Browse regulations

Establishes procedures for DOE's Economic Regulatory Administration to issue priority-rated orders compelling petroleum suppliers to deliver fuel to DOD during shortages affecting national defense. Includes certification requirements, show-cause process for suppliers, price-gouging prohibition, liability immunity, and criminal penalties for noncompliance.

Price controls suppress market signals, creating hidden shortages and misallocation. Forced compliance with below-market terms imposes uncompensated costs on suppliers, reducing incentives to serve defense markets. Vague 'necessary or appropriate' standard invites abuse. Defense priorities can be achieved through voluntary premium contracts without distorting free markets.

This regulation establishes security requirements for NRC licensees, certificate holders, and other persons handling classified National Security Information, Restricted Data, or Formerly Restricted Data related to nuclear activities. It covers facility security clearances, personnel access authorizations, physical security standards (storage containers, restricted areas, alarm systems), procedural controls, and recordkeeping requirements for protecting classified nuclear information.

Americans would be catastrophically worse off without this regulation. The federal government has exclusive constitutional authority over national defense and atomic energy under the Atomic Energy Act. This regulation protects against theft or compromise of nuclear weapons design information and special nuclear materials that could enable nuclear terrorism or proliferation—risks that impose existential externalities no state could address uniformly. The regulation achieves its security objectives efficiently by leveraging existing federal personnel clearance systems (DCSA investigations), setting uniform national standards, and providing centralized oversight through the NRC as cognizant security agency. Patchwork state regulation would be impossible given the interstate nature of nuclear materials and classified information, and the specialized expertise required to assess foreign ownership risks or design adequate physical protections. While compliance imposes costs on regulated facilities, these are far outweighed by the avoided costs of a single successful compromise of nuclear secrets.

Implements U.S. obligations under IAEA safeguards agreements for nuclear non-proliferation, requiring reporting, inspections, and access to facilities handling nuclear materials

Creates massive compliance costs and bureaucratic burden on nuclear industry while duplicating existing DOE oversight. The IAEA's role in U.S. domestic facilities represents an unconstitutional delegation of sovereignty and creates unnecessary regulatory overlap.

Regulates security clearances for access to classified nuclear information (Restricted Data) at NRC-licensed facilities, requiring background investigations and fees from licensees/contractors.

Americans would be worse off because deletion would eliminate mandatory federal vetting for individuals with access to nuclear weapons design data, enabling proliferation and terrorism. The regulation achieves uniform clearance standards and centralized oversight that private actors cannot replicate; decentralized security for nuclear secrets would be grossly inadequate given catastrophic risks.

Establishes personnel security program for special nuclear material access, requiring background investigations and access authorizations for individuals working with nuclear materials, with tiered investigation levels based on job risk and access requirements.

Nuclear material security is critical for public safety and national defense. The regulation provides systematic vetting to prevent theft, sabotage, or exposure risks. Without it, dangerous materials could fall into wrong hands, causing catastrophic consequences that would be extremely difficult to mitigate through other means.

Regulation authorizes INS to prevent aliens from departing the US if their departure is 'prejudicial to the interests of the United States,' establishing procedures for temporary orders, hearings before special inquiry officers, and appellate review. Categories include security risks, fugitives, witnesses, and a broad catch-all for 'similar character' circumstances.

The regulation's vague standards and open-ended catch-all (§1215.3(k)) grant unbounded discretionary power to restrict fundamental liberty, violating rule-of-law principles and inviting arbitrary enforcement. Its massive administrative burden—costing billions in compliance and bureaucracy—achieves objectives already covered by existing criminal law, subpoena power, and parole conditions. The沉重 liberty costs to aliens and the inevitable regulatory capture far outweigh any marginal security benefits.

Regulation establishes departure controls preventing aliens from leaving US if deemed prejudicial to US interests, with administrative hearing process. Also creates EVUS mandating periodic electronic updates from certain visa holders under penalty of automatic visa revocation.

Departure controls restrict fundamental liberty to travel without judicial oversight, using vague 'prejudicial to interests' standard enabling abuse. EVUS imposes unnecessary compliance costs while providing minimal security beyond existing inspections. Both exemplify federal overreach with high unseen costs and questionable necessity.

Federal marketing order establishing a Spearmint Oil Administrative Committee that administers a quota system for spearmint oil producers in Washington, Idaho, Oregon, Nevada, and Utah. The system allocates annual production limits (annual allotments) based on historical sales, restricts marketing to these quotas, requires excess oil to be stored as 'reserve,' and imposes mandatory assessments on handlers to fund Committee operations including research and promotion.

