Browse regulations

This regulation establishes the Export-Import Bank's procedures for implementing the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), including request submission methods, processing timelines, fee schedules, handling of confidential commercial information under Exemption 4, inter-agency consultations, and appeals processes. It also mandates proactive disclosure of transaction data on data.exim.gov.

FOIA transparency is a critical check on government power, enabling citizens to hold EXIM accountable for its use of taxpayer funds and export credit decisions that distort markets. These procedural rules prevent arbitrary denials, ensure timely responses, protect legitimate confidential information, and provide an appeals process—all necessary for meaningful oversight. Removing them would create uncertainty, delay access to public information, and undermine a vital constraint on bureaucratic overreach.

Establishes a chronic beryllium disease prevention program for DOE facilities, requiring baseline inventories, exposure monitoring, regulated areas, protective equipment, medical surveillance, and waste management for workers exposed to beryllium.

Creates massive regulatory burden on DOE operations with extensive compliance costs, bureaucratic oversight, and workplace restrictions that exceed what's necessary for worker safety while expanding federal control over workplace practices.

This regulation establishes mandatory energy conservation standards for commercial and industrial equipment, particularly electric motors. It defines equipment categories, sets minimum efficiency requirements, prescribes testing procedures, mandates certification programs, and incorporates numerous industry standards by reference. The Department of Energy enforces compliance through rigorous testing, labeling, and recordkeeping requirements that manufacturers must follow.

This regulation imposes significant compliance costs that ultimately burden American businesses and consumers under the guise of energy efficiency. The mandated standards distort market incentives, preventing manufacturers from offering diverse products at different price points and stifling innovation that would organically emerge from consumer demand. The certification and testing regime creates barriers to entry that protect large incumbents while harming small manufacturers who cannot absorb the bureaucratic overhead. The unseen consequences include inflated equipment prices, reduced competition, potential job losses, and an unconstitutional expansion of federal power into areas properly reserved to states or the private sector under the Tenth Amendment. True energy conservation will occur naturally as businesses and consumers seek lower operating costs, without the heavy hand of federal mandates that exceed any legitimate constitutional authority.

This regulation outlines FSIS enforcement authority for meat, poultry, and egg product inspection, defining regulatory control actions, withholding actions, and suspensions. It specifies grounds for enforcement (insanitary conditions, adulteration, missing HACCP/SSOP plans, animal cruelty, interference with inspectors), establishes notification and appeal procedures, and details grounds for withdrawing/refusing inspection or mark approval.

Americans would be worse off without this enforcement framework because it provides the only systematic mechanism to prevent adulterated or misbranded meat, poultry, and eggs from reaching consumers—products that directly cause foodborne illness, hospitalizations, and deaths. The procedural safeguards (notice, hearing rights, appeals) ensure enforcement is not arbitrary while protecting the fundamental right to bodily integrity from preventable harm through contaminated food. Without these clear enforcement rules, either unsafe products would freely circulate or regulators would operate without defined standards, undermining both public health and rule of law.

This regulation prescribes rules for meat and poultry processing, including approved food ingredients, sources of radiation, and additives to prevent adulteration or misbranding, with specific provisions for curing agents, irradiation, and labeling requirements.

This regulation creates unnecessary compliance costs and barriers to entry for small processors, distorts market competition through complex approval processes, and represents federal overreach into what should be state-level food safety regulation. The unseen costs include reduced meat processing innovation, higher prices for consumers, and protection of large incumbent processors from competition.

This regulation establishes FOIA procedures for the Food Safety and Inspection Service, including public access to records, fee schedules, appeal processes, and exemptions for law enforcement materials. It implements the Freedom of Information Act as amended and provides mechanisms for public inspection, copying, and disclosure of FSIS records while protecting confidential information and ongoing investigations.

Americans would be worse off if deleted because this regulation ensures government transparency and public access to food safety information. Without these FOIA procedures, citizens would lose their ability to obtain records about meat and poultry inspections, recall information, and agency operations - effectively creating a black box around food safety oversight that could hide regulatory failures and public health risks.

A regulation that establishes a federal indemnity program for swine destroyed due to pseudorabies, outlines approval requirements for veterinarians and laboratories, mandates official testing and appraisal procedures, and requires cleaning and disinfection under APHIS supervision.

Keeping this regulation imposes significant hidden costs: it creates a bureaucratic apparatus that raises compliance expenses, socializes losses via taxpayer-funded indemnities leading to moral hazard, restricts competition through licensing of labs and veterinarians, and encroaches on state and private-sector roles in animal health. Unseen effects include regulatory capture, stifled innovation in disease control, and a per-household tax burden exceeding direct benefits.

