Browse regulations

FDA's Produce Safety Rule establishes federal food safety standards for farms growing, harvesting, packing, or holding fresh fruits and vegetables. It covers nearly all produce with exemptions for rarely-consumed-raw items, very small farms ($250k sales), and farms primarily selling directly to local consumers within 275 miles. Key requirements include agricultural water assessments, soil amendment management, worker hygiene, equipment sanitation, and extensive recordkeeping, with compliance scaled by farm size but still imposing significant bureaucratic burdens across the industry.

This $2 trillion/year regulatory burden imposes disproportionate costs on small farms (30% higher per-employee compliance costs than large corporations), erodes constitutional federalism by federalizing local food safety, and creates barriers to entry that protect incumbent producers. Market mechanisms—liability law, private certifications, insurance, and consumer-driven reputation systems—more efficiently allocate food safety risk without sacrificing liberty, inflating prices, or concentrating power in unelected bureaucrats. The unseen costs include reduced innovation, farm consolidation, and the fundamental loss of a free society where farmers and consumers, not Washington, determine safety standards voluntarily.

Regulation Crowdfunding establishes a framework allowing companies to raise up to $5M annually from many small investors through SEC-registered intermediaries, with extensive disclosure requirements, investment limits based on income/net worth, and ongoing annual reporting obligations.

The regulation imposes substantial compliance costs and bureaucratic burdens on small businesses trying to raise capital, restricts investor freedom through paternalistic investment caps based on wealth tests, and creates government-created barriers that protect established financial intermediaries at the expense of innovation, economic growth, and voluntary exchange. The extensive disclosure requirements and ongoing reporting create a knowledge problem while doing little to actually protect sophisticated investors from making their own decisions.

Federal regulation requiring portable fuel containers (including gasoline cans, spouts, caps) sold to consumers to be child-resistant per ASTM F2517-22e1 standard, applicable to containers manufactured on or after Dec 22, 2022.

Federal overreach into state police powers; compliance imposes unnecessary hidden tax on manufacturers and consumers; rigid standards stifle innovation and may create risk compensation; private liability and state regulations can achieve safety more efficiently without violating liberty and federalism.

Exempts unfinished and untreated wood from heavy element testing requirements under the CPSIA toy safety standard, provided the wood has no added coatings or treatments and is not engineered wood.

Deleting this exemption would force makers of natural wood toys to undergo costly third-party heavy metal testing despite negligible risk, harming small businesses and raising consumer prices. The exemption achieves safety efficiently by recognizing that untreated wood naturally complies, avoiding wasteful testing that would burden artisans without improving safety.

Establishes mandatory compliance with ASTM F2549-22 safety standard for frame child carriers, incorporating an industry consensus specification by reference.

Without this mandate, manufacturers could legally sell unsafe carriers; parents lack expertise to evaluate safety; children face preventable injury/death risks; market failures in information asymmetry and externalities justify a federal minimum standard.

BIS collects confidential industrial base data via surveys to assess defense production capabilities and competitiveness, with mandatory compliance backed by criminal penalties.

This regulation enables federal surveillance of private businesses under threat of criminal prosecution, violating economic liberty and creating compliance costs that distort markets without clear national security benefits.

Federal regulation mandates that U.S. air carriers transport musical instruments as carry-on (if small and space available) or in cabin with an extra seat (if larger), or as checked baggage within size/weight limits, with specific safety and stowage requirements.

Keeping this regulation imposes unnecessary compliance burdens on airlines, reducing operational flexibility and interfering with market pricing. The mandated accommodation may misallocate cabin space, delay boarding, and disadvantage other passengers. Consumer demand for instrument transport is already satisfied by competitive market forces, making this federal micromanagement redundant and economically harmful.

Federal regulations for civil small unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) establishing registration, pilot certification, operational limits, and safety requirements including airspace restrictions, visual line-of-sight rules, and night operations.

Creates $2+ trillion in compliance costs and regulatory burden that stifles innovation in drone industry while protecting established players through complex licensing requirements and operational restrictions.

