Browse regulations

The Federal Employees Part-Time Career Employment Act of 1978 and OPM regulations mandate federal agencies to establish part-time career employment programs (16-32 hours/week), set annual goals, report progress to OPM, and provide comparable benefits. Exclusions: FBI, CIA, NSA, and certain corporations. The Act claims benefits for employees (flexibility) and agencies (productivity, reduced turnover).

Imposes centralized workforce planning mandates requiring agencies to set part-time employment goals and file reports, adding bureaucratic overhead and restricting agency autonomy to determine optimal staffing. Unseen costs: administrative burden, potential inefficiencies from meeting quotas rather than operational needs, and diminished flexibility that may harm mission effectiveness. Federal agencies should manage workforce composition without statutory mandates.

Senior Executive Service (SES) regulations governing conversion, appointment, and qualification procedures for federal executives, including merit staffing requirements, probationary periods, and appointment authorities for career, noncareer, and limited term positions.

Creates a bureaucratic caste system with special rules and privileges for federal executives, violating equal protection and federalism principles while imposing compliance costs that distort federal personnel management and create artificial barriers to state-level executive governance.

This regulation defines student volunteers in federal agencies, establishing criteria for student eligibility, volunteer service parameters, age requirements, and non-employee status for benefits. It aims to provide educational work experience without displacing regular employees or creating federal employment obligations.

This regulation creates unnecessary bureaucratic complexity around student volunteer programs. The same educational objectives could be achieved through simple agency memoranda without federal codification. It adds regulatory overhead, constrains state/local flexibility in student employment standards, and creates a special non-employee category that complicates liability and compensation frameworks. The core educational goals are better served by market-driven internship programs that don't require federal oversight.

This regulation governs federal agency hiring of U.S. citizens for overseas positions through 'overseas limited appointments.' It establishes conditions for such appointments (shortage of applicants, emergencies), defines appointment types (indefinite, limited term up to 5 years, temporary up to 2 years), sets probationary requirements, and outlines eligibility for career status upon return to the U.S. It also mandates selection based on merit and performance evaluations for those eligible for career conversion.

This internal federal personnel regulation exemplifies unnecessary bureaucratic complexity that distorts government hiring. It creates artificial categories (overseas limited, indefinite, term, temporary), imposes rigid time limits, and adds layers of probation and evaluation requirements that impede agencies' ability to staff overseas missions efficiently. The regulation assumes federal agencies cannot be trusted to manage their own hiring without detailed OPM micromanagement, violating the principle that agencies should have flexibility to meet mission needs. Its merit-based selection requirement, while sounding reasonable, becomes another checkbox exercise that doesn't guarantee better outcomes than agency discretion. The conversion eligibility upon return creates perverse incentives and further bureaucratic track-switching. The entire subpart is textbook regulatory overreach into internal government management—exactly the kind of rulemaking that produces the $2 trillion compliance burden. Federal agencies should have complete authority over their hiring, including overseas positions, without OPM dictating appointment types, durations, and probation structures. This is a solution in search of a problem that would disappear if agencies were simply allowed to hire the best candidates for overseas service on terms they determine.

This OPM regulation governs federal personnel recordkeeping, requiring agencies to maintain Official Personnel Folders (OPFs) for employees, setting standards for accuracy, security, access, retention (typically 4 years), and transfer between agencies. It applies to executive branch agencies and covers both manual and automated systems.

This regulation represents excessive centralization and micromanagement of internal agency personnel operations. The highly prescriptive requirements (specific folder types, retention schedules, storage methods, transfer procedures) create unnecessary bureaucracy and compliance costs that could be avoided by allowing agencies flexibility to design systems appropriate to their missions. OPM's detailed oversight role constitutes mission creep beyond its core functions and violates the principle of subsidiarity. While basic personnel records management is legitimate, this regulation's complexity and specificity impose administrative burdens without proportional benefits that simpler guidelines or agency delegation could achieve more efficiently.

Federal regulations establishing threatened species protections under the Endangered Species Act, including prohibitions on taking listed species with various exceptions for research, habitat restoration, and tribal management activities.

Americans would be worse off if these protections were deleted because they prevent extinction of species that provide ecosystem services, support commercial fisheries, and maintain biodiversity that benefits recreation and tourism industries. The regulated exceptions allow necessary human activities while ensuring species recovery.

Mandates detailed accounting separation of railroad operating expenses between freight and passenger services, requiring complex allocation formulas across thousands of expense accounts based on service usage metrics like locomotive miles, train hours, and ton-miles.

Creates massive regulatory burden with compliance costs exceeding benefits - railroads must maintain complex accounting systems and detailed records to satisfy arbitrary separation formulas that serve no market purpose. This micro-management of internal cost allocation decisions belongs to the companies, not federal bureaucrats.

