Browse regulations

Establishes FAA notice requirements and obstruction standards for construction/alteration near airports, including height limits, imaginary surfaces, and aeronautical studies to ensure aviation safety.

Aviation safety requires standardized obstruction standards and aeronautical studies to prevent collisions and maintain navigable airspace. Without these regulations, uncoordinated construction could create hazards to aircraft, especially near airports where precise height and distance requirements are critical for safe approaches and departures.

This EDA regulation governs property acquired or improved with federal economic development investment assistance. It establishes that such property vests in recipients subject to a federal reversionary interest (Federal Interest) lasting the project's Estimated Useful Life. The rule restricts disposition, encumbrance, and use of property without EDA authorization, requires recording federal interests via liens or UCC statements, and provides procedures for releasing the federal interest upon project completion or compensation. It also defines terms like Adequate Consideration, Unauthorized Use, and Successor Recipient.

Americans would be worse off without this regulation because it protects taxpayer investments in economic development by ensuring federal funds are used as intended and enabling recovery of the federal share if recipients misuse property. The regulatory structure is a legitimate condition on voluntary federal grants, not a mandate on the general public, and provides necessary accountability. Deleting it would eliminate oversight mechanisms, creating substantial risk of waste, fraud, and abuse of billions in federal assistance, ultimately reducing the effectiveness of economic development programs and undermining public trust.

This regulation establishes criteria for the Assistant Secretary of Commerce to designate a region as a 'Special Impact Area' for economic development projects. Eligible Applicants must demonstrate their project directly fulfills a 'pressing need' and provides useful employment opportunities. 'Pressing need' includes: unique/urgent circumstances, Indian Tribe projects, rural severely distressed areas, trade transition regions, natural resource-dependent economies, federally declared disaster areas, or undefined 'Special Need.' Excessive unemployment is defined as 24-month unemployment rate at least 225% of national average or per capita income ≤50% of national average. Employment opportunities can be shown through job creation, private investment, or innovative technology.

This discretionary grant program centralizes economic development decisions in Washington, creating rent-seeking opportunities and misallocating resources based on political criteria rather than market signals. The undefined 'Special Need' standard invites arbitrary decision-making, while the program undermines constitutional federalism by federalizing what should be local economic decisions. The compliance burden and potential for regulatory capture outweigh any marginal benefits.

This EDA regulation restricts how recipients of federal economic development investment assistance can redistribute funds. It requires prior EDA approval for subgrants to other eligible recipients and prohibits subgrants to for-profit entities under parts 303 and 305, while allowing broader distribution (including loans to for-profits) under part 307. All subgrants must adhere to original award terms and PWEDA requirements, with EDA empowered to impose special conditions.

This regulation imposes unnecessary bureaucratic barriers that increase compliance costs and administrative burdens on local governments attempting economic development. The prohibition on for-profit subgrants in parts 303/305 arbitrarily prevents efficient public-private partnerships that could maximize job creation and economic return. EDA approval requirements create delays and centralize decision-making that should occur locally under the Tenth Amendment. The unseen costs include: (1) higher transaction costs diverting resources from actual development, (2) reduced flexibility for communities to tailor solutions to their unique economic conditions, (3) a hidden tax on taxpayers funding this administrative overhead, and (4) distortion of incentives that may steer funds toward politically favored but economically suboptimal projects. Federal micromanagement of intrastate economic development exceeds constitutional authority under the Commerce Clause and violates the principle of subsidiarity.

EDA regulations governing (1) reallocation of excess funds when project costs decrease, (2) performance awards up to 10% of investment for exceeding job creation/investment/timeline targets, and (3) planning performance awards up to 5% for exceptional collaboration and CEDS alignment in Economic Development Districts.

Subsidizes and bureaucratizes economic development, violating free-market principles and federalism. Performance awards create moral hazard, distort incentives, and enable regulatory capture by rewarding alignment with centralized planning documents (CEDS). The 'sole discretion' standard violates rule of law, while the entire regime federalizes what belongs to states and localities under the Tenth Amendment. Unseen costs include dependency on federal funding, gaming of metrics, and crowding out of genuine private investment.

Economic Adjustment Assistance Investments provide federal funding to help communities recover from economic disruptions like military base closures, disasters, or industrial decline by developing economic plans and providing infrastructure, business financing, and technical assistance through revolving loan funds.

This federal intervention distorts local market signals, creates dependency on government planning, and uses taxpayer funds to pick economic winners and losers - all of which interfere with natural market adjustments and private sector solutions to economic challenges.

This regulation authorizes the Economic Development Administration (EDA) to provide grants for technical assistance and university-based economic development programs aimed at distressed regions. It covers activities like planning studies, business outreach, cluster development, and program evaluation, explicitly prohibiting direct business subsidies. Funding is subject to competitive awards based on criteria including regional benefit, innovation, and alignment with local economic development strategies.

