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
Bush Administration Makes Right Decision on Phone Competition
<?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags” />Washington, DC, June 9, 2004 – Today the U.S. Solicitor General's office announced it will not…
Op-Eds
If You Really Want to Reduce Gas Prices, Here’s How
Despite claims to the contrary, there is not much the federal government can do about high oil and gasoline prices in the short-term. Indeed, given…
Op-Eds
EU Is out of Step over Regulation of Modified Products
Sir, The premise of Steven Druker’s rant that the US criticises Europe’s application of the precautionary principle yet uses it itself (“America’s hypocrisy over modified…
Op-Eds
We eat only what we choose to
To answer John Gapper’s question (Who would be in Neville Isdell’s shoes?”) in his article “How to get fat on a healthy diet”…
Op-Eds
Market Distortion (Letter to the Editor)
Michelle Singletary’s premise that subsidies are market-distorting is indeed correct (“The Color of Money,” MoneyWise, May 2). The Higher Education Act prescribing these guarantees is…
Op-Eds
Does the European Union Believe in Ghosts?: An Unwarranted Fear of Tax Competition
A spectre is haunting Europe: the spectre of tax competition. The cause for this fear is the upcoming entry of 10 new members into 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