Mandates manufacturers report safety defects in vehicles/equipment to NHTSA, notify owners, and maintain remedy programs, with quarterly reporting and data retention requirements.

Creates multi-billion dollar compliance costs that ultimately increase vehicle prices and reduce consumer choice, while the same safety information could be achieved through voluntary industry standards and market mechanisms without federal mandates.

Federal regulations governing the processing of claims for overcharges, duplicate payments, and overcollections by motor carriers and household goods freight forwarders. Establishes mandatory procedures including written claim requirements, specific documentation (freight bills, tariff authority), carrier investigation obligations, acknowledgment within 30 days, resolution within 60 days, and special rules for unidentified payments allowing carriers to retain funds after 90 days if payer doesn't respond.

This is pure procedural micro-management of private commercial transactions. Dispute resolution between carriers and customers should be governed by contract terms, state commercial law, and market forces—not federal mandate. The arbitrary 30/60-day timelines, detailed documentation requirements, and mandated communication protocols impose compliance costs while stifling flexible arrangements that businesses might negotiate. Carriers who delay or mishandle claims face reputation damage and loss of future business—the market provides sufficient incentive for fair claims processing without federal regulation. The rule usurps the common law evolution of efficient dispute resolution mechanisms and substitutes bureaucratic one-size-fits-all procedures that cannot adapt to the diverse needs and bargaining power of different shippers and carriers.

Regulation incorporates the NTIA Manual by reference, mandating that all federal agencies comply with its procedures for managing radio frequency spectrum usage under the Assistant Secretary of Commerce's delegated authority.

Spectrum is a scarce, interference-prone resource requiring centralized coordination. Without this mandatory manual, federal agencies would operate independently, causing harmful interference that disrupts critical government functions (military, law enforcement, emergency response) and risks spilling over into private sector bands. The technical expertise and unified standards in the manual prevent waste and ensure reliable government communications—outcomes unlikely through voluntary coordination among competing agencies.

This regulation establishes a federal message precedence system for telecommunications, creating categories (Flash, Immediate, Priority, Routine) that determine priority handling of communications during emergencies. It applies to both government users and public correspondence carriers, authorizing government to interrupt civilian communications for national security purposes. It's based on war powers under the Communications Act and Executive Order 12046.

This regulation imposes federal control over private telecommunications infrastructure, mandating that carriers implement government-defined priority systems and permitting government interruption of private communications. It violates property rights and free enterprise principles by dictating how private companies must manage their networks. The unseen costs include permanent expansion of federal authority over critical infrastructure, distortion of market mechanisms, and erosion of the principle that businesses should control their own operations. National security coordination can occur through voluntary arrangements or true wartime measures without this permanent peacetime regulatory framework that treats private carriers as government utilities.

Establishes a nationwide priority system for restoring private telecommunications circuits during wartime or national emergencies, with four priority levels (1-4) for government and participating private services, administered by the National Communications System Executive Agent. Carriers must comply with restoration priorities and maintain records, with Priority 1 reserved for essential national survival functions like military command, intelligence, and government continuity.

Without this framework, telecommunications restoration during wartime would be chaotic and uncoordinated, jeopardizing command and control, nuclear deterrence, emergency warning systems, and federal government continuity—costs that would far exceed minimal peacetime administrative burdens. The regulation merely formalizes what would inevitably occur through ad hoc directives, but does so with advance clarity, reducing uncertainty and ensuring critical national survival functions are preserved first.

Definitions and cross-references to other FCC rule parts for radio service licensing and operations, specifying technical terms, service categories, and procedural requirements.

Clear definitions promote rule of law by making regulations knowable, reducing uncertainty and compliance costs for businesses and individuals. Removal would create ambiguity, increase litigation, and harm small firms most, while leaving underlying regulatory burdens intact.

This subpart prescribes detailed technical standards for commercial diving operations under Coast Guard jurisdiction, including equipment specifications (compressors, hoses, umbilicals, pressure vessels, diving bells, decompression chambers), gas purity requirements, dive team composition, and operational procedures. It incorporates ASME and ANSI standards by reference and requires written designation of diving supervisors.

Prescriptive technical mandates impose significant compliance costs and create barriers to entry for small operators in a niche industry. Safety can be achieved more efficiently through liability rules, insurance underwriting standards, and voluntary consensus standards that adapt to specific circumstances and technological innovation. The knowledge problem prevents regulators from determining optimal specifications for diverse diving conditions.

Comprehensive safety regulations for offshore units covering certification, operating manuals, crew training, equipment maintenance, and emergency procedures to prevent maritime disasters and loss of life.

Americans would be worse off from increased risk of catastrophic offshore accidents causing loss of life, environmental devastation, and economic harm to coastal communities. Private markets cannot replicate this uniform safety framework due to externalities, coordination failures, and information asymmetries in high-risk marine operations where failures harm workers and the public.