Browse regulations

Federal regulations governing commercial air tour operations, including safety requirements, equipment standards, over-water operations, and specific rules for national parks and Hawaii, with provisions for interim operating authority and air tour management plans.

These regulations impose excessive compliance costs on small air tour operators, create barriers to entry through complex permitting processes, and unnecessarily restrict scenic flight operations that pose minimal safety risks. The national park restrictions particularly harm local economies and limit public access to natural wonders.

The PRIME program authorizes SBA to award grants to organizations providing training and technical assistance to disadvantaged microentrepreneurs and microenterprise development organizations. SBA issues funding announcements, evaluates applications, and monitors recipients through reporting requirements and site visits.

This program violates constitutional federalism by using federal taxpayer money to pick winners and losers in business development—a power reserved to states and private charity under the Tenth Amendment. It creates dependency, distorts market signals, adds bureaucratic overhead, and imposes compliance costs on recipients. Private philanthropy, community organizations, and market-based microfinance alternatives already exist and would be more efficient and responsive without government intermediation.

NMVC Program provides developmental venture capital to promote economic development in low-income areas by selecting venture capital companies, providing leverage through debenture guarantees, and awarding grants for operational assistance to smaller enterprises in designated low-income geographic areas.

Federal venture capital distorts market allocation of capital, creates regulatory burden on small businesses, and represents unconstitutional federal intervention in local economic development that should be handled by states and private markets.

Regulation governing merchant banking investments by financial holding companies, setting holding period limits, management restrictions, and capital thresholds to contain risks and conflicts between banking and non-banking activities.

Hidden tax of compliance costs, forced short-termism destroys long-term value, restricts productive capital allocation, favors large incumbents over small players, creates regulatory capture via discretionary approvals, and violates Tenth Amendment by federalizing private investment decisions.

Mandates federally insured credit unions to maintain written vital records preservation programs, including off-site storage of duplicates and disaster recovery plans to restore member services after catastrophic events.

Americans would be worse off without it because disasters could destroy essential records, paralyzing credit unions' ability to serve members and protect insured deposits, leading to financial losses, loss of confidence in federally insured institutions, and potential taxpayer-funded bailouts or systemic instability.

Authorizes federal credit unions to engage in activities incidental to their core business, with specific preapproved categories and a petition process for new activities

This regulation enables credit unions to provide essential services to members that are necessary for their core mission. Without these incidental powers, credit unions couldn't offer services like electronic banking, financial counseling, or correspondent services that members expect. The regulation provides clear guidelines and a petition process for new activities, protecting both credit unions and their members while allowing reasonable business flexibility.

This regulation governs international and foreign banking activities of U.S. banking organizations, including establishment of foreign branches, Edge corporations, and agreement corporations for international banking operations.

This regulation represents federal overreach into international banking operations that should be governed by market forces and private contracts. The compliance costs and bureaucratic complexity create barriers to entry while enabling regulatory capture by large financial institutions.

Regulation requires banks and related entities to publicly disclose CRA-related agreements with nongovernmental entities and file annual reports on fund usage, with disclosure requirements and reporting timelines established under Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act

Creates excessive compliance costs and disclosure requirements that burden small businesses disproportionately while providing minimal public benefit - the regulatory complexity and reporting requirements create hidden costs that outweigh any transparency gains

Requires banks to disclose and report on agreements with nongovernmental entities for community development activities, including CRA-related communications and financial arrangements exceeding specified thresholds.

Creates costly compliance burdens for small banks while enabling regulatory capture through CRA-related negotiations, with extensive reporting requirements that serve no clear public benefit.

Regulation sets procedures for responding to subpoenas and discovery requests for DNFSB employee testimony and agency records in legal proceedings where the agency is not a party. Requires prior General Counsel approval, establishes specific request requirements, outlines decision factors, and sets conditions, timelines, and fees.

Protects DNFSB's critical nuclear safety mission from distraction by frivolous discovery, safeguards sensitive deliberative and confidential information, maintains agency impartiality, and ensures efficient use of taxpayer resources. Without these procedures, parties could harass agency employees, diverting them from nuclear safety oversight and exposing protected information. The 45-day timeline, cost-recovery fees, and flexible waiver authority properly balance legitimate discovery needs with vital public safety functions.

This regulation establishes security procedures for DOE employees and contractors to make protected disclosures of classified or unclassified controlled nuclear information under whistleblower protections. It defines what constitutes a protected disclosure, who can receive it, and specific security requirements for handling such disclosures, including classification verification and identity protection procedures.

Americans would be worse off if this regulation was deleted because it provides essential whistleblower protections for nuclear security personnel who may need to report serious violations like nuclear weapons mismanagement, waste of funds, or false statements to Congress. Without these specific procedures, employees would lack clear security protocols for making protected disclosures about nuclear information, potentially leaving critical safety and national security issues unreported due to classification concerns.

These Title IX regulations prohibit sex discrimination in any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance. They require self-evaluations, designated compliance officers, grievance procedures, and assurances of compliance. The regulations cover admissions, employment, and all educational operations, with exemptions for religious organizations, military training, and certain youth groups.

Federal overreach into education—a Tenth Amendment state and local responsibility. The regulations impose massive compliance costs on schools, particularly small institutions, while creating a Washington-based enforcement apparatus that distorts educational decision-making, stifles innovation, and invites regulatory capture. Civil rights enforcement belongs to states, not unelected federal bureaucrats using the spending power to control local institutions.

This regulation establishes DOE's methods and criteria for evaluating whether Yucca Mountain is suitable as a geologic repository for nuclear waste. It defines technical terms, sets requirements for preclosure safety evaluations and postclosure performance assessments, and outlines criteria for assessing the repository's ability to contain radioactive materials and meet radiation protection standards over 10,000 years, including consideration of disruptive events like volcanism and earthquakes.

Deletion would risk insufficient safety evaluation of nuclear waste repositories, potentially leading to radiation leaks that could contaminate water supplies and harm public health for millennia. The regulation's prescribed performance assessment methods, probabilistic modeling, and consideration of disruptive events provide essential technical rigor and transparency; these systematic standards would be difficult to replicate consistently through alternative processes and are necessary to protect against intergenerational hazards from high-level radioactive waste.

This regulation prescribes licensing rules for the Department of Energy to operate a geologic nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. It covers construction authorization, safety requirements, performance assessments, site characterization reporting, enforcement provisions, and employee whistleblower protections specific to that single site.

The Yucca Mountain repository project has been defunct for over a decade with no realistic prospect of revival. Maintaining these site-specific regulations wastes NRC resources, creates unnecessary compliance complexity, and perpetuates legal dead weight. The $2 trillion regulatory burden includes maintaining zombie frameworks like this that regulate activities that will never occur, diverting attention from genuine safety priorities and violating the rule of law's requirement that regulations be knowable and relevant.

Regulation prohibits water retention in raw meat products unless proven unavoidable for food safety, requires prominent labeling of any retained water percentage, and mandates detailed data-collection protocols with prior FSIS review.

The regulation imposes substantial compliance costs, record-keeping burdens, and prior approval requirements that fall disproportionately on small businesses, stifle innovation in processing methods, and create unnecessary barriers to entry. Its 'unavoidable' justification requirement is paternalistic and invites regulatory capture, while its consumer protection and food safety goals could be achieved more efficiently through simple labeling mandates and existing anti-fraud and inspection laws.