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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News Release
CEI study: Congress should establish limits on regulatory power to ensure agencies are not answering major policy questions
Many of the biggest policy decisions affecting the lives of Americans are made by federal agencies, not Congress. According to a new report from…
![Congress, Not Agencies, Should Answer Major Policy Questions](https://cei.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/GettyImages-1154438278-578x324-c-default.jpg)
Study
Congress, Not Agencies, Should Answer Major Policy Questions
Many of the biggest policy decisions affecting the lives of Americans are made by federal agencies, not Congress. During the Biden administration, this has included…
![Congress should heed GAO’s new regulatory reform recommendations](https://cei.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/regulatory-dark-matter-papers-1-578x324-c-default.png)
Blog
Congress should heed GAO’s new regulatory reform recommendations
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a December 2023 report titled “Options for Enhancing Congressional Oversight of Rulemaking and Establishing an Office of Legal…
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Products
Chapter 9: A Note on Rule Reviews at OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs
Tracking the effects of rules and regulations, executive orders, memoranda, and regulatory guidance is vital. These alternative regulatory actions have become powerful means of working…
Products
Chapter 13: Federal Regulations Affecting State and Local Governments
Ten Thousand Commandments primarily emphasizes federal regulations imposed on the private sector. However, state and local officials’ complaints over federal mandates’ overriding their own…
Products
Chapter 1: Biden’s Regulatory “Modernization” Continues Whole-of-Government Pursuit of Coercive Progressivism
The 2022 edition of Ten Thousand Commandments extensively surveyed the Biden administration’s executive actions, rules, and memoranda that reversed the Trump regulatory policy and attenuated…
Products
Chapter 10: Analysis of “The Regulatory Plan and Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions”
“The Regulatory Plan and Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions” (the Unified Agenda) is the document in which agencies have outlined regulatory priorities…
Products
Chapter 8: Another Dimension of Regulatory Dark Matter: Over 22,000 Agency Public Notices Annually
Along with presidential proclamations are those of departments and agencies. These are numerous and sweeping. Through various kinds of guidance documents, notices, and policy statements,…
Products
Chapter 15: Regulation without Representation: The “Unconstitutionality Index”—13 Rules for Every Law
Administrative agencies, not Congress, do most U.S. lawmaking, despite Article I of the Constitution stipulating otherwise. Congress is to blame here, as it routinely enacts…
Staff & Scholars
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Clyde Wayne Crews
Fred L. Smith Fellow in Regulatory Studies
- Business and Government
- Consumer Freedom
- Deregulation
![](https://cei.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/IMG_9141-scaled-500x500-c-default.jpg)
Ryan Young
Senior Economist
- Antitrust
- Business and Government
- Regulatory Reform
![](https://cei.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Smith_Fred-Final-scaled-500x500-c-default.jpg)
Fred L. Smith, Jr.
Founder; Chairman Emeritus
- Automobiles and Roads
- Aviation
- Business and Government
![](https://cei.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/IMG_8717-scaled-500x500-c-default.jpg)
Sam Kazman
Counsel Emeritus
- Antitrust
- Automobiles and Roads
- Banking and Finance
![](https://cei.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/IMG_8422-scaled-500x500-c-default.jpg)
Marlo Lewis, Jr.
Senior Fellow
- Climate
- Energy
- Energy and Environment