many people feel it is a personal intrusion into their lives by government,” said…
Blog
Ten Thousand Commandments: An Annual Survey of the Regulatory State
The latest edition of my colleague Wayne Crews’s annual snapshot of the regulatory state, “Ten Thousand Commandments,” is out. This year’s lowlights include: Estimated…
Blog
More First Amendment Violations from Obamacare, Thanks to HHS
Obamacare will drive up costs for most patients and insurance policyholders. Yet "health-insurance companies must tell customers who get a premium rebate…
News Release
Expanded 2012 Edition of Ten Thousand Commandments Now Available
Washington, D.C., May 15, 2012 – Today, the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) released the expanded 2012 edition of Ten Thousand Commandments: An Annual…
Blog
The Highway Bill and Sen. Jeff Bingaman’s Anti-P3 Propaganda
I've written extensively about federal surface transportation reauthorization, which is currently pending in conference. CEI, along with The Independent Institute and Reason Foundation,…
Study
Ten Thousand Commandments 2012
The scope of federal government spending and deficits is sobering. Yet the government’s reach extends well beyond the taxes Washington collects and its deficit spending…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
62 new final rules and 1,577 new Federal Register pages covering everything from sunscreen to commericial driver's licenses.
Blog
Austerity Is Mythical, But It Would Have Real Benefits
Left-leaning commentators are wrong to decry “austerity” in Europe, since, as the Richmond Times-Dispatch notes, such “austerity” is largely mythical: European nations have not…
Blog
Framing the Debate on Chemical Regulation
Last week, CEI hosted a congressional briefing on chemical policy and regulation (the video of the event is forthcoming). A news story in…
Blog
Why JPMorgan Chase’s Mark-to-Market Losses Don’t Bolster Case for Volcker Rule
There is much still to be known about the $2 billion in losses JPMorgan Chase is reporting due to a flawed hedging strategy. But this lack of…
Blog
Intellectuals Are the Shoeshine Boys of the Ruling Elite
“Why do so many intellectuals lean politically to the left?” CEI President Fred Smith has written extensively on that question. In today’s Wall Street Journal, Harvard…
Blog
Republican Space Socialism Update
Last time we checked in on this topic, House Appropriations Chairman Frank Wolf (R-Virginia) was decrying the wastefulness of competition. Well,…
Blog
Austerity Bites – But It Isn’t the Problem
The election results in Europe, we are told, are a vote against the austerity of "savage" spending cuts. Veronique de Rugy, in National Review Online,…
Blog
The Great Unanswered Question About the Eurozone
In a column for the FT today, Wolfgang Munchau lays out what may be the only plausible solution to the Eurozone crisis – for…
Blog
H-2A Visas: Open in Theory, Closed in Practice
[caption id="attachment_54582" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="An Immigrant Worker in Idaho"][/caption] “Our immigration problem’s not going away.” That was the title of my article for…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
70 new final rules, covering everything from Pell grants to underground storage tanks.
Blog
Law Professors: I’m Shocked to Find Gambling In This Casino!
Just as a character in Casablanca claimed to be shocked to find gambling in a casino, race-conscious employers typically deny that they considered race…
Blog
CEI Podcast for May 3, 2012: Paving the Way for Innovation and Job Creation
Unemployment remains stubbornly high, more than three years after the financial crisis hit. John Berlau, CEI’s Senior Fellow for Finance and Access to Capital, suggests…
Blog
Center-Right Coalition Calls For Credit Union Deregulation to Lift Lending
The recent viral video sensation "If I Wanted America to Fail" confirms that the regulatory state is a major focal point for the center-right…
Blog
Court Rules State Biotech Food Labeling Mandates Preempted By Federal Law
It’s been a few years since biotech foods have been regular front page news. The anti-technology activists cried wolf a few too many times, and…
Blog
Student Loans Drive Up Tuition, Create Demographic Time Bomb and Higher-Education Bubble
Professor Glenn Harlan Reynolds writes in the New York Post about how student loan programs have contributed to skyrocketing debt and rising defaults:…
Blog
The Deregulator Who Wasn’t
Washington Examiner columnist Conn Carroll refutes President Barack Obama’s attempt to blame the nation’s ongoing economic problems on his predecessor. In a recent interview,…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
81 new regulations passed last week, covering everything from Medicare to fishing for northeast skate.
