Browse regulations

Establishes mandatory policies and procedures for EPA research and demonstration grants, governing project periods, cost sharing, eligibility, applications, human subjects, animals, construction, and reporting requirements.

Creates extensive federal bureaucracy for grant administration, imposing costly compliance requirements that burden researchers and divert resources from actual environmental work. These regulations exemplify regulatory capture and federal overreach into areas that could be handled through direct funding without complex administrative frameworks.

EPA's tort claims regulation implements the Federal Tort Claims Act, establishing specific procedures for filing negligence claims against EPA employees. It outlines documentation requirements, payment processes, subrogation rights, attorney fee limits, settlement finality rules, and mandates DOJ consultation for larger claims.

This regulation imposes unnecessary bureaucratic burdens on an already-existing statutory framework. The FTCA provides the essential legal mechanism for tort claims; EPA's additional procedural requirements create red tape that delays justice, increases administrative costs, and shields the agency behind paperwork hurdles. The private sector handles liability claims far more efficiently without such interventions. Removing this regulation would streamline the process, reduce taxpayer costs, and improve accountability while preserving the FTCA's core purpose.

This regulation defines the internal regulatory structure of the USPS, establishing what documents constitute binding regulations (Board resolutions, manuals, circulars), setting their hierarchy, and continuing pre-reorganization personnel rules and laws. It's purely procedural housekeeping for the postal monopoly's administrative operations.

Keeping this regulation sustains unnecessary bureaucratic overhead for a government monopoly that already imposes massive hidden taxes on Americans. The unseen cost: this internal rule hierarchy entrenches the USPS's unconstitutional monopoly on first-class mail, preventing private competition that would lower costs and improve service. It represents pure administrative complexity with zero public benefit.

Establishes a framework for managing national forest roadless areas through classification systems, public participation, and state-specific rulemaking processes to balance recreation, conservation, and resource use.

Americans would be worse off without this regulation because it provides essential public access to recreation areas, protects unique ecosystems and wildlife habitats, ensures sustainable forest management, and establishes transparent processes for state-level input on land use decisions that affect millions of Americans who rely on national forests for outdoor recreation, clean water, and biodiversity.

Regulation implements the Wilderness Act for National Forest Wilderness areas, prohibiting commercial enterprises, roads, motorized vehicles, and timber harvesting to preserve wilderness character. It establishes detailed rules for specific areas like the Boundary Waters Canoe Area, permit processes for exceptions, and procedures for modifying wilderness boundaries.

The regulation creates a costly bureaucratic regime that bans commercial enterprise and motorized access on 36 million acres, stifling rural economies and excluding the elderly/disabled from wilderness. Its detailed prohibitions and permit requirements impose high compliance costs and invite regulatory capture. Wilderness preservation goals can be achieved more efficiently through state management or private conservation without federal overreach.

Federal regulations establishing land use standards for the Shasta, Clair Engle-Lewiston, and Sawtooth National Recreation Areas, controlling development, zoning, and property acquisition to preserve scenic and recreational values while limiting federal condemnation powers.

These regulations represent unconstitutional federal overreach into local land use planning, imposing costly compliance burdens on property owners while creating a complex regulatory maze that effectively federalizes zoning decisions that should belong to states and localities under the Tenth Amendment.

Federal regulation (46 CFR Part 175) mandates safety equipment for recreational vessels on U.S. waters, requiring personal flotation devices, visual distress signals, fire extinguishers, and ventilation systems with detailed technical specifications and carriage requirements.

Violates Tenth Amendment federalism by regulating purely local recreation; imposes heavy compliance costs on millions of boaters, creating regulatory capture and barriers to entry with no constitutional justification over state-level or market alternatives.

This regulation establishes procedures for the Secretary of Defense to solicit competitive bids from financial institutions for interest rates on loan agreements with foreign governments for defense articles and services, backed by U.S. government guarantees against political and credit risks.

This creates a complex federal guarantee system that distorts free market interest rates, exposes taxpayers to foreign default risk, and enables regulatory capture by large financial institutions who can navigate the bidding process while small lenders cannot.

Establishes a special 5% Treasury security available exclusively to borrowers from the Rural Electrification Administration and Rural Telephone Bank, providing subsidized financing for rural infrastructure projects.

