Browse regulations

Federal regulation governing rail transport of hazardous materials, including inspection, security, emergency response coordination, loading requirements, and transloading operations. Preempts state/local requirements and imposes extensive technical specifications, notification protocols, and recordkeeping on railroads.

The regulation imposes massive compliance costs while stifling innovation, creating barriers to entry for small railroads, and centralizing safety decisions. Its hyper-detailed technical specifications represent the 'fatal conceit' that bureaucrats can design optimal safety mechanisms better than dispersed market actors. The regulation creates moral hazard by focusing on checklist compliance rather than outcomes, promotes regulatory capture, and preempts state experimentation. Simpler federal standards combined with strong liability and market-based incentives would achieve safety goals at a fraction of the burden.

This regulation consists solely of definitions for terms used in the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (DFARS). It defines various terms related to defense procurement, including 'counterfeit electronic part', 'cyber incident', 'contracting officer's representative', 'offset', and 'material weakness'. These definitions establish the semantic framework for substantive requirements elsewhere in the DFARS but contain no independent regulatory requirements.

These purely definitional provisions contribute to the staggering complexity and opacity of the Code of Federal Regulations without providing independent substantive value. They create a semantic labyrinth that increases compliance burdens, especially for small defense contractors who must navigate arcane definitions to understand their obligations. The definitions enable expansive interpretation of vague standards, effectively allowing bureaucrats to define away limits on their power. Eliminating these definitions would simplify the regulatory code and make it more accessible, while any necessary semantic clarity could be incorporated directly into the substantive rules using plain language that citizens and businesses can actually understand, thereby honoring the rule of law principle that laws must be knowable.

This rule regulates UAS control communications in the 5030-5091 MHz band through a Dynamic Frequency Management System (DFMS) requiring registration, technical certification, FAA coordination, and interference protection for incumbent services like Microwave Landing Systems and radio astronomy.

Deletion would risk harmful interference, causing drone crashes, endangering lives, disrupting aviation safety and radio astronomy, and undermining the safe, efficient integration of UAS that delivers substantial economic and public safety benefits.

MARAD procedures for managing U.S.-owned vessels through agency agreements. Requires agents to meet strict U.S. citizenship standards across ownership tiers, executive positions, and board composition. Includes insurance claims handling and reporting requirements.

Citizenship mandate restricts competition, raising costs for taxpayers while protecting incumbent U.S. shipping interests. Complex ownership verification creates unnecessary compliance burdens without serving a legitimate governmental interest beyond economic nationalism.

Federal regulation requiring vessels to display load line marks indicating maximum safe draft, with certification by an assigning authority. Establishes uniform safety standards for loading to prevent overloading and ensure seaworthiness, with specific exemptions and enforcement mechanisms.

The regulation imposes significant compliance costs—surveys, certifications, markings, recordkeeping—that burden shipping and consumers while duplicating private safety mechanisms. Insurance markets and tort liability already internalize risks of overloading; market discipline provides stronger, flexible incentives without bureaucratic rigidity. The knowledge problem prevents regulators from setting optimal loading standards for diverse vessels and conditions. Exemptions acknowledge the rule's overbreadth, and the federal mandate infringes on Tenth Amendment principles that maritime safety could be handled by states or private parties. Regulatory capture potential with classification societies further distorts outcomes.

Federal regulation requiring states and Indian tribes to submit comprehensive five-year Child and Family Services Plans (CFSP) as a condition for receiving Title IV-B child welfare and family preservation/support funding. Mandates extensive consultation, coordination, data collection, reporting, and quality assurance systems.

This regulation imposes massive hidden compliance costs on states and tribes through mandatory planning, consultation requirements, data systems, quality assurance mechanisms, and annual reporting—resources that could otherwise serve vulnerable children. The one-size-fits-all federal mandates distort state priorities, create bureaucratic inertia, and prevent innovative local solutions. The conditional funding structure creates dependency and regulatory capture, diverting resources from front-line services to administrative compliance while eroding state sovereignty.

45 CFR part 1355 establishes federal requirements for states and tribes receiving Title IV-B and IV-E funds for child welfare services (foster care, adoption, child protective services). It mandates extensive definitions and procedures, including specific requirements for LGBTQI+ children's 'Designated Placements,' training for staff, anti-retaliation provisions, and compliance with numerous other federal regulations. The regulation governs federal financial participation and requires states to conform to federal plan requirements.

This represents unconstitutional federal overreach into core state police powers. Child welfare and family law are traditional Tenth Amendment state functions. The compliance burden—administrative costs, mandated training, reporting, and adherence to dozens of other CFR parts—diverts resources from direct services and imposes one-size-fits-all mandates that prevent states from tailoring solutions to local needs. Despite religious exemptions, the LGBTQI+ provisions still pressure providers to conform to federal orthodoxy. The $2 trillion national regulatory burden includes this type of bureaucratic micromanagement that erodes federalism, stifles innovation, and violates the principle that laws should be made by elected state legislatures, not unelected federal administrators. States can effectively manage child welfare without federal coercion through conditional funding.

