Browse regulations

Regulation establishes overtime pay rates and fee structures for APHIS and CBP inspectors providing inspection, testing, certification, or quarantine services outside regular hours for animals, plants, and regulated commodities. Includes Sunday/holiday rates, minimum 2-hour charges, commuted travel time allowances, and prepayment requirements for agents/brokers and delinquent debtors.

This is an internal administrative fee schedule that should be handled through agency policy, not binding regulation. It imposes unnecessary compliance burdens on businesses and creates artificial price distortions without providing public health or safety benefits. The complex fee tables, minimum charges, and prepayment requirements add rigidity to government service delivery while serving primarily as a bureaucratic revenue mechanism rather than a legitimate regulatory function.

This regulation governs the McGovern-Dole International Food for Education and Child Nutrition Program, administered by USDA's Foreign Agricultural Service. It sets terms for awarding donated US agricultural commodities and cash to foreign and domestic recipients (NGOs, cooperatives, governments) for projects in developing countries. Includes eligibility, application, agreement terms, procurement rules (local/regional), transportation payment procedures, audit requirements, and varied compliance obligations based on recipient type, with exemptions for foreign public entities.

Keeping this regulation imposes enormous hidden compliance costs on both the government and recipient organizations, consumes resources that could be used productively, and creates severe market distortions in developing countries that harm local farmers and economies. The program perpetuates dependency rather than sustainable development, violates constitutional limits on federal power, and suffers from regulatory capture by NGOs adept at navigating complex rules. Unseen costs include destroyed livelihoods, bureaucratic bloat, and the moral hazard of compulsory foreign redistribution that undermines both donor and recipient societies.

The Technical Assistance for Specialty Crops (TASC) program provides federal grants to U.S. organizations to address sanitary, phytosanitary, or technical barriers to exporting U.S. specialty crops. Administered by USDA's Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) through the Foreign Agricultural Service, it funds activities such as pre-clearance programs, research, seminars, and protocol development. Eligible recipients include government agencies, trade associations, universities, cooperatives, and private companies, with proposals requiring industry participation. The program operates on a reimbursement basis with a $500,000 annual cap per proposal and includes extensive compliance, reporting, and audit requirements.

Federal export subsidies distort markets, create regulatory capture by aligning agency mission with industry interests, and impose unnecessary administrative burdens. Private industry associations and companies already have strong incentives to fund export promotion and overcome trade barriers without taxpayer support. The program represents an improper federal overreach into commercial activities that belong in the private sector, picking winners and losers while forcing all Americans to subsidize specific agricultural interests.

The Emerging Markets Program (EMP) provides federal grants to U.S. private and government entities to develop export markets for U.S. agricultural commodities in emerging economies. The program operates on a reimbursement basis, requires private sector cost-sharing, funds only 'generic' (non-branded) promotional activities, and is administered by USDA's Foreign Agricultural Service on behalf of the Commodity Credit Corporation.

Export market development is a core private business function that should be funded entirely by the private sector. Using taxpayer money subsidizes agribusiness at the expense of other taxpayers and creates dangerous alliances between business and government (regulatory capture). Even with cost-share requirements, this program violates the principle of limited government—properly, companies seeking foreign sales should bear 100% of that risk and cost themselves. Government lacks the knowledge to pick winning strategies or markets, and such subsidies distort free trade, provoke international tensions, and create dependency on political favor rather than market competition.

The Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) provides federal financial and technical assistance to agricultural producers who implement conservation activities meeting NRCS-determined 'stewardship thresholds.' Participants must address at least two priority resource concerns initially and commit to improving a third, with 5-year contracts awarded via competitive ranking. The program gives the NRCS Chief broad discretion and prioritizes certain groups including beginning, socially disadvantaged, veteran, and organic producers.

This federal subsidy program represents unconstitutional overreach into state/local land-use domain, distorts market signals through centrally planned thresholds, and imposes massive hidden tax burdens on Americans. It creates dependency, invites regulatory capture via political favoritism, and disadvantages small operations with complex compliance. The program's unseen costs—bureaucratic overhead, misallocated resources, and suppressed market-based conservation alternatives—far outweigh any benefits, which are better addressed by private easements and state-level initiatives.

EQIP is a USDA program providing financial assistance and technical support to agricultural producers for implementing conservation practices addressing soil, water, air quality, wildlife habitat, nutrient management, and environmental compliance, with priorities for historically underserved producers and specific national concerns like pollution reduction and drought resiliency.

This program represents a massive federal intrusion into private land-use decisions, funded by coerced taxation. It distorts agricultural markets, creates dependency, and inflates land values. The unseen costs include reduced economic efficiency, barriers to entry for small producers navigating complex requirements, and federal overreach violating Tenth Amendment principles. Environmental goals can be achieved more effectively through voluntary private conservation, state/local programs, or market-based pricing mechanisms without expanding bureaucratic power.

The Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) is a federal program administered by the FSA/CCC that pays farmers to remove cropland from production and establish conservation cover. Contracts last 10-15 years with annual rental and cost-share payments. Enrollment is capped at 25% of county cropland. Eligibility requires prior cropping history, high erodibility (EI≥8), or location in designated priority areas. Goals: reduce erosion, improve water quality, enhance wildlife habitat, and protect farmland productivity.

