Browse regulations

Prohibits LSC recipients from initiating or participating in class action lawsuits, with exceptions for individual client withdrawal and non-adversarial activities.

This restriction on Legal Services Corporation recipients artificially limits access to justice for low-income Americans by banning class actions—often the only feasible mechanism for addressing systemic legal violations affecting many people simultaneously. It creates a Two-Tiered justice system where systemic wrongs against the poor cannot be effectively challenged, while those with resources retain full access to class remedies. The regulation protects entrenched interests from collective legal challenges while imposing significant unseen costs on vulnerable populations who lack alternative means to vindicate their rights.

Establishes NEPA compliance policies for environmental review, including categorical exclusions, environmental assessments, and impact statements, with consultation and public involvement requirements.

Creates bureaucratic overhead and delays for projects without clear environmental benefits, imposing hidden costs on development while enabling regulatory capture through complex consultation requirements.

This regulation requires federal irrigation and water districts to develop water conservation plans for projects receiving federal reclamation water, with federal assistance in identifying conservation opportunities.

This is federal overreach into local water management decisions that should be handled by states and local districts. It imposes costly compliance burdens on water districts while federal involvement in water conservation creates regulatory capture and inefficient resource allocation. States and local water authorities are better positioned to assess their own water needs and conservation strategies without federal mandates.

Regulation limits acreage of land that can receive irrigation water from federal reclamation projects, distinguishing between qualified (960 acres), limited (640 acres), and prior law recipients (160 acres). It imposes complex ownership attribution rules, citizenship requirements, and lease restrictions to control who gets subsidized water.

Federal overreach into state water rights. Arbitrary acreage caps distort agricultural markets, prevent economies of scale, and artificially fragment land holdings. Complex compliance burdens disproportionately harm small farmers who can't afford legal/accounting help. Regulations create hidden tax burden ($2 trillion+ annually) for wealth redistribution to specific interests. Violates rule of law with 185,000+ pages of non-knowable rules. Water allocation should be determined by market pricing and private contracts, not bureaucratic acreage limits.

Grants program supporting multi-component research on hazardous substances' health effects, requiring biomedical and non-biomedical projects plus investigator training, administered by NIEHS under Superfund Act authority

Federal funding of academic research creates market distortions, crowds out private investment, and violates constitutional limits on federal power. The research goals could be achieved through voluntary private-sector collaboration without taxpayer compulsion, while eliminating bureaucratic overhead and regulatory capture risks.

NIH research training grants regulation governs eligibility, application review, award periods, and allowable expenses (stipends, tuition, faculty salaries) for biomedical and environmental health training programs, while exempting certain other NIH training mechanisms.

This program imposes substantial compliance bureaucracy on universities (disproportionately burdening smaller institutions), centralizes research priority decisions via political calculation rather than market signals, and exceeds constitutional federal authority over education. The benefits—fundamental research training—are already supplied robustly by medical schools, pharmaceutical companies, and private foundations responding to genuine demand, not bureaucratic planning.

EPA regulation establishing lead-based paint hazard standards and requiring certification, training, and work practices for renovations in pre-1978 housing and child-occupied facilities. Mandates pre-renovation education pamphlets, specific containment/cleaning protocols, and recordkeeping, with exemptions for minor repairs and emergencies.

This federal regulation usurps state and local police powers under the Tenth Amendment, imposing significant compliance costs that disproportionately harm small renovators and property owners. The certification requirements create barriers to entry, while complex standards and recordkeeping burden reduce housing supply and increase renovation costs. States and localities are better positioned to tailor lead safety rules to local conditions, and private liability law can protect occupants without federal overreach. The unseen costs—reduced competition, higher housing costs, and avoided renovations—outweigh any marginal safety benefits from centralized federal control.

Regulates the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) nuclear waste disposal facility, establishing compliance criteria, certification processes, quality assurance requirements, and ongoing monitoring for radioactive waste disposal in New Mexico

This regulation represents federal overreach into what should be state/local jurisdiction for nuclear waste disposal, creates a massive bureaucratic compliance apparatus with disproportionate compliance costs for small operators, and the regulatory complexity itself poses risks by making the system incomprehensible to citizens and even regulators

The regulation establishes administrative rules for three federal student aid programs: Federal Perkins Loans, Federal Work-Study (FWS), and Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants (FSEOG). It governs institutional applications, allocation formulas, overaward prevention, coordination with other aid, and administrative cost allowances. Institutions must navigate complex requirements for awarding aid, calculating need, preventing overpayments, and tracking expenditures.

