Browse regulations

TSA regulation requiring transportation operators (freight rail, public transit, over-the-road buses, maritime facilities) to implement security programs, conduct background checks (TWIC/HME), provide security training, report threats within 24 hours, designate security coordinators, and seek TSA approval for security measures and changes.

Imposes massive compliance costs and barriers to entry for small businesses while empowering unelected TSA bureaucrats to control private security decisions. Vague 'potential threat' reporting forces over-monitoring and chills speech. Unseen effects: regulatory capture by incumbents, stifled innovation, federalism erosion, and permanent surveillance infrastructure. Costs to liberty far exceed marginal security gains achievable through targeted criminal law and private liability.

This regulation establishes a two-part federal oversight program for major public transportation capital projects receiving federal assistance. It requires recipients to prepare detailed project management plans approved by the FTA Administrator, submit to ongoing monitoring and quarterly reporting, and provide access to records and sites. Project management oversight services are provided by contractors, with conflict-of-interest rules. The regulation applies to projects costing $300M+ with $100M+ in federal funds, or other projects the Administrator determines would benefit from oversight.

This regulation imposes substantial compliance costs on local governments and transit agencies through mandated documentation, federal approvals, and ongoing reporting requirements. It violates federalism principles by allowing Washington bureaucrats to micromanage local transportation projects they know little about, embodying the Hayekian knowledge problem. The approval process delays projects and distorts incentives toward federal compliance rather than local efficiency. If Americans are worse off without this regulation, it would be because we'd have to trust local officials accountable to their constituents to manage projects wisely—a far preferable alternative to centralized control. The hidden tax of these administrative burdens falls disproportionately on smaller agencies and states, creating barriers to efficient infrastructure delivery.

This regulation governs the Motor Carrier Safety Assistance Program (MCSAP), a federal grant program that provides financial assistance to states to adopt and enforce federal commercial motor vehicle safety standards. It sets eligibility requirements, application procedures, certification processes, and allocation formulas for distributing funds to states based on factors like highway miles, vehicle miles traveled, population, fuel consumption, and carrier registrations.

This program represents unconstitutional federal overreach into state police powers, using conditional grants to coerce states into adopting federal safety standards that should be decided locally under the Tenth Amendment. The complex administrative apparatus—annual certifications, detailed reporting, compatibility reviews, and mandatory participation in federal data systems—imposes significant hidden compliance costs on states while creating bureaucratic barriers. Federal involvement crowds out private safety mechanisms (insurance markets, shipper vetting) and distorts state incentives through the 'maintenance of effort' requirement, forcing states to maintain spending levels regardless of effectiveness. The unseen consequences include reduced state experimentation, preferential treatment of large carriers over small businesses, and the substitution of centralized federal judgment for localized knowledge of road conditions and carrier patterns—precisely the Hayekian knowledge problem this regulation ignores.

Regulation prescribes detailed safety standards for Texas Central Railroad's high-speed rail system, replacing generally applicable rules with a customized regime covering equipment, track geometry, operations, signaling, training, and recordkeeping specifically for trainsets based on Japanese Shinkansen technology operating at up to 205 mph.

This special-interest rule imposes massive compliance costs on a single private enterprise, locking in specific technology and stifling innovation. Higher costs will be passed to consumers via ticket prices, reducing ridership and potentially killing the project, while creating a regulatory barrier to future competitors. Safety is better achieved through liability and insurance incentives rather than federal micromanagement, which adds to the $2 trillion annual burden and violates constitutional federalism.

This regulation establishes extensive performance metrics and reporting requirements for Amtrak and the private host railroads whose tracks it uses. It mandates specific standards (80% on-time performance), requires detailed data sharing, joint schedule certification processes, and comprehensive reporting to Congress, including monthly letters when schedules are uncertified. The regulation covers operational metrics, customer satisfaction, cost recovery, connectivity, and service availability.

