Browse regulations

This regulation implements the Federal-State Extended Unemployment Compensation Act of 1970, establishing a federal-state program that provides extended unemployment benefits to workers who exhaust regular state unemployment benefits during periods of high unemployment. It defines eligibility criteria, benefit calculation formulas, trigger mechanisms based on unemployment rates, and federal reimbursement policies for states.

This regulation represents federal overreach that distorts labor markets and creates moral hazard. Extended unemployment benefits reduce job-finding urgency, increase structural unemployment, and slow economic recovery by interfering with wage price signals. The program imposes hidden taxes through higher payroll taxes (passed to workers as lower wages and consumers as higher prices), penalizes small businesses disproportionately, and undermines federalism by coercing states into federal compliance. Unintended consequences include dependency, reduced private precautionary savings, and perpetuation of unemployment beyond transitional needs—precisely the outcomes Mises, Hayek, and Friedman warned would result from such interventions.

These regulations implement the Federal Unemployment Tax Act (FUTA) and Title XII loan programs, governing federal tax credits to states, interest on federal advances to state unemployment funds, and various relief mechanisms (caps, avoidance, waivers, deferrals) that modify these penalties based on state solvency and fiscal behavior.

This federal program creates perverse incentives for states to underfund their unemployment systems, knowing they can borrow from the federal treasury with subsidized interest and relief from tax credit reductions. The complex regulatory apparatus imposes significant compliance costs on states while distorting their fiscal discipline. Federal involvement in state unemployment insurance violates the Tenth Amendment's reservation of such matters to the states and represents an unwarranted expansion of federal power that crowds out private market solutions and state-level innovation.

This regulation implements Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act for the Railroad Retirement Board, prohibiting discrimination against individuals with disabilities. It mandates self-evaluations, accessibility standards, auxiliary aids, and detailed complaint procedures with strict timelines.

The regulation imposes significant administrative and compliance burdens on a small agency, diverting resources from its core retirement mission. Rigid requirements and broad definitions incentivize overcompliance and litigation while stifling innovation in accessibility solutions. The underlying statute's private right of action provides adequate deterrence without this expansive bureaucratic framework.

These regulations implement federal debt collection from federal employee pay accounts, establishing procedures for administrative wage garnishment to recover debts owed to the United States from current employees' disposable pay.

This regulation ensures federal employees who owe debts to the government cannot avoid repayment through their employment, protecting taxpayer interests while providing due process protections including notice, hearing rights, and waiver options.

This regulation protects railroad retirement benefits from garnishment, taxes, and legal process, while allowing limited exceptions for child support, alimony, and tax withholding, and permitting assignment under specific social security minimum provisions.

Americans would be worse off if these benefits could be seized through legal process, as it would undermine the retirement security purpose of the program and create financial instability for elderly railroad workers who have no other income source.

This regulation defines employee representatives for Railroad Retirement Act purposes, establishing criteria for who qualifies as a covered employee and how their service is credited. It covers union officials, their assistants, and outlines reporting procedures for compensation and service under the Act.

This regulation creates unnecessary bureaucratic complexity for union officials' retirement benefits. It distorts the labor market by giving special retirement status to union representatives, creating a privileged class that doesn't reflect actual economic contribution. The costs of administration and compliance outweigh any benefits, while the special treatment undermines equal treatment under the law.

Provides workers' compensation reimbursement for employees injured or killed due to war-risk hazards while working abroad for US contractors, including direct payment of benefits and detention compensation for those captured by hostile forces.

Creates a massive liability for US taxpayers by guaranteeing compensation for war-related injuries abroad, effectively socializing the risks of overseas military contractors and encouraging dangerous deployments without market price signals for risk.

This regulation establishes detailed procedures for investigating and imposing sanctions for violations of administrative protective orders (APOs) that restrict disclosure of business proprietary information in antidumping and countervailing duty proceedings. It defines violations, investigation timelines, hearing procedures, possible sanctions (including bars from practice and information access denial), and appeals processes through an APO Sanctions Board.