Regulates mining claims on public lands reserved for power development, requiring filing notifications and fees, retaining U.S. power rights without liability, and mandating suspension/hearing procedures for placer mining to assess interference with other land uses.

This federal regulation usurps state/local land use authority under the Tenth Amendment, imposes compliance costs that disproportionately harm small miners, and subordinates legitimate mining property rights to central planning decisions by empowering agencies to prohibit mining without compensation. The 60-day suspended operation requirement and protest hearing process create costly uncertainty while serving no compelling federal interest that cannot be handled by state regulation or market contracts.

Establishes procedures for protecting environmental, fish and wildlife, and historical/scenic values in Alaska's National Petroleum Reserve while allowing oil and gas exploration as required by law. Includes special area protections, use authorization requirements, and exemptions for subsistence and recreation.

Deleting this regulation would create legal uncertainty and inconsistent management, potentially leading to either inadequate protection of unique Arctic ecosystems and cultural sites or unnecessary delays in congressionally-mandated energy development. It achieves a balanced, procedurally fair approach through clear procedures, special area designations, and tribal consultation, which ad hoc decision-making would struggle to replicate, while its compliance costs are modest relative to the irreversible harm prevented.

Regulation establishes certification requirements for Rural Health Clinics and Federally Qualified Health Centers to receive Medicare/Medicaid reimbursement, including location criteria (rural/shortage areas), staff qualifications, facility standards, service requirements, record-keeping, and emergency preparedness protocols.

This entitlement program imposes heavy compliance costs that create barriers to entry, distort market incentives, and reduce innovation. Federal micromanagement of clinic operations through detailed staffing, facility, and procedural requirements raises costs while potentially excluding more efficient delivery models. Healthcare for underserved populations is better addressed through private charity, state flexibility, or patient-directed subsidies rather than federal provider regulation.

42 CFR Part 52 governs administration of Public Health Service health-related research project grants, establishing eligibility rules, application/evaluation procedures based on scientific merit and feasibility, award conditions, project period management, and administrative requirements for grantees. It excludes certain programs like health services research and general support grants.

Keeping this regulation sustains a federal research funding empire that violates constitutional federalism (Tenth Amendment), imposes billions in bureaucratic overhead and compliance costs, distorts research priorities through central planning, creates dependency and regulatory capture risks as academia lobbies for federal dollars, and crowds out private philanthropy and market-driven innovation. The unseen cost is the research that never happens because it fails bureaucratic criteria or political preference, while the $14,000+ annual hidden tax burden on households continues to siphon capital from productive private use.

Regulation permits federal employees to accept travel expense payments from non-federal sources only with prior agency approval and solely for official travel to meetings, ensuring payments are made to the agency rather than the individual.

Deletion would increase corruption and regulatory capture risks; unregulated acceptance of travel gifts from private entities could improperly influence federal employees' decisions, distorting policy for special interests at the expense of the public and free enterprise.

This Federal Travel Regulation governs payment of death-related expenses for federal employees who die under specific circumstances including official travel, overseas duty, or mandatory relocation. It covers funeral preparation, transportation of remains, family relocation assistance, household goods, vehicle return, and escorts, with detailed eligibility rules, cost limits, and procedural requirements.

This creates a taxpayer-funded welfare benefit for federal employees not available to private workers, with substantial administrative overhead tracking complex eligibility criteria. The program distorts compensation incentives, imposes an unfunded liability, and creates inequitable treatment—private sector families must rely on life insurance while taxpayers subsidize government workers' funeral and relocation costs even for non-work-related deaths during travel.

This regulation defines which federal employees are eligible for relocation expense allowances, excludes certain categories (Foreign Service, CIA, military, VA), and requires agencies to report all travel and transportation payments annually to GSA via an automated system.

Taxpayer-funded relocation benefits for federal employees are non-essential and create perverse incentives for unnecessary transfers, bloating government spending. The standardized system bypasses market-driven compensation, while the reporting mandate adds administrative overhead. Private sector successfully handles relocation through negotiated contracts; federal government should reduce this $2 trillion regulatory burden by eliminating such benefits.

The Federal Travel Regulation (FTR) governs official travel for federal employees, interviewees, emergency travelers, and protected law enforcement personnel. It aims to implement statutory requirements responsibly while minimizing administrative costs, providing standardized policies across executive agencies for transportation, per diem, reimbursement, and related travel procedures.

This internal government micromanagement of employee travel represents unnecessary centralization that could be handled more efficiently by individual agencies with leaner, tailored policies. The administrative burden of maintaining and complying with this 185,000+ page regulatory ecosystem itself contradicts its stated goal of minimizing costs. Taxpayers fund the bureaucracy required to enforce these detailed travel rules, and the rigid one-size-fits-all approach stifles agency innovation and flexibility in travel management—an unseen cost that distorts incentives and wastes resources that could be better deployed toward actual mission delivery.