Blog
Diversity Training Doesn’t Work, But It Persists Anyway, Due to Compulsion
Diversity training doesn't work, according to an article in Psychology Today. In it, Peter Bregman notes, “Diversity training doesn't extinguish prejudice. It…
Blog
Alcohol Regulation Roundup: April 27, 2012
It's time once again for a review of the ever-changing, increasingly complex, regulation of alcohol around these United States. This should give you something to…
Blog
CEI Podcast for April 26, 2012: The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA)
Associate Director of Technology Studies Ryan Radia goes over CISPA's privacy problems and discusses the bill's political prospects.
Blog
Congressional Hearings Question National Toxicology Program’s Science
Today, the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee and House Small Business Committee held a joint hearing on the National Toxicology Program's (NTP)…
Blog
SB 1070 Author: “I’m a Civil Libertarian”!
[caption id="attachment_54026" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Russell Pearce with white supremacist J.T. Ready"][/caption] "As a civil libertarian… I don't want a police state. I want a…
Blog
SB 1070 Summary: Read Arizona’s Controversial Immigration Law!
Arizona’s controversial immigration law -- SB 1070 -- heads to the Supreme Court this week. One can only hope that the Justices do a…
Blog
Super Mario Hasn’t Saved Italy’s Entrepreneurs
Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti is full of optimism these days. He has claimed to achieve “historic” reform in Italy’s labor market and to beat…
Blog
Gag Rule for Hedge Funds Challenged in Supreme Court on First Amendment Grounds in Bulldog Investors v. Galvin
Usually, you can advertise and discuss a product, even if not everyone is allowed to buy it. Thanks to the First Amendment, you can advertise…
Blog
$15 Trillion for… What, Exactly?
In a new study, Cato’s Michael Tanner finds that “Despite nearly $15 trillion in total welfare spending since Lyndon Johnson declared war on poverty…
Blog
Regulation of the Day 219: Cat Cafes
In a city as big as Tokyo, there is plenty of room for niche businesses. One niche is the neko café; neko is the Japanese…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
84 new rules, 1,675 Federal Register pages, including new regulations for medical exams for commercial drivers, Chilean pomegranates, and springsnail habitats.
Blog
Regulation Roundup
Alpaca tax breaks, IRS seeks power to confiscate tax delinquents' passports, and more.
Blog
CEI Podcast for April 19, 2012: Right to Work Laws and Compelled Speech
Indiana is becoming a right to work state, which means unions will no longer be able to force workers who don't want their representation to…
Blog
FDR on FDIC
Robert Samuelson’s column (April 8, 2012) discussing President Franklin Roosevelt’s reservations about the longer term implications of Social Security should not be surprising. In…
Blog
How to Fix U.S. Water Policy? Less Government, More Market Pricing
Late last week I received an invitation to testify in the Water and Power Subcommittee of the House of Representatives Natural…
Comment
Testimony on Reauthorization of Water Desalination Act of 2011
Full Document Available in PDF Separation of State and Water Water availability is a core infrastructure concern; today, that specific legislative…
Blog
Regulation of the Day 218: Bagpipes
Street musicians were recently banned from playing bagpipes in Vancouver, British Columbia. Just in time for the city’s Scotland Week celebration, Mayor Gregor Robertson happily…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
77 new regulations were published last week, the Federal Register grew by 1,475 pages, and the federal government is liberalizing its golden nematode policy.
Blog
Union Recalcitrance on Race Relations
Recent events have exposed unions’ troglodytic views on race relations. Basically, unions seek to preserve the current racial makeup of their workforce, regardless of changes…
Blog
CEI Podcast for April 12, 2012: Apple, E-Books, and Antitrust
Yesterday the Justice Department sued Apple and five major publishers over their e-book pricing model, alleging price fixing. Associate Director of Technology Studies Ryan Radia…
Blog
Competition in Water Infrastructure
Today, CEI released a report on how increased competition could make a big difference in the cost to taxpayers for upgrading water infrastructure.
