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
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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News Release
‘Deadly Overcaution’ Biggest Danger to Public Health, Despite New Study on FDA
Contact:<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office” /> Jody Clarke, 202.331.2252 Washington, D.C.,…
Op-Eds
Ex-Im: Boeing’s Bank Once More
The Export-Import Bank (Ex-Im), a federal agency that subsidizes U.S. exports primarily through loan guarantees, dedicated a majority of its guarantee dollars again…
Op-Eds
Sunset the FCC
Reforming telecommunications law is a favored subject in the halls of Congress this year. Hot issues include streamlining video franchising and addressing the "net…
Study
Antitrust Skeptic’s Bibliography
For more than two decades, the willingness of policy makers to rethink the presumption that economic regulation automatically benefits consumers has driven the deregulation of…
Study
Tom Smith and His Incredible Bread Machine
In the 108 years since the passage of the Sherman Act, there has probably never been a clearer and more concise statement of the…
Op-Eds
New fuel standards unnecessary
Once again, the government has issued what it claims is a “win-win” fuel economy mandate— yes, it will raise the prices of new SUVs and…
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