The regulation imposes massive compliance burdens on both government and private entities while creating perverse incentives. It forces private railroads to share data and engage in joint decision-making with a government corporation, infringing on contractual freedom. The mandatory metrics and standards represent inappropriate federal micromanagement of transportation operations, distorting market mechanisms and leading to gaming of metrics. The monthly congressional reporting requirements when schedules are disputed create political pressure that further distorts operational decisions. These hidden compliance costs exceed any benefits and could be achieved through far less burdensome oversight methods like inspector audits or simple disclosure requirements.

Requires Class I railroads and those with inadequate safety performance to establish federally-approved Risk Reduction Programs (RRPs) with mandatory components including hazard analysis, mitigation strategies, safety monitoring, employee training, and fatigue risk management. Establishes quantitative/qualitative methodology to identify railroads with inadequate safety performance and provides limited confidentiality for RRP-related information.

Federal railroad safety mandates exceed constitutional authority under the Tenth Amendment and ignore that safety is naturally regulated by market forces - insurance requirements, customer preferences, employee choices, and tort liability already create powerful incentives. The one-size-fits-all RRP imposes massive compliance costs (disproportionately on smaller operators) while crowding out more efficient, Railro-specific safety innovations. The 'quantitative analysis' threshold (90th percentile) arbitrarily labels safe railroads as 'inadequate,' while the five-year minimum compliance period prevents successful railroads from exiting the mandate even if safety improves. Information protections create regulatory barriers to legitimate litigation without addressing root causes. Safety improvements emerge from competition and dispersed knowledge, not centralized bureaucratic planning.

This regulation implements the Tribal Transportation Self-Governance Program, establishing procedures for tribes to negotiate compacts and funding agreements with the Department of Transportation to run their own transportation programs using federal funds. It sets eligibility criteria, negotiation timelines, and dispute resolution processes while affirming tribal sovereignty and the government-to-government relationship. Participation is voluntary and tribes assume direct responsibility for program management.

Deleting this regulation would be a step backward for limited government and tribal self-determination. It reverses the progress made toward decentralization by forcing tribes back into a one-size-fits-all federal bureaucratic system, increasing administrative burdens rather than reducing them. The regulation achieves meaningful devolution of authority to locally accountable governments—true to founding principles—while maintaining accountability through audit requirements and preserving both tribal sovereignty and the federal trust responsibility. Americans would be worse off because it would concentrate more power in Washington DC, increase compliance costs for tribes, and undermine the principle of self-governance for sovereign nations. This is a rare example of federal regulation that actually reduces federal control and respects subsidiarity.

Mandates use of specific contract clauses for federal procurements involving open-source software to ensure proper handling of data rights and prevent contractors from asserting copyright over open-source works developed with government funds.

Deletion would enable contractors to inappropriately copyright government-funded open-source software, wasting taxpayer investments and undermining the public benefit intended from such development. The clause ensures software paid for by the public remains in the public domain or properly licensed, preventing regulatory capture where contractors convert public goods into private monopolies.

Delegates authority to the head of contracting activity (HCA) to grant exemptions under FAR 48.102 and 48.201 concerning Indian-owned, Native Hawaiian, and women-owned small business contracting requirements, without power of redelegation.

Discretionary exemption authority distorts federal procurement, enables regulatory capture, and adds unnecessary bureaucratic complexity. Exemptions undermine equal treatment and market competition. Reducing such regulatory discretion aligns with liberty principles and simplifies the 185,000-page CFR burden.

Federal Maritime Commission rule establishing interpretive guidance on assessing reasonableness of demurrage and detention charges for containerized cargo under the Shipping Act of 1984. Sets forth the 'incentive principle' - that charges must serve their intended purpose of promoting freight fluidity - and enumerates factors for evaluation including cargo availability, empty container return, notice requirements, policies, and terminology transparency.

Creates costly regulatory compliance burden for ocean carriers, terminal operators, and intermediaries by mandating specific policies, notice procedures, and transparent terminology. Government second-guessing of commercially-negotiated charges distorts market price signals and incentivizes minimal compliance rather than efficient operations. The threat of reparations claims under 46 U.S.C. 41102(c) for 'unjust or unreasonable' practices creates legal uncertainty that raises costs passed to shippers and ultimately consumers. Market forces and contractual freedom - not regulatory reasonableness tests - should govern demurrage/detention terms; any genuine bad faith or fraud can be addressed through existing contract and tort law.