Blog
A Free Market Defense of Retransmission Consent
Unshackling a market from obsolete, protectionist regulations can be a very challenging undertaking, especially when the lifeblood of a regulated industry is at stake. The…
Blog
Why Matt Taibbi’s Anti-JOBS Act Screed Couldn’t Suck Worse
I have had a range of reactions when reading Matt Taibbi's pieces in Rolling Stone. Most of the time, I vehemently shake my head, but quite a few times…
Blog
San Francisco Judge Dismisses Lawsuit against McDonald’s over Happy Meals
"In San Francisco, Judge Richard Kramer has dismissed the Center for Science in the Public Interest’s lawsuit on behalf of parent Monet Parham seeking to…
Bloomberg
When Will We Learn Lessons of Big Government?
From Lawrence Reed’s article in The Times-Herald: The Obama administration is jamming new regulations down the throats of businesses big and small at…
Blog
Grow Economy by Cutting Law School Subsidies
The economy remains slow, recovering from the recession at an unusually low rate, partly due to economically-harmful Obama administration policies. "U.S. stocks fell, dragging…
Blog
Regulation of the Day 217: Being Rude
The mayor of La Torba, Spain recently issued a 65-point Courtesy Charter making it illegal to burp in public or slurp your soup, among other…
Blog
Further Space Property Rights Responses
Since my previous post on media reaction to CEI's press briefing on Thursday, Popular Science has provided a…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
A new Prison Bureau regulation allows inmates to publish under their own name as of May 3, plus more.
Bloomberg
Free-Market Environmentalism? It’ll Never Fly, Orville!
The week before Easter I gave a brief speech at the Association for Private Enterprise Education, a foundation dedicated to assembling scholars, professors and students…
Blog
Regulation Roundup
Public school bans a 3-year old with cerebral palsy from using her walker at school, plus more.
Blog
Live Streaming at 11:00 AM EDT — Securing Property Rights in Space
On Thursday, April 5, the Competitive Enterprise Institute will host a Capitol Hill briefing to introduce a new study by Adjunct Scholar Rand…
Blog
Public Choice: A Primer
The good folks at the London-based Institute for Economic Affairs have just released an excellent book by Eammon Butler, Public Choice: A Primer.
Blog
Multiemployer Pensions, the Tragedy of the Commons, and the “Last Man Standing” Rule
The “tragedy of the commons,” as described by the late ecologist Garrett Hardin, generally refers to the depletion of a finite resource caused by…
Blog
Economic “Recovery” Is Slow and Weak Due to Obama Administration Policies
Typically, after the economy suffers an unusually severe recession, it bounces back in an unusually rapid recovery -- what some economists and others refer to…
Blog
Regulation of the Day 216: Selling Ice Cream to Kids
A group of parents in Brooklyn's Park Slope neighborhood want to ban ice cream vendors from parks. One parent wrote, “I should not have to…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
2,191 new pages were added to the 2012 Federal Register last week, for a total of 19,487 pages. At this pace, the 2012 Federal Register…
Blog
TSA Trifecta
First, a TSA manager at Dulles airport has been arrested for running a prostitution ring. Second, two Miami TSA employees were arrested for trashing a…
Blog
Obamacare: Constitutionality Argument Misses the Point Entirely
Conservatives are ebullient over the unexpected hostility and skepticism the government's lawyers faced from the Supreme Court Justices over the three days of hearings on…
Blog
No to Broccoli Mandate, Yes to Health Insurance Mandate?
Over at the Daily Caller, I go over some possible explanations for the different results and conclude:…
Blog
Obamacare Harms State Finances, Imposes Unfunded Mandates, Drives Up State Budget Deficits; Even Democrats Criticize Provisions
While public attention has focused on Obamacare's unconstitutional "individual mandate," challenged yesterday in oral arguments at the Supreme Court, other parts of the health…
Blog
The FCC’s Concern for Competitors, not Competition
Last week, the Senate Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee held a hearing on Verizon Wireless’s proposed purchase of spectrum from Cox Wireless and SpectrumCo. The spectrum…
Blog
Congressional Blowout Over Cosmetics Law Reform
Today, the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health held a hearing on cosmetics regulation to consider whether Congress should beef up federal…
Blog
Regulation of the Day 215: TacoCopter
A group of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs has found a peaceful use for unmanned attack drones that almost everyone can support: delivering food to hungry people.
Forbes
Ma Bell’s Long Legacy of Unsustainable Pensions Is Alive and Well
“Communism,” comedian Lenny Bruce once quipped, “is like one big phone company.” This dated joke refers to the monolithic phone company known as “Ma Bell,”…
Blog
Supreme Court Begins Hearing Challenges to Unconstitutional Obamacare Provisions
At CNN, George Mason University law professor Ilya Somin explains why Obamacare's requirement that individuals buy health insurance is beyond Congress's power…
Blog
The $400 Pizza
The reason it cost $400 was not because of restaurant business practices but because of television labor practices.
