Browse regulations

Federal Trade Commission regulation requiring ophthalmologists and optometrists to immediately provide patients with their eyeglass/contact lens prescription after an eye exam, prohibiting doctors from conditioning exams on purchasing glasses, charging extra fees for prescriptions, or using liability waivers. It also mandates specific record-keeping and consent procedures for digital prescriptions.

This federal regulation exceeds constitutional authority by regulating local medical practice and private contracts under an expansive Commerce Clause reading. States are fully capable of addressing prescription transparency if needed. The rule imposes compliance bureaucracy, record-keeping burdens, and restricts voluntary arrangements between consenting adults and their doctors. Market competition and state-level consumer protection laws can address any anticompetitive practices without federal overreach.

Establishes conduct standards, command authority, disciplinary procedures, and operational requirements for NASA-provided crewmembers on the International Space Station and NASA missions. Covers Code of Conduct with chain of command, Commander authority, mementos restrictions, astronaut selection, and criminal penalties for violations. Applies to all NASA-provided ISS crewmembers including U.S. Government employees, military, U.S. citizens, and foreign nationals.

Deletion would undermine safety and order on the International Space Station, jeopardizing crew lives and billion-dollar equipment in an extreme environment requiring unambiguous command authority. The regulation implements binding international treaty obligations and establishes a necessary framework for discipline, security, and operational integrity on multi-national missions—functions that cannot be effectively contractually administered in real-time emergency scenarios. Without it, NASA would lack enforceable standards to maintain mission success and U.S. credibility in space cooperation, creating unacceptable risks of accidents, conflicts, or treaty violations.

NASA's implementation of the Privacy Act of 1974 establishing procedures for individuals to access, amend, and appeal records about themselves in NASA systems of records, including disclosure accounting, fee structures, and specific exemptions for law enforcement, security, and investigative records.

Without this regulation, Americans would lose their statutory right to access and correct personal information held by NASA, creating unchecked government record-keeping with increased risks of errors, privacy violations, and lack of accountability—the essential procedural framework to operationalize the Privacy Act cannot be achieved through alternative means while maintaining consistent, fair, and transparent handling of personal records.

Establishes arrest authority and use of force guidelines for NASA security personnel and contractors, including training, certification, conditions for arrest, use of force (non-deadly and deadly), firearm protocols, and oversight requirements.

Unnecessary expansion of federal law enforcement creating bureaucratic costs (training, certification, oversight), risks over-criminalization and abuse on NASA property, duplicates existing agencies' capabilities, burdens contractors, and militarizes a civilian space agency.

This regulation establishes fitness data requirements for air carrier certificate applicants, including detailed financial, operational, and personnel information to assess fitness for providing air transportation services.

Creates massive compliance burden with excessive paperwork requirements that disproportionately harms small carriers while providing minimal safety benefits - existing FAA safety regulations already ensure airworthiness without this bureaucratic duplication.

Federal regulation governing the application process for air carrier certificates. Imposes procedural requirements (formatting, numbering, separate filings), restrictions on advertising/reservations before approval, and conditions on certificate holders. Requires carriers to obtain 'certificates of public convenience and necessity' from DOT before providing interstate air transportation or operating as commuter carriers.

This economic regulation creates artificial barriers to entry that protect incumbent airlines from competition, raising prices and reducing consumer choice. The 'public convenience and necessity' standard enables regulatory capture where existing carriers influence the Department to limit new entrants, violating free market principles. Compliance costs disproportionately burden small carriers and startups. The 1978 Airline Deregulation Act demonstrated that removing such entry controls increases competition, lowers fares, and expands service options. These certificates represent an unconstitutional delegation of legislative power to restrict economic liberty under an overly broad Commerce Clause, directly contradicting founding principles of liberty and limited government.

Establishes procedures for appointing the Farm Credit System Insurance Corporation as conservator or receiver of troubled Farm Credit institutions (banks, associations, service corporations). Allows ex parte appointment upon findings of insolvency, unsafe condition, or regulatory violations. Provides for voluntary liquidation with FCA approval. Transfers all powers to FCSIC upon appointment, though boards may challenge in federal court within 30 days.

Without this framework, failures of Farm Credit institutions could destabilize rural America's credit infrastructure, jeopardizing farmers' access to capital during critical growing seasons. The resolution mechanism mirrors FDIC procedures for banks and is necessary given the government's explicit insurance backstop through FCSIC, preventing bank runs and ensuring orderly resolution that protects borrower accounts and maintains continuity of agricultural lending. Statutorily grounded in the Farm Credit Act, this is not regulatory overreach but implementation of a congressionally chartered system with explicit federal oversight.