The regulation imposes massive compliance costs on educational institutions—burdens that fall disproportionately on small colleges and alternative education providers. This bureaucratic complexity distorts the education market, raises barriers to entry, and creates dependency on federal funding that ultimately harms students through higher tuition. The entire federal role in student aid violates Tenth Amendment federalism, removing education from its proper state and local control while empowering unelected agency officials to micromanigate institutions.

Federal grant program providing academic support services to disadvantaged students to increase college retention, graduation rates, and transfer rates from two-year to four-year institutions

Federal education intervention creates dependency, distorts market incentives, and imposes hidden compliance costs. The program's stated goals of increasing retention and graduation rates are better achieved through state-level initiatives and institutional autonomy rather than federal mandates that micromanage student support services.

This Coast Guard regulation governs oil and hazardous material transfer operations at waterfront facilities handling 250+ barrels. It requires pre-approval of detailed Operations Manuals, mandates specific equipment standards (incorporating ANSI, API, NFPA, etc.), imposes extensive testing and recordkeeping, and gives the Captain of the Port broad discretion to enforce safety requirements.

The regulation imposes crushing compliance costs—detailed prescriptive mandates, pre-approval bureaucracies, and incorporated private standards that function as barriers to entry. Small facilities bear 30% higher per-employee costs, protecting incumbents. It solves a coordination problem (spill prevention) that the market could handle better through strict liability, insurance underwriting, and third-party certification—allowing flexibility rather than one-size-fits-all federal dictates. The environmental goal is legitimate, but this approach creates regulatory capture, stifles innovation, and violates the principle that rules should be knowable and outcomes-based rather than procedure-obsessed.

Regulation implements the Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act for DoD, requiring annual inflation adjustments to civil monetary penalties based on CPI, published in Federal Register with a 150% cap on initial adjustment.

Automatic penalty escalation bypasses congressional control, creating hidden government expansion. Penalty amounts become unpredictable and perpetually increase without political accountability. Annual publication adds administrative burden. Laws should be knowable and set through deliberate legislation, not bureaucratic formulas that distort incentives and undermine limited government.

This regulation establishes policies and procedures for elected school boards in Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA) schools, governing their composition, election processes, roles, and limitations. It applies to DoD-operated schools for military dependents and outlines the relationship between school boards, superintendents, and DoD leadership while restricting board members from exercising governmental authority under constitutional limitations.

This is a federal regulation governing local school governance that properly belongs to states and localities under the Tenth Amendment. The federal government has no constitutional authority to dictate school board composition, election procedures, or operational policies for schools serving military families. This represents federal overreach into education that should be handled at the state or local level, creating unnecessary bureaucracy and compliance costs.

Prohibits U.S. persons from knowingly engaging in financial transactions with governments of countries designated as supporting international terrorism, with exceptions for certain international organizations, humanitarian purposes, and official U.S. government business.

National security is a legitimate core federal function; blocking financing to state sponsors of terrorism is a proportionate, targeted measure that prevents American capital from indirectly supporting regimes that threaten U.S. lives. The regulation's scope is limited to designated governments (not private citizens) and includes humanitarian exceptions, while compliance costs are concentrated among financial institutions rather than ordinary Americans. The benefit of depriving terrorists of funding outweighs the marginal restriction on voluntary trade, especially given the existential nature of the threat.

This regulation allows color illustrations of U.S. currency for specific purposes, with size restrictions (less than 3/4 or more than 1.5 times actual size) and one-sided requirement, plus mandatory destruction of all digital/physical copies after use.

Americans would be worse off if this regulation was deleted because it enables legitimate artistic, educational, and media uses of currency imagery while preventing counterfeiting through size restrictions and mandatory destruction of copies. The regulation balances First Amendment expression with anti-counterfeiting concerns in a way that would be difficult to achieve through other means.