Browse regulations

Export sales reporting requirements for agricultural commodities, mandating weekly/monthly reports on export sales, purchases from foreign sellers, and exports for exporter's own account to track international agricultural trade flows.

This regulatory reporting burden imposes significant compliance costs on exporters while providing questionable public benefit. The data collection requirements create a surveillance system that interferes with free market price discovery and voluntary contract formation, with costs borne disproportionately by smaller exporters who lack administrative resources.

Interim FOIA rule for Executive Office of the President entities: directs them to adopt OMB's FOIA procedures (5 CFR Ch. III) until they issue their own, and provides references to specific FOIA regulations for several EOP components.

Deletion would fragment FOIA procedures across EOP, increasing compliance costs for requesters and agencies, reducing transparency, and creating confusion. The regulation achieves efficient, uniform processing by leveraging existing OMB rules, avoiding duplicative rulemaking and ensuring public access during interim periods.

Establishes Privacy Act procedures for the President's Commission on White House Fellowships, detailing how individuals can request access to, amend, or obtain accounting of disclosures for their records, including identity verification requirements and photocopy fees.

This regulation imposes unnecessary administrative burdens and compliance costs on a small fellowship program without providing benefits beyond standard Privacy Act requirements already applicable to all federal agencies. The detailed procedures for identity verification, fee collections, and disclosure accounting create bureaucratic overhead that distracts from the program's core mission. As with many agency-specific privacy rules, this is micro-regulation that contributes to the $2 trillion annual compliance burden while offering no meaningful additional protection to individuals.

Implements the Marine Mammal Protection Act through a complex regime prohibiting the 'taking' of marine mammals, with extensive definitions, permit requirements, international trade restrictions, enforcement mechanisms, and penalties. Regulates commercial fishing, scientific research, native handicrafts, and imports/exports.

Constitutional federal overreach violating Tenth Amendment; states should regulate within their waters. Massive compliance costs burden fishermen, researchers, and small businesses while creating knowledge problems for regulators. Vague 'harassment' standards criminalize ordinary activity, and the prohibition on 'take' eliminates market-based conservation incentives. Unintended harms include underreporting, reduced research, and barriers to entry protecting established fishing interests. Property rights and tort law would more efficiently address actual harms.

Federal regulation protecting bald and golden eagles from unauthorized taking, possession, and transportation, with permits for scientific, educational, and religious purposes, and provisions for depredation control when eagles pose threats to property or safety.

Americans would be worse off if this regulation was deleted because eagle populations would likely decline without protection, undermining conservation efforts that have successfully recovered these species from near-extinction and eliminating legal frameworks for balancing eagle protection with legitimate human needs.

This regulation governs permits for taking, possessing, transporting, selling, purchasing, bartering, importing, exporting, and banding migratory birds, while establishing exceptions for certain institutions and depredation orders under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.

This regulation creates extensive federal bureaucracy and permit requirements for activities that should be handled by states, imposing compliance costs on businesses and individuals while providing questionable conservation benefits that could be achieved through voluntary means.

This regulation prohibits shooting or harassing wildlife from aircraft, with exceptions for state employees and permitted activities for wildlife management, livestock protection, and crop protection. It requires states to report annual permit data and includes definitions of harassment and enforcement mechanisms.

This regulation represents unnecessary federal overreach into state wildlife management and creates costly compliance burdens. States already have authority under the Tenth Amendment to regulate hunting and wildlife protection within their borders. The reporting requirements impose paperwork costs on state agencies without clear evidence of federal benefit, and the prohibition on aerial hunting eliminates legitimate wildlife management tools that some states may need for predator control or population management.

The Marine Mammal Protection Act regulations create a comprehensive federal regime prohibiting the taking, possession, transport, sale, and import of marine mammals and their parts, with narrow exemptions for Alaskan Native subsistence and handicrafts, pre-1972 specimens, and limited incidental catch in commercial fishing. The rules impose extensive permitting, registration, marking, tagging, and reporting requirements.

The MMPA imposes massive compliance costs on fishermen, importers, and indigenous communities while violating constitutional federalism by regulating purely intrastate activities. Its broad 'take' definition criminalizes harmless conduct, and its rigid prohibition ignores market-based conservation solutions. The unseen costs include destroyed livelihoods, bureaucratic expansion, regulatory capture by environmental groups, and the erosion of property rights that would otherwise incentivize sustainable stewardship through state-level or private conservation mechanisms.