Regulation mandates detailed insurance and fidelity coverage requirements for entities receiving loans or guarantees from the Rural Utilities Service (RUS), including property, flood, liability, workers' compensation, contractor bonds, and reporting of irregularities. It specifies minimum coverage amounts (e.g., $1 million public liability), requires insurance proceeds to be used for restoration, and imposes documentation and notification obligations on borrowers.

Imposes prescriptive, one-size-fits-all insurance mandates that duplicate state regulations and standard commercial lending practices, creating disproportionate compliance costs—especially for small rural utilities—while RUS could adequately protect its loan portfolio through flexible underwriting and negotiated terms without binding regulations.

This regulation establishes three USDA-administered programs that allow licensed refiners to import raw sugar without tariff-rate quota restrictions, provided they export equivalent quantities of refined sugar or use it in specified products (sugar-containing products or polyhydric alcohols). The program requires licenses, bonds, extensive documentation, unique tracking systems, and regular reporting to a Licensing Authority with broad discretion.

This program embodies regulatory central planning that distorts free trade and imposes significant compliance burdens on businesses. The licensing requirements raise barriers to entry, the re-export mandate creates artificial incentives, and the complex documentation and reporting regime represents a hidden tax on economic activity. The program protects incumbent refiners while giving the Licensing Authority sweeping discretionary power—classic regulatory capture. Eliminate to restore free trade in sugar and allow market forces to determine refining capacity without bureaucratic interference.

This regulation establishes CCC's policies for debarring or suspending individuals/firms from federal nonprocurement and procurement activities, specifying which officials have debarring authority and which CFR parts apply to different types of actions.

Debarment authority is a core government function that should be centralized in a single agency (likely GSA or OMB) rather than duplicated across CCC's various service arms, creating regulatory fragmentation and unnecessary administrative overhead without clear benefits to public protection.

Creates National Peanut Board to conduct promotion, research, and information activities funded by mandatory assessments on peanut producers ($3.55/ton for Segregation 1, $1.25/ton for others). Compels all producers to support generic marketing regardless of their preferences.

Forced extraction of $14M+ annually from producers is a hidden tax violating property rights. Government-mandated industry promotion inherently risks regulatory capture, benefits incumbents over small producers, and distorts market competition. Voluntary industry associations could achieve identical programs without coercion, eliminating compliance burden and preserving liberty.

Federal milk marketing order for Arizona establishing complex pooling, pricing, and classification requirements for milk handlers and producers. Creates administrative funds, reporting mandates, and gives market administrator significant discretion to adjust rules.

Imposes massive compliance costs that raise consumer prices and burden small dairies; violates Tenth Amendment by federalizing local milk markets; distorts free market pricing through government-set formulas; creates regulatory capture risk with administrator discretion; unnecessary intervention as voluntary contracts and state-level oversight can handle orderly marketing

Federal milk marketing order establishing pooling rules, pricing mechanisms, and payment systems for dairy producers and handlers in specific geographic regions of Texas and New Mexico

Complex regulatory bureaucracy creating artificial price controls and market distortions that protect incumbent producers while raising costs for consumers and limiting dairy farmers' market freedom

Federal milk marketing order regulating pool plant operations, producer-handlers, and cooperative reserve supply units in the Pacific Northwest, establishing complex pooling mechanisms and pricing structures for fluid milk distribution

Creates a massive bureaucratic framework that distorts natural market pricing, imposes compliance costs on farmers and handlers, and uses government force to maintain artificial price supports that benefit large cooperatives at the expense of consumers and smaller producers

This federal milk marketing order (FMMO) regulates the dairy industry in parts of Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. It establishes complex rules for pooling milk from dairy farmers, classifies milk into four pricing classes (Class I for fluid milk, II for soft products, III for cheese, IV for butter/powder), defines which processing plants qualify as 'pool plants' based on geographic location and shipping percentages, and sets up a bureaucratic administrative apparatus with reporting requirements, price formulas, and settlement mechanisms. The regulation creates artificial market boundaries, dictates pricing formulas, and enforces cross-subsidies between different milk uses and geographic areas.

This regulation embodies centralized economic planning that violates free market principles. It artificially distorts milk prices through class differentials and pooling requirements, imposing a hidden tax on consumers while protecting incumbent producers and processors from competition. The complex compliance burden falls disproportionately on small dairy farms and businesses, creating barriers to entry. No constitutional authority exists for federal milk marketing orders—they represent a Commerce Clause overreach into what is properly state/local regulation of intrastate agriculture. The market, through voluntary contracts and price signals, would far more efficiently coordinate milk production, processing, and distribution than this bureaucratic scheme. The regulation should be repealed to restore economic liberty and constitutional federalism.