Regulation establishes CNCS's internal procedures for issuing, reviewing, clearing, and publishing guidance documents. It defines guidance, requires OGC review and disclaimers stating guidance lacks force of law, mandates publication in a searchable online database, requires OIRA review for 'significant' guidance, provides for public notice-and-comment on significant guidance, and establishes a petition process for modification or withdrawal. Explicitly states it creates no enforceable rights and is for internal management only.

This regulation imposes no direct compliance costs on the public; instead, it provides critical transparency and procedural safeguards that constrain CNCS from using guidance as a backdoor to binding regulations. Deleting it would remove requirements for public notice-and-comment on significant guidance, eliminate the online database and petition process, and reduce oversight—increasing regulatory uncertainty and the risk of agency overreach without any corresponding benefit to Americans.

This LSC regulation imposes extensive ideological restrictions on legal aid organizations that receive any federal funding, extending these prohibitions to their non-LSC (private, public, tribal) funds. It requires strict separation from any entity engaged in restricted activities and detailed accounting to prevent funding from being used for disfavored activities including abortion-related work, immigration cases, class actions, prisoner litigation, lobbying, political activities, and various other categories.

This regulation creates a massive compliance burden for civil legal aid providers, forcing them to segregate operations, maintain separate personnel, and implement complex tracking systems for all funding sources. It effectively uses the threat of losing all LSC funding to impose a political litmus test on legal services for the poor, preventing organizations from taking on cases like immigration defense, prison reform, or consumer class actions even when funded by private donations or state grants. The restrictions distort the legal aid market by preventing organizations from responding to community needs, creating barriers to entry for new providers, and forcing existing ones to operate parallel compliance bureaucracies rather than providing legal services. This represents federal overreach—using funding conditions to control private speech and association, violating the principle that dollars following federalgrants should not transform private entities into arms of federal ideological enforcement.

Requires COVID-19 test providers to publicly disclose cash prices on their websites during the public health emergency, enforced by CMS through warnings, corrective action plans, and civil penalties up to $300 per day.

The public health emergency has ended, making this emergency regulation obsolete; it imposes unnecessary compliance costs on providers and represents federal overreach into healthcare pricing that should be left to states or market forces.

Implements information blocking prohibition under 42 U.S.C. 300jj-52, defining exceptions for practices that interfere with electronic health information (EHI) access, exchange, or use when justified by harm prevention, privacy, security, infeasibility, or maintenance. Applies to healthcare providers, health IT developers, health information exchanges, and networks.

Imposes massive hidden compliance costs on all Americans while entrenching federal overreach into health IT markets. The complex exception framework creates regulatory uncertainty and chilling effects on innovation, disproportionately burdening small providers and developers. Unseen consequence: forced data sharing reduces competitive differentiation and stifles voluntary investment in interoperable solutions that could emerge through market mechanisms.

This regulation implements the Emergency Management Priorities and Allocations System (EMPAS) under the Defense Production Act. It establishes a mandatory priority rating system (DO/DX) for federal contracts supporting 'national defense'—including critical infrastructure, emergency preparedness, and COVID-19 health resources—requiring private suppliers to fulfill these orders before unrated ones. The rule imposes acceptance, scheduling, and record-keeping obligations throughout supply chains, with FEMA able to delegate authority and issue binding directives.

This regulation imposes heavy hidden costs while violating fundamental economic and constitutional principles. The priority system violently distorts price signals, leading to misallocation of resources and reduced overall productivity. Small businesses face disproportionate compliance burdens, maintaining expensive tracking systems for rare government orders. Vague definitions of 'national defense' and 'critical infrastructure' invite endless mission creep and regulatory capture, allowing agencies to control peaceful economic activity. The mere existence of this power chillingly alters business investment and planning, as firms must account for risk of requisition. True emergency response is better achieved through voluntary contracts with market-determined premiums, preserving freedom while meeting needs. The unseen costs—bureaucratic bloat, rent-seeking by protected industries, erosion of contract freedom, and dangerous precedents for peacetime command-economy control—far outweigh any marginal coordination benefits.