Browse regulations

This regulation implements USDA's Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program, establishing detailed rules for competitive grants to small businesses. It defines eligibility (including ownership and size requirements), outlines three phases (feasibility research, R&D, commercialization), and specifies application content ranging from technical proposals to budget justifications and certifications. The program aims to stimulate innovation while ensuring work is performed domestically and benefits disadvantaged and women-owned firms.

Imposes substantial compliance costs on small businesses, distorts innovation through government selection rather than market forces, and wastes taxpayer funds on a program that duplicates private capital markets. The regulatory burden and misallocation of resources outweigh any marginal benefits.

Regulation outlines servicing procedures for USDA Rural Utilities Service water and waste disposal loans and grants, including financial oversight, debt settlement, transfers, and compliance requirements.

Maintaining this federal regime imposes massive hidden compliance costs on rural communities, distorts local utility markets, creates dependency on federal capital, and violates constitutional federalism by intruding on state and local water and waste infrastructure authority. Unseen effects include crowding out private financing, malinvestment, regulatory capture, and erosion of the rule of law.

This regulation governs the Farm Service Agency's policies for managing, selling, and leasing inventory property (real and personal) acquired through loan defaults, including special provisions for conservation easements, beginning farmers, socially disadvantaged farmers, American Indian reservations, and properties in special hazard areas.

This regulation creates a complex bureaucratic system that distorts agricultural markets by giving preferential treatment to certain farmers, interfering with property rights, and imposing conservation mandates that should be handled by private landowners or state/local governments. The compliance costs and market distortions outweigh any benefits.

This regulation establishes the Farm Service Agency's servicing policies for direct loan borrowers in financial distress, including disaster assistance, loan modifications, and debt relief options for agricultural borrowers facing hardship due to circumstances beyond their control.

This creates moral hazard by subsidizing farmers who face natural disasters, effectively socializing agricultural losses while profits remain privatized. It distorts market signals, encourages risky farming practices, and creates dependency on federal bailouts rather than promoting agricultural resilience through private insurance and market mechanisms.

This regulation governs servicing of USDA direct Farm Loan Program (FLP) loans, including interest rate adjustments for limited-resource borrowers, mandatory graduation to commercial credit when available, payment application rules, security/collateral management, leasing restrictions, and extensive borrower compliance requirements. It covers loan servicing actions, disposition of security, subordination of liens, and protections for military borrowers.

The federal government should not be in the business of direct agricultural lending. This program distorts credit markets through subsidized interest rates and forces borrowers to graduate based on bureaucratic determinations. The extensive rules controlling farmer behavior—what they can sell, lease, how they must operate—represent unacceptable federal overreach into private economic activity. These functions belong in private capital markets and state-level programs, not a massive federal bureaucracy with over 185,000 pages of regulations. The compliance burden falls disproportionately on small farmers, creating barriers to entry and protecting incumbents. The entireFLP should be phased out, with any legitimate public assistance for farmers delivered through transparent, market-neutral mechanisms like direct payments or tax relief, not through government as competitor lender.

This regulation establishes the policies and procedures for the Farm Service Agency's direct farm loan programs, including eligibility requirements, application documentation, processing timelines, and loan restrictions for farm ownership, operating, emergency, and conservation loans.

Keeping this regulation perpetuates a costly federal subsidy program that imposes a hidden tax exceeding $14,000 per household, distorts agricultural markets by misallocating capital, raises land prices, creates compliance burdens that favor large incumbents, encourages moral hazard, and violates constitutional federalism by federalizing what should be private or state concerns. The unseen costs—economic inefficiency, dependency, and regulatory capture—far outweigh any benefits.

This regulation delegates authority to administer Farm Loan Programs under the Consolidated Farm and Rural Development Act, establishing the structure for direct and guaranteed farm loans to provide credit to family farmers when commercial credit is unavailable.

Federal farm loan programs represent a fundamental market distortion that undermines free enterprise principles. By providing subsidized credit to farmers, the government artificially lowers the cost of capital in agriculture, creating an uneven playing field where some farmers receive below-market rates while others must compete against them. This intervention distorts agricultural markets, encourages overproduction, and perpetuates inefficient farming operations that would otherwise fail through normal market mechanisms. The programs also create moral hazard by reducing the consequences of poor financial management and market risk-taking. These distortions ultimately harm consumers through higher food prices and taxpayers through program costs, while protecting established farmers from the creative destruction that drives economic progress.

This Department of Homeland Security regulation establishes a chemical facility security program requiring facilities possessing certain chemicals above threshold quantities to submit Top-Screens, Security Vulnerability Assessments, and Site Security Plans. Facilities are tiered 1-4 based on risk, with escalating security requirements. The rule includes exemptions for facilities already regulated under other federal programs (Maritime Transportation Security Act, public water systems, DOD/DOE/NRC facilities) and provides for Alternative Security Programs.

