Browse regulations

This OFAC regulation implements sanctions against Nicaragua under Executive Order 13851 and the Nicaragua Human Rights and Anticorruption Act, blocking property of designated persons and prohibiting transactions involving such property, with various exceptions and detailed compliance requirements for U.S. persons and financial institutions.

The regulation imposes substantial compliance costs on American businesses and banks, violates economic liberty by restricting voluntary transactions, creates unintended humanitarian harm to ordinary Nicaraguans, risks retaliatory sanctions, and expands executive power beyond constitutional limits. Its complexity further undermines rule of law by making the prohibitions incomprehensible to affected parties.

This regulation implements economic sanctions under Executive Order 13848 against persons deemed responsible for foreign interference in U.S. elections. It blocks their property and interests within U.S. jurisdiction, prohibits transactions involving such assets, and establishes procedures for licensing, account management, and limited exceptions for personal communications, information materials, travel, and legal services.

This regulation serves a legitimate constitutional function—protecting national sovereignty and electoral integrity from foreign adversaries—using a narrowly targeted tool that affects only designated foreign actors, not ordinary citizens or domestic commerce. Removing it would leave the U.S. vulnerable to coercive foreign influence operations while retaining the ability to impose costs through sanctions is essential to deterrence and cannot be replicated by less restrictive means without compromising effectiveness.

Federal regulation approving and overseeing Kansas's state-administered surface mining program under the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act, including program approval, abandoned mine land reclamation plan, and disapproval of certain state provisions that don't meet federal standards.

This regulation imposes federal bureaucratic overhead on Kansas, adds millions in compliance costs to mining operations that get passed to consumers, and perpetuates unconstitutional federal overreach into state police powers. The unseen costs include rigid federal minimum standards that may exceed what Kansas would adopt independently, raising energy costs while stifling state innovation and accountability. This layer of federal review provides no value beyond what direct state regulation could achieve at lower cost with greater democratic accountability.

This regulation establishes a cooperative federal-state agreement for regulating surface coal mining on federal lands in Colorado under SMCRA, detailing permit processes, inspections, enforcement, and interagency coordination.

Duplicative federal bureaucracy imposes hidden costs on energy production, protects incumbents from competition, and violates constitutional federalism by commandeering state authority.

Procedural rules governing the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission's adjudication of OSHA citation contests, covering definitions, filing/service requirements, time computations, party status, intervention, and case management.

These rules provide essential due process and orderly procedures for administrative adjudication. Deleting them would create chaos, arbitrary decision-making, and deny fair process. The modest administrative costs are necessary for efficient, just resolutions that protect both employers' and employees' rights.

The Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS) maintains a voluntary roster of labor arbitrators, setting criteria for listing, ethical standards, panel selection procedures, fees, and reporting requirements to provide parties with neutral arbitration services as an alternative to strikes and lockouts.

Deleting these rules would undermine the reliability and neutrality of the FMCS arbitration service, eroding trust in voluntary dispute resolution and potentially increasing labor strife. The regulation provides standardized, transparent procedures that enable parties to efficiently resolve disputes without government intervention—a function that would be difficult to replicate through unregulated private arrangements.

Prescribes forms and procedures for applying to the National Mediation Board for mediation (NMB-2), representation disputes (NMB-3), and agreement interpretations under the Railway Labor Act, including submission in duplicate and required details.

Imposes compliance costs (form filling, duplication) for federal mediation that private arbitration could replace, and perpetuates unnecessary federal overreach into labor relations, burdening businesses and undermining market-driven dispute resolution.

Establishes procedural rules for ATF adjudications involving denial or revocation of explosives licenses/permits under 18 U.S.C. chapter 40, including notice requirements, hearing rights before administrative law judges, restrictions on ex parte communications, representation standards, and timelines for actions.

Deletion would allow ATF to arbitrarily revoke explosives licenses without due process, destroying livelihoods with no recourse. These procedures ensure fairness through impartial judges, timely notice, and transparent hearings—safeguards that cannot be replicated by contracts or state law in an industry operating across state lines where uniform federal standards are essential to prevent regulatory arbitrage and politically motivated enforcement.

This regulation implements federal excise taxes on ozone-depleting chemicals (ODCs) under IRC sections 4681-4682. It imposes taxes on manufacturers/importers of ODCs, imported products containing ODCs, and floor stocks. The tax equals weight × base tax × ozone-depletion factor. The regulation includes numerous exemptions and reduced rates for specific uses (feedstock, rigid foam insulation, medical sterilants, metered-dose inhalers) and complex certification requirements for qualifying sales. It contains extensive definitions and cross-references, with effective dates from 1990-1993 and multiple phase-in schedules.