Implements Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA) for Farm Credit Administration proceedings, providing for attorney fee awards to eligible parties who prevail in adversary adjudications against the FCA, with eligibility limits based on net worth and employee count, and procedural requirements for applications and determinations.

Creates complex regulatory bureaucracy that adds compliance costs and administrative burden without clear market failure justification. Small businesses face disproportionate compliance costs while the FCA's core functions could be reformed to reduce need for such protections.

Federal regulation requiring FDIC-supervised institutions to adopt and maintain written real estate lending policies with specific underwriting standards, loan-to-value limits, and portfolio management requirements to ensure safe and sound banking practices.

Creates excessive regulatory burden on banks, distorts lending decisions through arbitrary loan-to-value limits, and enables regulatory capture while small banks struggle with compliance costs. Free market competition and market discipline would better protect depositors than prescriptive federal rules.

This regulation establishes limits on a bank's exposure to correspondents (other banks or foreign banks) to reduce systemic risk in the banking system. It requires banks to maintain written policies, limit credit exposure to 25% of total capital unless correspondents are adequately capitalized, and conduct regular financial reviews of correspondents.

This regulation creates artificial capital constraints that reduce banking efficiency and competition. The 25% exposure limit and mandatory capital ratio requirements force banks to maintain excess reserves rather than lending to productive enterprises, distorting capital allocation. These rules protect large banks from competition while creating compliance costs that disproportionately burden smaller institutions. The federal oversight of correspondent relationships usurps state authority over banking operations and creates a one-size-fits-all approach that ignores regional economic differences.

Delegates SEC's securities enforcement authority to the OCC for national banks and federal savings associations with publicly traded securities, requiring compliance with Exchange Act and Sarbanes-Oxley rules. It substitutes OCC's registration regime (12 CFR part 16), mandates electronic filing, imposes fees, and provides emerging growth company accommodations.

Deletion would force these banks into direct SEC oversight, imposing significantly more burdensome registration and reporting requirements that increase costs for banks and ultimately their customers. The current single‑agency approach leverages the OCC's banking expertise for efficient oversight, reduces duplication, and includes exemptions that help smaller institutions access capital markets—outcomes that would be difficult to achieve without this streamlined framework.

This regulation establishes procedures for submitting, considering, and disposing of petitions for rulemaking to the Federal Election Commission under election-related statutes and FOIA, including public comment periods and Commission review processes.

This is a procedural regulation that creates administrative overhead without substantive benefit - it merely dictates how the FEC processes petitions rather than protecting election integrity or free speech. The costs of compliance and bureaucratic delay outweigh any benefit from standardized petition procedures, as citizens can already petition government through other channels without this specific regulatory framework.

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board's regulation prevents organizational and consultant conflicts of interest (OCI) in its contracting for advisory and evaluation services related to Department of Energy defense nuclear facilities oversight. It requires pre-award certifications, prohibits awards where OCI exists (with limited waiver authority), mandates post-award disclosures, and establishes procedures for avoidance, mitigation, and waiver with specific criteria.

Americans would be worse off without this regulation because contractors with conflicts of interest could compromise the impartial evaluation of nuclear safety, endangering public health and security. The regulation achieves independent oversight through clear, enforceable rules that prevent self-evaluation, unfair competitive advantages, and misuse of insider information—a structure that ad hoc contracting decisions cannot reliably replicate, as market forces fail to police conflicts in this safety-critical government function.

DOE rule mandates drug testing programs for contractors at atomic energy sites, covering positions with security clearances, hazardous materials access, or safety-sensitive roles. Requires random testing (30-100%), reasonable suspicion, and post-incident testing with sanctions including termination.

Massive compliance burden and privacy intrusions outweigh questionable safety benefits. Tests for off-duty use rather than impairment, punishing legal medical marijuana users. Security clearances and performance monitoring already screen for reliability; blanket testing exceeds constitutional bounds and violates limited government principles.

This regulation establishes policies and procedures for DOE Office of Science grants and cooperative agreements for basic/applied research, education/training, conferences, and related activities across multiple scientific program areas.

Creates a complex bureaucratic framework for federal research funding that distorts scientific priorities, enables regulatory capture through grant dependency, and violates constitutional principles by federalizing research that should be state/local or private sector responsibility.