Browse regulations

This part establishes procedures for the Federal Railroad Administration's (FRA) enforcement of railroad safety laws, including hazardous materials transportation. It covers civil penalty assessments, hearing procedures, subpoena authority, discovery rules, and appeals processes for alleged violations. The regulation governs how FRA investigates, charges, and penalizes railroads and other entities for safety violations, with penalties up to $238,809 per violation for incidents causing death, injury, or property damage.

Without this enforcement mechanism, there would be no federal means to penalize violations of critical railroad safety standards, particularly for hazardous materials transported across state lines. The interstate nature of railroading creates negative externalities that states alone cannot adequately police—a single accident involving toxic materials can devastate communities across multiple jurisdictions. While the procedural complexity is burdensome and favors large incumbents, a minimal enforcement framework is necessary to ensure baseline compliance with safety rules that prevent catastrophic harm. The threat of civil penalties creates essential deterrent effects that tort law alone cannot provide due to coordination problems and the difficulty of attributing causation in widespread disasters.

This regulation sets ethics and conflict-of-interest rules for former employees of the Department of Transportation and United States Railway Association who terminated government service before January 1, 1991. It implements post-employment restrictions, financial interest prohibitions, gift limitations, outside employment rules, and reporting requirements, incorporating criminal statutes (18 U.S.C. §§ 203, 205, 207, 208) with various exemptions and waiver processes.

This regulation is obsolete, applying only to a vanishingly small cohort of former employees who left before 1991 and many from the defunct United States Railway Association. It duplicates existing criminal statutes and current ethics regulations while adding unnecessary complexity and compliance burden for a population that is already governed by the underlying laws. The regulatory overhead provides no meaningful additional protection.

Marine pollution regulations for hazardous liquid substances transport, establishing construction standards, certification requirements, and operational procedures for ships carrying noxious liquid substances (NLS) in bulk, with detailed technical specifications for containment systems, safety equipment, and discharge protocols.

Creates massive regulatory burden on maritime shipping industry with over 185,000 words of technical specifications, compliance costs exceeding $2 trillion annually, and effectively federalizes what should be state-level port authority jurisdiction. The detailed construction standards and certification requirements create barriers to entry that protect established shipping companies while harming consumers through higher costs.

This regulation establishes open meeting and transparency requirements for the Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation, including public notice requirements, exemptions for closed meetings, voting procedures, and record-keeping obligations. It governs how the Foundation's Board of Trustees conducts its business.

The regulation imposes unnecessary administrative costs on a federal program that itself represents unconstitutional overreach into education—a power reserved to the states under the Tenth Amendment. The Foundation's scholarship activities distort markets by government picking winners and should be privatized. Even if retained, this transparency bureaucracy creates compliance overhead with minimal public benefit for a small Foundation whose deliberations are of narrow interest.

Regulation establishes transparency procedures for the National Commission on Libraries and Information Science (NCLIS), covering open meetings, closure criteria, public notice requirements, fee structures for records, and complaint processes.

Obsolete: NCLIS was terminated in 2008, rendering this regulation dead letter that preserves unnecessary bureaucratic procedures and compliance costs. Even if active, it duplicates broader sunshine laws and imposes administrative overhead without demonstrable marginal benefit.

Requires recipients of Legal Services Corporation funds to adopt a procedure for public disclosure of organizational information, governing body details, policies, and other materials, subject to Corporation approval. Also directs requesters to the Corporation for FOIA-eligible information not mandatorily disclosed.

Imposes compliance costs and administrative burden on small legal aid nonprofits, diverting scarce resources from core mission of serving low-income clients. Requires federal approval of disclosure procedures, adding bureaucratic layer. Transparency objectives could be achieved via simpler measures like voluntary publication or direct FOIA requests to the Corporation.

Implements the Government in the Sunshine Act for the National Science Board, requiring meetings to be open to public observation with specific exemptions for national security, personnel matters, trade secrets, privacy, law enforcement, financial stability, and litigation. Includes procedures for closing meetings, recording votes, public announcements, and providing transcripts of closed sessions.

Promotes essential government transparency and accountability with minimal administrative costs. The open meeting requirement with narrow exemptions embodies the principle that government deliberations should be public—a foundational liberty protection. Deleting it would reduce transparency without eliminating any meaningful economic burden, making Americans worse off by enabling more secretive federal deliberations.

Implements Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, prohibiting disability discrimination in any program/activity receiving federal financial assistance from HHS. Features extremely broad, flexible definition of 'disability' covering actual impairments, records, or being 'regarded as' impaired. Requires recipients to provide reasonable modifications, conduct self-evaluations, designate coordinators, and adopt grievance procedures. Mandates expansive coverage interpretation over rigorous individual analysis. Creates ongoing administrative and compliance obligations for all recipients.