Obsolete subsidy program that distorts capital allocation and imposes hidden costs. Rural electrification and telephone infrastructure are now fully served by private markets; continued government financing creates dependency, misallocates capital, and advantages specific borrowers at taxpayer expense—violating limited government principles and generating unseen economic distortions.

These regulations govern the restrictive endorsement of U.S. bearer securities (Treasury bonds, notes, certificates, bills) by banks and IRS officials for specific purposes: payment/redemption, exchange offerings, estate tax payments, conversion to book-entry, and tax redemption. The rules prescribe exact endorsement language, placement specifications, shipping methods, and relief procedures for lost/stolen securities.

This is a hyper-niche administrative procedure regulating how government bearer securities can be handled in limited contexts. Bearer securities are largely obsolete (most Treasury securities are book-entry), making this regulation an anachronism. It imposes precise formatting, placement, and shipping requirements that create compliance burdens for banks and government agents for a transaction type that is vanishingly rare. The rules represent the type of micro-management that contributes to the 185,000-page CFR while providing minimal public benefit. If banks need to handle bearer securities, standard commercial law and internal Treasury circulars suffice; these rules add no substantial protection for the public or proper government function.

Regulation governing the issuance, registration, transfer, redemption, and administration of U.S. Treasury securities (excluding Savings Bonds). Establishes detailed rules for ownership structures, transfer procedures, interest calculations, and reissue processes to ensure orderly management of the federal government's debt instruments.

Uniform, predictable rules are essential for maintaining a liquid, trustworthy market in Treasury securities, which serve as the global risk-free benchmark and a critical financing tool for the federal government. Deleting this framework would create legal uncertainty, increase transaction costs, and undermine market confidence, ultimately raising borrowing costs for the government (borne by taxpayers) and disrupting financial markets that rely on Treasuries for pricing, collateral, and settlement. The regulation achieves its outcome through standardized procedures that private ordering cannot reliably provide given the government's unique role as issuer.

This regulation establishes a national security review process for imports, requiring Treasury to investigate effects of imported goods on national defense capabilities and economic welfare, with public hearings and consultation with defense/commerce officials, culminating in a presidential report within one year.

Creates bureaucratic overhead for trade investigations that could be handled through existing defense and commerce channels; imposes costly compliance requirements on businesses; and enables protectionist measures disguised as national security concerns, distorting free market trade relationships.

The Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA) provides federal workplace safety standards and protects employees from retaliation when exercising safety-related rights, including filing complaints, participating in proceedings, or refusing dangerous work under specific conditions.

Federal workplace safety regulation exceeds constitutional authority, creates massive compliance costs that disproportionately burden small businesses, and replaces state-level solutions with one-size-fits-all federal mandates that distort market incentives and raise barriers to entry.

This regulation governs the National Advisory Committee on Occupational Safety and Health (NACOSH), a 12-member advisory body to the Secretaries of Labor and Health, Education, and Welfare. It specifies membership composition (2 management, 2 labor, 2 occupational health, 2 occupational safety, 4 public representatives), appointment procedures, meeting frequency (2-6 annually), public notice requirements, voting procedures, minutes and transcript requirements, subcommittee operations, and petition/complaint processes, all in compliance with the Federal Advisory Committee Act.

This advisory committee imposes unnecessary bureaucratic overhead with rigid procedural requirements that add significant administrative costs without producing binding outcomes. It creates a potential avenue for regulatory capture by mandating specific industry and special interest representation while doing little to improve actual workplace safety. The Secretary could obtain expert advice more efficiently through direct consultation or simpler mechanisms. The requirement for Federal Register notices, verbatim transcripts, detailed minutes, and formalized subcommittee operations represents pure compliance bureaucracy that burdens taxpayers while offering minimal public benefit. The committee's advisory role duplicates functions better performed by career agency staff and could be eliminated without compromising worker safety protections.

Establishes detailed procedures for OSHA advisory committees that assist in safety standards development, including membership requirements, charter filings, meeting protocols, public notice, and recordkeeping requirements consistent with the Federal Advisory Committee Act.

Creates excessive administrative overhead that inflates regulatory costs without preventing harmful rules; advisory committees often enable regulatory capture as incumbents shape standards to raise competitors' costs, while detailed procedures merely perform transparency while accelerating the growth of the 185,000-page CFR labyrinth that suffocates small businesses and knowable law.