The regulation institutionalizes government-directed economic development planning, violating free-market principles. Taxpayers fund bureaucratic assessments of which regions and approaches deserve support, creating misallocation of capital through political calculation rather than profit-and-loss signals. The 'distressed region' targeting encourages wealth transfers and cronyism, while the knowledge problem (Hayek) ensures federal planners cannot efficiently determine optimal economic development strategies for diverse localities. The $2 trillion+ regulatory burden includes such economically distorting programs that pick winners and stifle organic market-driven growth. Private charities, universities, and investors already conduct similar research without compulsion; EDA merely crowds out voluntary action and imposes uniform federal priorities over locally-derived solutions.

Federal program funding infrastructure projects in distressed communities to create jobs and attract private investment through grants requiring matching funds and economic development planning.

Creates market distortions by subsidizing infrastructure that would otherwise be built by private developers, distorts local decision-making through federal mandates, and perpetuates dependency on federal funding rather than organic economic growth.

This regulation establishes the framework for federal Economic Development Districts (EDDs) through the Economic Development Administration (EDA), setting criteria for regional designation, defining the required structure and governance of District Organizations (public or non-profit entities), mandating public participation and transparency standards, and outlining evaluation and termination procedures for continued federal funding eligibility.

This federal program violates Tenth Amendment federalism by usurping state and local authority over economic development. It imposes costly bureaucratic burdens on participating regions (staff, meetings, reporting, compliance) while distorting market incentives through centralized planning via CEDS. The unseen consequences include regulatory capture by special interests, misallocation of capital toward politically favored projects, and crowding out of private investment and organic economic growth. The compliance costs and dependency it creates far outweigh any benefits, which could be better achieved through state, local, or private initiatives without federal involvement.

Federal grant program for regional economic planning through CEDS.

Compliance costs outweigh benefits; local communities know their needs better than federal planners. Central planning cannot efficiently allocate resources compared to free markets. The program creates dependency and bureaucratic overhead.

The regulation outlines EDA's administrative procedures for administering federal economic development grants and loans, including environmental reviews, compliance reporting, conflict-of-interest rules, labor wage standards, anti-discrimination requirements, and post-award oversight mechanisms.

This regulation codifies a sprawling web of federal micro-management over local economic development, imposing vast compliance costs that disproportionately burden small businesses and stifle innovation. The claimed goal of promoting economic development is better achieved through market-driven investment and state/local initiatives, without federal redundancy. The revolving loan mechanisms, reporting burdens, and post-employment restrictions create administrative drag, enable regulatory capture, and substitute centralized bureaucracy for local decision-making—all violating fiscal responsibility and federalism principles. Where private capital and state governments fail to act, the solution isn't more regulation, but fewer barriers to entrepreneurship.

Regulation establishes requirements for Economic Development Administration (EDA) Investment Assistance grants, including eligibility criteria for applicants and regions, matching share requirements, application procedures, and project eligibility for infrastructure and innovation-related economic development projects.

Implements federal wealth redistribution with high compliance costs, bureaucratic complexity, and severe misallocation risks. Violates federalism by centralizing economic development decisions, distorts market resource allocation, creates dependency on government funding, and represents precisely the kind of regulatory overreach that American principles of liberty and limited government were designed to prevent.

EDA provides financial assistance to distressed communities

EDA's activities may be better handled at the state or local level, reducing federal overreach and promoting more effective, community-driven economic development.

This regulation restricts golden parachute and indemnification payments by Farm Credit System institutions, especially when financially troubled. It establishes strict rules for compensation arrangements that could incentivize executives to pursue risky strategies or profit from institutional failure, while creating exceptions for legitimate retirement plans and certain severance arrangements.

This regulation imposes unnecessary compliance costs and bureaucratic interference in private compensation contracts. Market forces, not federal mandates, should determine executive compensation and indemnification terms. The restrictions distort labor markets and create barriers to recruiting qualified directors and executives. Federal micromanagement of farm credit institution compensation exemplifies the regulatory overreach that drives $2 trillion in annual compliance costs.

This NCUA regulation governs the process for federally insured credit unions to convert to mutual savings banks, setting detailed requirements for board approvals, member notifications (with specific timing, format, and content requirements), secret ballots conducted by independent entities, disclosure of conversion costs and management benefits, and NCUA review procedures.

The regulation imposes extensive, rigid procedural requirements on voluntary organizational changes between consenting parties, creating significant compliance costs that ultimately burden members. It presumes members cannot protect their own interests through due diligence and contractual agreement, violating the principle that individuals should be free to structure their affairs without paternalistic oversight. The detailed mandates on notice formatting, timing, and disclosure language distort incentives by adding fixed costs regardless of credit union size, disproportionately harming smaller institutions, while doing little to prevent actual fraud that existing contract and tort law could address.