The regulation imposes massive compliance costs through its intricate web of exemptions, certifications, and phase-out rules that are nearly three decades past their intended sunset. It distorts market allocation by bureaucratically determining 'essential' ODC uses, inviting regulatory capture and special interest favoritism. The knowledge problem prevents optimal tax design; the resulting complexity exceeds any marginal environmental benefit while burdening small businesses disproportionately. The tax itself may be obsolete given the Montreal Protocol's success in phasing out most ODCs, rendering this regulatory machinery an unnecessary addition to the $185,000-page CFR labyrinth.

IRS regulation interpreting tax code provisions on corporate stock distributions (section 305) and revocation of installment basis elections (section 453), establishing when stock distributions are taxable and procedures for changing accounting methods.

Maintains complex technical rules that impose disproportionate compliance costs on corporations and taxpayers for narrow anti-abuse purposes, creating legal uncertainty and discouraging legitimate business reorganizations while generating minimal revenue relative to administrative burden.

This regulation prescribes election procedures and computational rules for specific tax provisions from the Tax Reform Act of 1976, including investment credit elections for pre-1975 films, at-risk limitations for activities, and international boycott factor calculations. It contains detailed filing requirements, deadlines (mostly 1977-1978), and complex formulas for a narrow set of taxpayers.

This regulation is obsolete deadwood from nearly 50 years ago with expired deadlines and no ongoing applicability. It imposes complex compliance burdens on an infinitesimal number of taxpayers for historical tax provisions serving narrow special interests. Maintaining it violates rule of law principles by keeping unrepealed dead letter regulations that create legal uncertainty without serving any current public purpose. The elaborate procedures—including mandatory judicial participation consent—represent regulatory accretion that should have been cleared once the election periods closed.

Treasury regulation requiring that interest on publicly offered debt instruments (registration-required obligations) is only tax-exempt if issued in registered form. It defines which obligations require registration, specifies the registered form requirements (book-entry or physical reissuance), and includes transitional rules for instruments issued after 1982-1983. The regulation aims to prevent tax evasion through anonymous bearer bonds by ensuring the IRS can track ownership and interest payments.

Deleting this regulation would enable a return to widespread bearer bonds, severely undermining the IRS's ability to track interest income and collect taxes. Tax evasion through anonymous instruments would increase, shifting greater burden onto compliant taxpayers and necessitating even more complex regulatory alternatives. The registration requirement is a minimal, well-established compliance mechanism essential for maintaining tax system integrity.

A directive instructing DFC employees to comply with existing executive branch ethics standards (5 CFR 2635), DFC-specific supplement (5 CFR 4301.101), and financial disclosure rules (5 CFR 2634).

Redundant: DFC employees are already bound by these cited regulations as executive branch personnel. Maintaining it needlessly expands the CFR, imposes trivial compliance burdens, and provides no additional ethical safeguards.

FDA regulation (21 CFR 589.2000) prohibiting cattle-derived materials from animal feed to prevent BSE, plus bans on gentian violet and propylene glycol in cat food. Requires extensive labeling, record-keeping, separation protocols, and testing across the entire animal feed supply chain.

Imposes billions in hidden compliance costs that disproportionately crush small businesses and raise consumer food prices. Federal mandate violates Tenth Amendment by commandeering state police powers. Rare BSE risk (6 cases in US history) doesn't justify this one-size-fits-all regime that entrenches large agribusiness, creates wasteful disposal of animal byproducts, and substitutes bureaucratic central planning for market-based quality control and state-level oversight.

FDA establishes scientifically-derived maximum residue tolerances for veterinary drugs in edible tissues of food animals, based on acceptable daily intake calculations, to protect human consumers from harmful exposure to antibiotics, hormones, and other veterinary medicines.

Americans would be worse off without federal residue limits: consumers face invisible risks of allergic reactions, antibiotic resistance, and endocrine disruption that they cannot independently detect or avoid. The regulation achieves its protective outcome through enforceable, science-based standards that the market cannot replicate due to severe information asymmetry—testing for trace residues is prohibitively expensive for individuals, creating a classic collective action problem. While states could theoretically regulate, interstate commerce demands a uniform national standard, and the compliance costs are modest relative to the public health benefits.