Keeping CRP imposes a $2 trillion annual compliance burden and hidden tax exceeding $14,000 per household. It distorts agricultural markets, creates dependency on government payments, infringes state sovereignty over land use under the Tenth Amendment, and generates massive regulatory complexity. The same environmental benefits could be achieved more efficiently through state-level regulation or market-based pricing of externalities, without federal overreach and administrative bloat.

The Milk Donation Reimbursement Program is a USDA-administered program that reimburses dairy farmers and processors for donating fluid milk to non-profit distributors. Eligible partnerships submit detailed plans to AMS for approval, receive reimbursement rates based on the difference between Class I and Class III/IV milk prices, and must submit extensive documentation with their claims. The program includes audit provisions, reporting requirements, and prohibitions on reselling donated milk.

This regulation creates a costly federal bureaucracy to subsidize private charity, distorting market signals and crowding out voluntary, efficient solutions. The reimbursement mechanism based on milk price differentials creates perverse incentives, while the extensive reporting and audit requirements impose significant compliance costs on dairy organizations and distributors. True compassion should be left to private charity and market forces—not administered through a federal program that taxes all Americans to fund selective donations. The unseen costs include regulatory capture, reduced competition from federal favoritism, and the moral hazard of making corporations dependent on government subsidies for what should be purely voluntary giving.

ADD PAY II is a $30 million one-time additional payment program for Approved Insurance Providers (AIPs) who administered specialty crop insurance contracts for the 2022 or 2023 reinsurance years. Payments equal 17.5% of net book premium on contracts subject to an A&O cap reduction, prorated if total claims exceed $30 million.

This is corporate welfare that distorts agricultural insurance markets, imposes unnecessary $30 million taxpayer cost, and creates moral hazard by compensating private insurers for business decisions made under existing federal programs. Such subsidies contradict free enterprise principles and pick winners in the private sector.

USDA's procedural rules for implementing FOIA, covering request submission, processing timelines, fee schedules, handling of confidential business information, and appeals process.

Deletion would undermine FOIA's transparency mandate, enabling arbitrary denial of records and reducing government accountability. The modest bureaucratic overhead is essential to ensure citizens can access USDA records, exposing agency overreach and maintaining the rule of law through sunlight.

This regulation implements the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) for the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), establishing procedures for public access to OMB records. It covers request submission requirements, processing timelines, fee structures (based on requester category), tracking and appeals processes, and procedures for handling confidential commercial information. The regulation operationalizes FOIA's transparency mandate for OMB specifically.

Deleting these regulations would undermine FOIA's transparency mandate by eliminating the procedural framework that ensures public access to OMB records. The regulations provide essential guidance that makes the law workable—establishing clear timelines, fee structures, and appeal rights that prevent arbitrary withholding of information. Without them, the executive branch's budget and management office would operate with reduced accountability, contradicting founding principles of transparent governance. The administrative costs are minimal and largely fee-recovered, while the democratic benefits of transparency—enabling journalists, researchers, and citizens to scrutinize federal operations—are substantial and cannot be achieved through less structured means.

Defines administrative requirements, financial assistance rules, conflict of interest disclosures, and procedural guidelines for DOI federal awards and foreign entity compliance, implementing OMB Uniform Guidance.

Imposes extensive compliance costs and complex bureaucracy with minimal public benefit, creating unnecessary barriers and inefficiencies.

Requires Class I railroads to report freight commodity statistics quarterly and annually using specific commodity codes to the Surface Transportation Board for regulatory oversight.

The regulation imposes compliance costs that are passed to consumers, enables government collection of sensitive commercial data that can justify further intervention, and contains outdated, complex reporting requirements. Its removal would reduce bureaucracy without compromising the STB's ability to investigate specific issues via subpoena.

The regulation establishes a process for carriers under the Board's jurisdiction to adopt new Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) standards into the Uniform Systems of Accounts. It permits carriers to use GAAP in external reports with disclosure of variances from Board rules. The Office of Economics issues Accounting Series Circulars (ASCs) to mandate or reject new FASB standards after a 45-day comment period, and the Board formally adopts changes.

Deleting this rule would allow the Board to arbitrarily impose unique accounting requirements that diverge from GAAP, raising compliance costs and creating inefficiencies for carriers and investors. The rule ties the Board's accounting standards to private sector best practices and mandates a transparent comment process, which would be difficult to maintain without a binding regulation.

Establishes a waiver process allowing recipients of federal transit funding to modify or waive certain FTA requirements for projects involving public-private partnerships, joint development, or other private sector investment. The goal is to encourage private investment while protecting public interest through application review, statutory limitations, and post-project reporting.

Without this mechanism, federally-funded transit projects would be bound by one-size-fits-all regulations even when private capital and risk-sharing could deliver better outcomes. This rule provides the only structured, accountable pathway to tailor regulatory burdens to harness private innovation and efficiency while maintaining public oversight—a balance impossible through legislation alone given the specificity of individual projects.