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 week in regulations: Bone void filler and halibut action
May’s job numbers were strong for the third month in a row, though job growth since Liberation Day remains under 100,000, for a labor force…
Blog
Free the Economy podcast: State budgets and bailouts with Thomas Savidge
In this week’s episode we cover promising new classroom technology, increasing productivity (and avoiding layoffs) with AI, and the repeal of the…
Blog
The week in regulations: Onion marketing and refrigerator leaks
PCE inflation, which the Federal Reserve uses for its interest rate decisions, rose to 3.8 percent, nearly double the Fed’s 2.0 percent target. President Trump…
Search Posts
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…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
In a very cold, holiday-shortened week, federal agencies issued 40 final and 33 proposed regulations covering everything from lithium-ion batteries to small fish in Oregon.
Blog
How to Help Tesla and Taxpayers
Policies aimed at reducing auto emissions in California and 10 other states are having a troubling set of unintended consequences, according to a recent editorial at…
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