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.
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Blog
Regulatory Reform in the 118th Congress: Separation of Powers Restoration Act
The separation of powers is a key aspect of American government. To decentralize power and ensure checks and balances, the Founders divided the federal government…
City Journal
Roll It Back
Medicaid, the federal-state entitlement for the poor, now provides health insurance to more than one in four Americans. Enrollments surged after the Affordable Care Act…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
An Executive Order from the Biden administration made some of the biggest system-level regulatory changes in years. It raises the threshold for “economically significant”…
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American Spectator
The Big Repeal
In 1787, there were four federal crimes. Now there are over 4,000. The Code of Federal Regulations runs over 157,000 pages. America is overlawyered and…
Blog
Regulation of the Day 192: Fire Extinguishers
Britain has a Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents. It isn’t quite living up to its name, though. The group is pressing to ban…
Study
Jump, Jive an’ Reform Regulation
Full Document Available in PDF Cost-benefit analysis has long been a centerpiece of regulatory reform proposals, with…
American Spectator
The Growth Agenda and Its Enemies
Even President Obama now seems to realize that rescuing America from its financial crisis requires getting Americans back to work. What he doesn’t seem to…
Citation
Iain Murray on WMAL Morning Majority
The US government could cut up to a dozen agencies without hurting the country, says Iain Murray, vice president for strategy of the Center for…
American Spectator
The Regulatory Recession
The debt ceiling negotiations and debates over government spending have transfixed the nation for the last few weeks. President Obama’s call for a “clean” debt…
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
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Sam Kazman
Counsel Emeritus
- Antitrust
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- Banking and Finance
Marlo Lewis, Jr.
Senior Fellow
- Climate
- Energy
- Energy and Environment