This regulation embodies the worst of centralized economic planning: it creates a government-sanctioned cartel that artificially restricts supply to inflate prices, violating free market principles. The quota system (annual allotments) explicitlylimits production below what willing producers would supply, raising costs for downstream users and consumers. The 'reserve oil' storage requirement distorts inventory decisions and imposes significant compliance burdens. This is classic New Deal-era agricultural interference that Mises, Hayek, and Friedman would reject—it substitutes bureaucratic calculation for market signals, transfers wealth from consumers to favored producers, and erodes the rule of law by making economic activity permissible only by government permit. No legitimate public interest justifies this market manipulation; true stability emerges from free price signals, not artificial scarcity.

California Desert Grape Administrative Committee regulates grape production, handling, and marketing in southeastern California, including establishing standards, assessments, and marketing orders for table grapes.

Federal grape marketing order represents regulatory overreach into agricultural commerce, imposing compliance costs and bureaucratic oversight that distorts market signals and restricts voluntary trade between producers and consumers.

Federal Grain Inspection Service regulations establishing standards, procedures, and definitions for official grain inspection and weighing services in interstate and foreign commerce

Creates a massive federal bureaucracy that federalizes grain inspection and weighing services that could be provided by private industry or states, imposing costly compliance burdens on farmers and grain businesses while creating regulatory capture opportunities through the revolving door between industry and the FGIS

Establishes uniform requirements for managing administrative funds for SNAP and Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations, including cost principles, reimbursement rates, financial management standards, and property disposition rules.

This regulation creates a massive bureaucratic apparatus for federal oversight of state food assistance programs, imposing complex accounting requirements, matching fund obligations, and property disposition rules that add significant administrative costs while distorting state/local autonomy in poverty relief efforts.

Regulation establishes criteria for USDA Secretary to determine if conservation/environmental payments qualify for federal income tax exclusion under IRS Code. Applies to specific federal and state programs, defining primary purpose tests for soil/water conservation, environmental protection/restoration, forestry improvement, and wildlife habitat. Requires documentation review and prohibits exclusion for payments that substantially increase property income.

Creates costly bureaucratic determination process for tax subsidy that distorts economic decisions. Imposes paperwork burden on states seeking certification (6 copies of documentation + change reports). Tax code should remain neutral—subsidizing particular land uses through tax exclusion penalizes productive agriculture and privileges favored activities. Complexity and subjectivity invite regulatory capture and unequal treatment. Better achieved through transparent congressional appropriations, not obscure IRS-CFR cross-references.

This regulation establishes procedures for the Federal Service Impasses Panel (FSIP), a federal body that resolves negotiation impasses between federal agencies and employee unions. It details how parties may request Panel intervention or approval of binding arbitration, filing requirements, investigation and hearing protocols, and final binding action procedures. The Panel can impose factfinding recommendations, order binding arbitration, or render binding decisions when voluntary negotiations and mediation fail.

This regulation entrenches a federal bureaucracy that violates freedom of contract by imposing binding arbitration on parties who cannot agree. It creates perverse incentives: unions may hold out for Panel intervention knowing taxpayers will bear the cost, while agencies face distorted negotiation dynamics. The millions spent on Panel operations and compliance burdens represent a direct cost to taxpayers with no corresponding benefit. Federal employment is not a private market; the government as employer should manage its workforce without third-party mandates. Essential services can be protected through management rights clauses or congressional oversight, not a bureaucratic panel that routinely decides wages above market rates.

Procedural rules governing the Federal Labor Relations Authority's administration of federal employee labor relations cases, including case consolidation, subpoenas, service of documents, filing deadlines, electronic filing, witness fees, and reconsideration procedures.

These internal adjudicatory procedures are necessary for predictable, efficient, and fair administration of justice within the existing statutory framework. Eliminating them would increase transaction costs, create uncertainty, and lead to arbitrary decision-making—harming both federal agencies and employees. While the underlying agency's existence may be debatable, these rule-of-law promoting procedures reduce rather than increase burdens.

Sets procedures for the Federal Labor Relations Authority to enforce Assistant Secretary of Labor decisions in standards of conduct cases involving labor organizations under 5 U.S.C. 7120, including petition requirements, opposition deadlines, and enforcement decision standards.

This procedural regulation adds to the compliance burden and regulatory complexity, imposing disproportionate costs on small labor unions while enforcing a federal conduct regime that risks chilling legitimate activities and distorting union governance.