Congress Has The Authority And Duty To End Illegitimate Regulation

In January 2025, the Trump administration issued a “10-1 deregulation initiative,” requiring that “whenever an agency promulgates a new rule, regulation, or guidance, it must identify at least 10 existing rules, regulations, or guidance documents to be repealed.”

It’s been a success. By January 2026, agencies promulgated 646 deregulatory actions for just five regulatory actions, netting economic savings of an estimated $211.8 billion. Congress now has a golden opportunity to capitalize on this momentum by enacting corresponding legislation, and the push should be bipartisan.  

The Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), a compilation of finalized rules from executive department and agency proposals in the Federal Register, comprises more than 190,000 pages. Despite numerous plans and efforts to curb regulatory spread, the rulebook and its economic cost—more than $2 trillion every year—kept growing. 

In an introduction to its “Ten Thousand Commandments 2026” report, the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) lists five ways Congress can do its part to reduce excessive regulation. 

Taking Back The Reins

Although the Constitution explicitly vests all legislative powers in Congress, appendages of the administration do the majority of practical legislating. CEI’s Unconstitutionality Index estimates that for each law passed by Congress in 2025, executive agencies created 18 rules. As the Institute for Justice (IJ) notes, “These rules … are as binding as any statute until legislators enact superseding legislation.”

To reassert proper control, CEI advises Congress to “overturn vague/broad statutes [and] vote on costly/controversial agency rules before they become binding.”

Additionally, CEI emphasizes enforcement of the Regulatory Right-to-Know Act of 2000, which instructs the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to submit a yearly statement to Congress detailing costs and benefits of federal regulations. Notwithstanding the law, the report does not come out annually, and it suffers from the same vague language that CEI discourages. The Institute provides several recommendations for specific terminology that would give teeth to the law.

Implementing Sunsets

Even good laws may outlive their ideal expiration date, and ill-conceived ones may survive due to a lack of review. A sunset provision automatically removes a law from the books after a specified period of time if the legislature fails to vote for its continuation. CEI encourages Congress to put this clause in regulations.

The National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) lists a variety of sunset methods and criteria employed by different states, and some could apply to the federal government. The conditions prompting regulations change, and so should the regulations. 

Mandating Regulatory Budgets

Although the specific methods of implementation differ, a regulatory budget aims to prevent lawmakers from creating new regulations greater in sum and scope than those being reversed, thereby achieving a net balance or deficit. It typically assumes the form of a financial ledger focusing on costs to the economy, and the Mercatus Institute at George Mason University suggests tallying far-reaching aspects, including administrative burden, business costs, and social costs.

CEI acknowledges the “immeasurable, often unfathomed” costs of regulations and the failure of transparency to totally restrict them, but it nevertheless proffers ways to achieve improved measurements and transparency. For example, CEI notes cost-benefit reviews often include only reports of costs, and some agencies, such as the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), are exempt from reporting such figures at all. To be considered accurate and good examples of transparency, measurements must incorporate all relevant numbers, and they must come from both sides of the cost-benefit equation. 

Establishing A Regulatory Reduction Commission

To execute a regulatory budget, CEI recommends launching a commission similar to the Base Closure and Realignment Commission (BRAC), which manages the creation and elimination of military infrastructure. The independent and bipartisan BRAC meets periodically and proposes closures, and unless Congress enacts a joint resolution of disapproval, the base closes automatically. 

The regulatory commission would have a similar structure and follow similar steps. In tandem with mandated sunsetting and one-in, one-out (or better) rules, the commission could significantly lessen regulatory spread. 

Creating a Thorough Annual Report Card

Finally, CEI stresses the need for deeper reports. Because so much rulemaking occurs outside the visible lawmaking process, reviews need to include what CEI calls “dark matter.” This comprises “guidance documents, proclamations, memoranda, bulletins, circulars, letters,” and more, all of which slip into regulations with little or no oversight from Congress. 

This dark matter is not included in the CFR and is virtually impossible to count, but in just one indication of the ubiquity of the material, the Regulatory Transparency Project (RTP) in 2025 identified 6,195 pages of guidance documents issued since 1994 from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services alone. Additionally, the Department of Health and Human Services (DHS) recently removed 35,781 pages of dark matter, after determining “74% of its ‘sub-regulatory footprint’ was obsolete.”

Rule proposals, such as the one categorizing independent contractors as employees, often become regulations and require counting in reports. Without visibility, these proposals work their way into regulations unnoticed; with attention, they are more likely to be addressed. 

Conclusion

In sum, CEI highlights the importance of vigilance. A government that cannot even count its regulatory agencies is unlikely to keep them in check.

Regulations cost each American household approximately $15,859 per year, and this toll is unacceptable and unnecessary. Congress must reclaim its legislative role and use its power to halt runaway regulation.