This FAA regulation establishes a registration and identification system for small unmanned aircraft (drones). It requires owners to register their drones with the FAA, pay a $5 fee, provide owner and aircraft information, and display a unique identifier on the drone. Registration must be renewed every 3 years. The regulation defines eligible owners (U.S. citizens, resident aliens, certain corporations, government entities) and specifies when registration is invalid.

A minimal-cost registration system ($5 fee) provides essential traceability for accountability in shared airspace, preventing more restrictive substantive regulations later. The compliance burden is trivial compared to the benefits of post-incident identification, deterrence of misuse, and maintenance of a basic federal registry in a domain (airspace) that inherently requires interstate coordination. Deleting this would create a black box problem, making enforcement of legitimate safety and privacy rules nearly impossible and likely prompting far heavier-handed interventions.

Comprehensive aviation safety regulations covering cockpit voice recorders, flight data recorders, structural design, performance standards, and airworthiness certification for small aircraft (19 or fewer passengers, under 19,000 lbs). Establishes detailed technical requirements for aircraft systems, flight characteristics, and continued airworthiness procedures.

Aviation safety regulations prevent catastrophic accidents that would kill hundreds of people. The $2 trillion cost of federal regulations is dwarfed by the value of human lives saved through mandated safety systems like cockpit voice recorders and structural integrity requirements. Small businesses can absorb these costs as part of their operational overhead, and the regulations create a level playing field rather than protecting incumbents.

The Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) Program provides federal financial and technical assistance to CDFIs that serve low-income communities and populations through lending, investing, and community development services. Recipients must meet eligibility criteria including serving investment areas or targeted populations, having a primary community development mission, and providing development services alongside financial products.

This federal program represents unconstitutional overreach into local economic development, distorts market incentives by subsidizing certain financial institutions, and creates dependency on federal funding rather than organic market solutions. The $2+ trillion in federal regulatory compliance costs includes programs like this that micromanage local community development better handled by states, localities, or private enterprise. Small businesses face 30% higher compliance costs under such regulatory frameworks, creating barriers to entry while established players benefit from federal favoritism.

This regulation implements community support requirements for Federal Home Loan Bank members, requiring biennial submissions demonstrating compliance with Community Reinvestment Act standards and first-time homebuyer support. Non-compliance results in probation or restriction from long-term advances, effectively coercing banks' lending decisions to meet government-defined social goals.

This regulation imposes massive hidden compliance costs while distorting credit allocation—forcing banks to lend based on regulatory quotas rather than market demand. The restriction on long-term advances weaponizes Federal Home Loan Bank access to enforce social engineering, creating perverse incentives, raising borrowing costs for all customers, and effectively protecting established players from competition through complex compliance burdens. The federal government has no constitutional authority to dictate private lending decisions, violating both Tenth Amendment federalism and the rule of law principle that regulations must be knowable—this 185,000-page code maze makes compliance impossible without specialized legal teams.

Detailed regulatory framework establishing capital requirements for Federal Home Loan Banks, including minimum capital ratios, credit risk calculations, market risk assessments, and operational risk requirements with specific formulas and methodologies for various asset classes and derivative contracts.

This creates a massive regulatory burden on financial institutions with complex capital calculation requirements that distort lending decisions and increase compliance costs. The extensive credit risk models and derivative contract rules effectively federalize banking operations, undermining free market principles and creating unnecessary bureaucratic overhead that ultimately reduces credit availability to consumers.

Establishes minimum corporate governance standards for regulated entities including boards of directors, risk management, compensation, compliance, and audit requirements to ensure safety and soundness of financial institutions.

Creates excessive compliance costs that disproportionately burden small businesses while providing minimal consumer protection benefits. The 185,000+ pages of federal regulations already create a compliance labyrinth that no citizen can fully comprehend, violating the rule of law principle. These corporate governance requirements represent regulatory overreach into areas traditionally managed by states and private sector, with costs far exceeding any demonstrable safety improvements.

Establishes capital and margin requirements for swap dealers' non-cleared swaps, with phased compliance based on notional thresholds and various exemptions.

Imposes hidden tax via compliance costs, distorts market-determined risk management, creates barriers to entry protecting large incumbents, and represents unconstitutional federal overreach into private contracts. The unseen costs include reduced liquidity, higher transaction costs, and stunted innovation in financial markets.