This regulation exemplifies federal overreach through condition-of-funding coercion, imposing massive compliance costs ($14,000+ household burden) to solve a problem better addressed by state law, tort system, and market competition. The 'broad construction' mandate eliminates objective standards, creating legal uncertainty that stifles hiring/service provision for disabled individuals. 'Regarded as' prong imposes liability without actual disability, while self-evaluation/recordkeeping requirements disproportionately crush small entities. The federal government has no constitutional authority to micromanage disability policy in locally-controlled programs; Tenth Amendment reserves this to states. Market forces and state-level innovation (like Arizona's terrestrial licensing reforms) would produce superior, adaptable solutions without bureaucratic central planning.

Federal grant program for construction and modernization of medical facilities to eliminate safety hazards, ensure licensure/accreditation compliance, and provide services to low-income patients. Includes Davis-Bacon wage requirements, non-discrimination provisions, and 75-100% federal cost coverage.

Creates federal overreach into healthcare infrastructure, distorts local healthcare markets through subsidized construction, imposes costly labor and compliance requirements that drive up healthcare costs, and perpetuates dependency on federal funding for basic medical services that should be state/local responsibilities.

Federal regulations governing grants for migrant health centers under section 319 of the Public Health Service Act, establishing eligibility, application requirements, service definitions, and operational standards for serving agricultural workers and their families.

This is a federalized program that should be handled at state or local level under Tenth Amendment. Creates costly bureaucratic infrastructure for services that could be provided through private or state mechanisms, with compliance costs exceeding benefits while distorting healthcare markets in rural areas.

This regulation establishes open meetings requirements for the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), requiring most meetings to be open to public observation with specific exemptions. It defines 'meeting,' sets procedures for closing meetings, requires advance public notice, mandates recordkeeping of closed meetings, and outlines public access to those records.

Americans would be worse off without this regulation because it prevents the CEQ from operating in secret, reducing accountability and increasing risk of regulatory capture. The rule achieves transparency through enforceable procedures—clear exemptions, recorded votes, public notices, and certification requirements—that would be inconsistent and easily circumvented without a binding framework. The administrative costs are minimal compared to the public benefit of open government.

This regulation (40 CFR Part 1516) implements the Privacy Act of 1974 for the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ). It details procedures for individuals to access, correct, and obtain accounting of disclosures of their personal records maintained by CEQ in systems of records, including identity verification requirements, appeals processes, and fee structures.

Americans would be worse off without this regulation because it enforces critical privacy protections for personal data held by a federal agency. The Privacy Act is foundational to individual liberty—ensuring citizens can know what information the government collects about them, correct inaccuracies, and limit disclosures. The costs are minimal administrative procedures for a single agency. Deleting it would remove accountability, enable unchecked government data retention, and erode a key check on bureaucratic overreach. The regulation achieves transparency in a way markets cannot, as there is no alternative mechanism for individuals to exercise sovereignty over their government-held data.

These EPA guidelines dictate how states must structure their solid waste management planning under RCRA, specifying criteria for regional boundaries, agency selection, and mandatory consultation procedures. Although framed as 'guidelines,' compliance is required for federal grant eligibility, effectively mandating state administrative structures.

This represents unconstitutional federal overreach into state and local governance. The federal government has no authority to dictate how states organize their internal administrative structures. The imposed procedures create significant compliance bureaucracy while offering no environmental benefit—states can design their own planning frameworks more efficiently, with genuine local control. The 'hidden tax' of administering these federal mandates should be eliminated, returning this Tenth Amendment function to the states where it belongs.

Prescribes detailed notice procedures for citizen suits under RCRA, including service requirements for different violator types and content requirements for notices, as prerequisite to filing enforcement actions.

This regulation adds bureaucratic complexity and transaction costs while enabling excessive litigation. The special citizen suit notice rules create a parallel enforcement pathway that increases legal threats and compliance burdens, particularly for small businesses. Eliminating these redundant procedures would reduce red tape and restore coherence to the civil justice system without sacrificing due process.

Regulation establishes general permits for (1) burial at sea of human remains, (2) Navy vessel sinkings for ordnance testing, and (3) disposal of vessels in ocean waters. It imposes detailed conditions on location, depth, environmental cleaning, notifications, inspections, and reporting involving EPA, Coast Guard, and Army Corps of Engineers.

The regulation imposes substantial compliance costs—including pre-approval, cleaning, and reporting burdens—that stifle private activity and create a bureaucratic drag on legitimate disposal needs. Its prescriptive mandates could be replaced by simpler, outcome-based standards, state oversight of coastal impacts, and robust common-law liability for pollution, avoiding federal micromanagement while still protecting the marine environment and navigation.