This regulation represents bureaucratic overengineering of what should be a straightforward enforcement matter. The elaborate administrative machinery—presiding officials, APO Sanctions Board, detailed discovery rules, interim sanctions procedures—creates a self-perpetuating compliance industry that inflates costs without adding value. The same objectives (protecting trade secrets when voluntarily submitted to government) could be achieved through clear contractual terms with standard liquidated damages and reference to existing tort/contract law. The regulation's unseen costs include: creating barriers to entry for small firms lacking dedicated compliance resources; enabling regulatory capture by trade enforcement professionals; and expanding agency power through vague 'other appropriate administrative sanctions' language. The $2 trillion+ regulatory burden includes thousands of such procedural accretions that add complexity but no commensurate public benefit.

Regulation governing entry, clearance, and transit of aircraft through U.S. customs. Establishes airport designations (international, landing rights, user fee), requires electronic manifests for private aircraft, mandates pre-departure permission from CBP, and sets detailed data collection standards for pilots, passengers, and crew. Applies to all air commerce crossing U.S. borders.

Imposes extensive compliance burdens on private aviators with disproportionate costs relative to security benefits. The permission-based landing system grants excessive discretion to CBP, risking arbitrary denial and regulatory capture. Comprehensive data collection intrudes on privacy, creates mission creep, and presents significant barriers to entry for small operators and personal aviation, all while duplicating security functions that could be achieved through streamlined, risk-based notification rather than blanket requirements.

This FERC regulation (18 CFR Part 388) implements the Freedom of Information Act by prescribing procedures for public access to Commission records, establishing fee schedules based on requester category, defining exemptions from disclosure, and outlining appeal processes.

Imposes unnecessary compliance costs through complex procedural requirements and tiered fee structures that deter public oversight and benefit sophisticated actors, while broad exemptions enable agency secrecy beyond statutory FOIA mandates, exemplifying the $2 trillion regulatory burden with insufficient justification for its existence.

Requires oil pipeline companies to file various periodic financial and operational reports (annual Form 6, quarterly Form 6-Q, depreciation data Form 73, and cash management agreements) with FERC based on revenue thresholds, with specific deadlines and electronic filing requirements.

Imposes significant compliance costs on businesses—especially small pipelines, where per-employee burden is 30% higher—without clear justification that public benefits exceed these unseen costs. The mandated data collection represents federal overreach into an industry that could operate with market discipline or state oversight, and the prescriptive reporting requirements ignore Hayek's knowledge problem by assuming regulators know best what data to gather. The revenue thresholds distort competition by shielding large incumbents from smaller entrants who face disproportionate relative costs.

Requires carriers to file extensive applications proving lack of market power before charging market-based rates, including detailed market definitions, competitive analyses, maps, HHI calculations, testimony, and subject to protest procedures and commission review.

This regulation imposes massive compliance costs that burden businesses and stifle price competition. It contradicts free enterprise principles by requiring government pre-approval for market-based pricing, creating barriers to entry that protect incumbents. True competition, not bureaucratic pre-clearance, is the proper check on market power.

This regulation bans lawn darts due to their unreasonable risk of skull puncture injuries to children, finding that all lawn darts present similar risks regardless of design, with 670 injuries and 3 deaths annually among children under 15.

The regulation represents regulatory overreach - adults should have the freedom to choose whether to use lawn darts despite the risks, and the market could develop safer alternatives without federal prohibition. The costs include loss of recreational freedom and the precedent that government should ban products based on statistical injury rates rather than addressing actual product defects.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission regulation establishes procedures for responding to private litigation requests, mandating record disclosure under FOIA while requiring General Counsel authorization for employee testimony and empowering the agency to quash subpoenas.

This regulation unreasonably restricts private litigants' access to justice by giving the agency unilateral power to withhold testimony, creating a barrier to accountability that protects the agency from scrutiny and potential cover-ups of misconduct. The unseen costs include delayed or denied evidence, reinforced regulatory capture, and an extra layer of bureaucracy that increases the regulatory burden without serving a compelling public interest.

Regulation establishes procedures for handling legal process served on the Department of Commerce, requiring all summonses, complaints, and demands for testimony/documents to be routed through the General Counsel's office for authorization. It sets criteria for when to comply, protects employee time, and includes special provisions for USPTO, NOAA Inspector General, and child support allotments for NOAA Corps officers.

Deleting this would create chaos in legal proceedings, waste employee time with unvetted demands, and expose the government to legal risks. The centralized authorization through General Counsel ensures proper evaluation, protects official operations, and maintains consistent legal positions—coordination benefits that would be difficult to achieve ad hoc.