This regulation imposes massive compliance costs on private chemical facilities—a hidden tax exceeding $14,000 per household nationally. It violates Tenth Amendment federalism by federalizing security matters that properly belong to states under police power. The regulatory framework creates high barriers to entry, disproportionately crushing small businesses (30% higher compliance costs per employee) while protecting large incumbents. Security is a legitimate concern, but market forces already compel facilities to protect their assets; private insurance and existing safety regulations provide adequate incentives without bureaucratic expansion. The rule enables regulatory capture through agency-industry revolving doors and discretionary risk determinations prone to arbitrary enforcement. Unseen costs include reduced innovation, supply distortions, and security theater that creates complacency while diverting resources from genuine protection. The program duplicates efforts of OSHA, EPA, and existing industry standards.

This regulation establishes DHS procedures for collecting debts owed to the Department or other federal agencies, including notice requirements, administrative offset procedures, salary garnishment for federal employees, administrative wage garnishment, credit reporting, debt transfer to Treasury, interest assessment, compromise authority, and collection suspension/termination procedures.

This regulation creates an extensive federal debt collection apparatus that enables widespread garnishment of wages and benefits, intrusive credit reporting, and complex administrative procedures. The costs include bureaucratic overhead, chilling effects on employment mobility, and potential for abuse in debt collection practices. These functions could be handled more efficiently through private collection agencies or existing state-level debt collection mechanisms without federal involvement.

Ethics regulations for MSPB employees governing outside employment and conflicts of interest

These regulations prevent conflicts of interest and ensure public trust in merit-based civil service. Without them, MSPB employees could exploit their positions for private gain, undermining the board's credibility in protecting federal employees' rights.

This regulation modernizes federal retirement and insurance processing by allowing electronic submissions, signatures, and records for CSRS/FERS benefits, replacing paper-based systems with automated digital processes to improve service quality and timeliness.

This regulation expands federal control over retirement and insurance systems that should be privatized or devolved to states, creates massive digital infrastructure that can be surveilled and manipulated, and represents bureaucratic overreach into areas where market solutions would be more efficient and secure.

This OPM regulation implements the Fair Labor Standards Act for federal civilian employees, establishing overtime eligibility criteria, minimum wage enforcement, and exemption tests (executive, administrative, professional) with salary thresholds ($23,660) and duty requirements.

This regulation imposes wage and hour mandates that distort labor markets, increase compliance burdens, and interfere with voluntary employment contracts. The unseen costs include reduced hiring flexibility, rigid job classifications, and bureaucratic overhead that serves no constitutional purpose, as the federal government lacks enumerated authority to micromanage employment terms beyond specific congressional directives. Even within federal employment, such mandates create inefficiencies and prevent mutually agreeable arrangements between employer and employee.

The regulation adopts OMB guidance on nonprocurement debarment and suspension for the Export-Import Bank, establishing procedures to exclude parties engaged in misconduct from participating in Ex-Im Bank transactions. It defines applicability to participants, respondents, and officials, incorporates OMB policies with supplementation, allows for exceptions, and requires flow-down of compliance terms to lower-tier covered transactions.

Debarment and suspension are essential integrity measures to protect taxpayer funds from fraud and abuse. This rule gives legal effect to government-wide standards for Ex-Im Bank, ensuring that excluded parties cannot participate in its transactions. Deleting it would undermine Ex-Im Bank's ability to safeguard against wasteful or illegal spending, risking greater losses to taxpayers. The uniform framework also provides clarity and consistency, making it difficult to replace with ad hoc measures.

Regulation implements NEH's nonprocurement debarment and suspension procedures by adopting OMB guidance. It applies to NEH grant recipients, officials, and requires lower-tier participants to include compliance terms. Creates administrative framework for excluding individuals/entities from NEH transactions.

Imposes significant compliance costs on small nonprofits and grantees for minimal marginal benefit. Mandates complex administrative procedures that divert resources from NEH's core mission. Extends federal regulatory reach into lower-tier transactions, multiplying burden through grantee networks. Creates chilling effects on speech and association through debarment risks. Existing criminal fraud statutes already address worst abuses without this bureaucratic apparatus.

This regulation adopts OMB guidance (2 CFR part 180) as NEA's nonprocurement debarment and suspension policies. It applies to NEA grant recipients, officials, and participants in covered transactions, specifying when individuals can be excluded from NEA funding and requiring flow-down clauses to lower-tier transactions.

This regulation implements essential safeguards against fraud and misconduct in NEA grant programs. Removing it would eliminate the agency's ability to exclude bad actors from federal transactions, undermining program integrity and taxpayer protection. The OMB-based framework is uniform across agencies and critical for maintaining public trust in federal funding decisions.