Blog
Department of Labor Companionship Rule Doesn’t Comply with Best Practices
Last Wednesday, Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) Administrator Cass Sunstein sent a memo to executive agency heads concerning the cumulative effects of…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
75 new final rules were published last week, up from 72 the previous week. That’s the equivalent of a new regulation every 2 hours and…
Blog
Agricultural Innovation in the 21st Century: CEI on Capitol Hill
On Monday, I’ll be speaking at a Capitol Hill event sponsored by Americans for Choice and Competition in Agriculture, which also…
Blog
Yes, the JOBS Act Will Create Jobs, Wealth, and Investor Freedom
Tomorrow, the Senate is expected to pass the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act. The bill achieved cloture today by 76 votes, all but assuring…
Blog
ThinkProgress’ Schizophrenia on Crowdfunding and the JOBS Act
ThinkProgress, the blogging arm of the liberal Center for American Progress, is usually pretty good on enforcing the political left’s party line. But two of…
Forbes
Why Regulations Aren’t Good–Again
The first week of Spring is also “hooray, regulation” week at the White House. Regulatory policy chief Cass Sunstein, one of the most accomplished and…
Blog
Human Achievement of the Day: Mind-Controlled Prostheses
A breakthrough by researchers at Northwestern University is giving hope to millions of amputees that they might eventually regain some of the ability they…
Blog
A Bad Economy’s Silver Lining
The Economist hits the nail on the head — albeit a nail that has been well hit by many in the free market movement already.
Blog
Regulation of the Day 214: Flipping the Bird
Steven Pogue, 64, was cited by police for flipping the bird while driving in Ballwin, Missouri. He was exonerated on free speech grounds, and the…
Forbes
EDITORIAL: Obama’s Bogus Rules
From a Washington Times editorial: The scope of federal rule-making is bewildering. More than 700 new final rules have been published this year,…
News Release
OMB Guidance on Cost of Federal Regulation “Inadequate”
Washington, D.C., March 20, 2012—Today, the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs within the White House Office of Management and Budget released guidance to agencies…
Blog
Regulation of the Day 213: Dying
Falciano del Massico, a small town in Italy, has banned its 4,000 residents from dying because the local cemetery is completely full.
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
The Defense Department is still implementing parts of the Privacy Act of 1974, plus more.
Blog
EPA’s Toxic “Negotiation”
It's pretty amazing when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) can essentially use extortion as a negotiating tool, and industry casts it as a plea…
Blog
House Should Reject Senate Highway Bill, Move for Another SAFETEA-LU Extension
Just before 1pm today, the Senate passed its surface transportation reauthorization bill, the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (MAP-21, S. 1813). MAP-21…
Blog
Juvenal Delinquents
There are more regulatory reform ideas out there than you can shake a stick at. Some, of course, are better than others.
American Spectator
The Regulatory Path to Full Employment
Who will regulate the regulators who regulate the regulators? An important new book about the financial crisis just came out: Guardians of Finance: Making Regulators…
Blog
Obamacare Costs More Than Twice As Much As Obama Claimed; Stimulus Creates Debt, Not Jobs
As Daniel Foster notes, “When it was being debated, Democrats told you ACA [Obamacare] would cost $940 billion over ten years . . .
Blog
Alcohol Regulation Roundup: March 13, 2012
Apparently, "March Madness" has stricken our state legislators who are in high gear introducing and considering proposed alcohol laws. There's so much going on, in…
Blog
IRS Sued for Unfair Labor Practices
A new IRS proposal to require licensing all tax preparers would put a lot of people out of work. So the Institute for Justice is…
Blog
School Choice Can Temper Climate Curriculum Dogma
John Stuart Mill once wrote, “There is the greatest difference between presuming an opinion to be true, because, with every opportunity for contesting it, it…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
64 new final rules were published last week, down from 89 the previous week.
American Spectator
Come, Sweet Debt: Civilizational Reset on the Horizon
From the presidential inaugurations of George Washington to George W. Bush, our federal government accrued a debt of more than $5 trillion. Thanks to the…
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