Implements Lacey Act by prohibiting import/transport of injurious wildlife species to protect human health, agriculture, and native ecosystems. Lists specific prohibited mammals, birds, fish, amphibians, and reptiles. Allows imports for scientific/educational purposes via declaration or permit. Includes detailed salmonid fish health certification to prevent viral diseases.

Deletion would expose America to irreversible ecological and economic devastation from invasive species and fish pathogens that cross state lines. The regulation achieves prevention at the border - the only effective point of control - through uniform federal standards that states cannot replicate individually. Private liability is insufficient because damages are diffuse, irreversible, and exceed any importer's ability to pay, creating a classic externality problem that justifies this narrow, targeted federal intervention.

This part establishes uniform permit application procedures, fees, issuance criteria, and administrative rules for all Fish and Wildlife Service permits covering wildlife import/export, endangered species, migratory birds, marine mammals, and CITES. It standardizes Form 3-200 applications, processing times (60-90 days), fees, disqualification factors, renewal/amendment/transfer processes, and suspension/revocation procedures across multiple permit programs.

The regulation imposes significant compliance costs through fees, complex application requirements, processing delays, and information collection burdens that disproportionately harm small businesses and individuals. Centralization enables regulatory capture, expands bureaucratic power, and creates a permission culture that discourages lawful activities. The one-size-fits-all framework stifles decentralized innovation and constitutional federalism, providing only agency convenience while adding to the $2 trillion annual regulatory burden with no compelling public benefit.

Uniform rules and procedures for assessing civil penalties for violations of wildlife and environmental protection laws, including procedures for notices of violation, petitions for relief, hearings, appeals, and annual inflation adjustments to penalties.

Creates a bureaucratic framework that adds regulatory overhead without addressing underlying issues - businesses face additional compliance costs and legal complexity while the core wildlife protection laws could function with simpler enforcement mechanisms. The inflation adjustment provisions perpetuate automatic penalty increases regardless of actual deterrence needs.

Regulation governs NTSB employee testimony in accident-related litigation, limiting testimony to factual observations, requiring General Counsel approval, and prohibiting use of Board accident reports (containing probable cause) as evidence to preserve agency independence and prevent diversion of investigative resources.

Repeal would entangle NTSB in litigation, drain investigative resources, and compromise the independence essential for objective accident investigations, ultimately undermining transportation safety and making Americans worse off.

Requires manufacturers of motor vehicles and equipment to retain records of defects, malfunctions, and safety-related incidents for 10 years (vehicles) or 5 years (equipment) to support NHTSA investigations and recalls.

Creates massive regulatory burden on manufacturers with little proven safety benefit; information can be obtained through other means without forcing 10-year record retention that increases costs, creates privacy concerns, and provides no evidence of preventing accidents.

This regulation establishes procedures for federal grants under the Railroad Revitalization and Regulatory Reform Act to convert historic railroad passenger terminals into intermodal transportation hubs. It provides three types of assistance: demonstration funds for construction (up to 80% federal share), preservation funds to prevent deterioration, and planning funds. Projects must meet historic preservation requirements, involve multiple transportation modes, and incorporate civic/cultural uses where feasible. The regulations impose extensive application requirements, certifications, and compliance with numerous federal laws including civil rights, environmental, and relocation acts.

This represents unconstitutional federal overreach into local transportation and historic preservation—properly state and private matters under the Tenth Amendment. It creates a costly bureaucratic program ($2 trillion+ regulatory burden nationwide) that picks winners and losers through selective subsidies, distorts market outcomes, and violates property rights by imposing federal preservation mandates. The extensive compliance requirements disproportionately harm small communities and developers while benefiting politically connected projects. Historic preservation and intermodal development should emerge organically through private investment and local control, not federal coercion with its unseen costs—higher taxes, reduced competition, and regulatory capture.

FRA Part 225 requires railroads to report accidents, incidents, and injuries to enable federal safety oversight and hazard analysis, with specific reporting thresholds for deaths, serious injuries, and property damage, while exempting small operations and certain rail transit systems.

This regulation creates massive compliance costs for railroads ($2+ trillion industry) through extensive reporting requirements, diverts resources from actual safety improvements to paperwork, and enables federal bureaucratic overreach into what should be state-level safety regulation. The unseen costs include reduced innovation, higher fares for passengers, and distorted safety priorities based on reporting thresholds rather than actual risk.