Browse regulations

Regulation establishes agricultural quarantine inspection user fees for commercial vessels, trucks, railroad cars, aircraft, and international passengers, with overtime rates, exemptions, prepayment procedures, and enforcement mechanisms to recover costs of APHIS/CBP services that prevent invasive pests and diseases.

Americans would be worse off without this fee system: it funds essential biosecurity protecting billions in agricultural output, ensures importers who create pest risks bear costs rather than taxpayers, and maintains a predictable framework that private alternatives cannot efficiently replicate due to public good characteristics and need for coordinated federal enforcement.

Regulates introduction of genetically engineered organisms that may be plant pests through permit/notification system, imposing extensive reporting, containment, and approval requirements; grants Administrator broad discretion to define regulated articles.

Massive compliance costs stifle innovation and favor incumbents; technique-based regulation (targeting genetic engineering) violates equal protection and creates entry barriers; 'reason to believe' standard enables arbitrary enforcement; 30-120 day delays and paperwork burden function as hidden taxes that slow development of beneficial crops (drought-resistant, nutrient-enhanced), harming food security. Risks of plant pest introduction can be addressed through liability and tort law without preemptive bureaucracy.

Federal regulation establishing detailed procedures for determining eligibility for free and reduced-price school meals and milk under the National School Lunch, School Breakfast, and Special Milk Programs. Sets income guidelines, defines categorical eligibility (SNAP/TANF/FDPIR recipients, foster/homeless/migrant/runaway children, Head Start), mandates application processes, verification requirements, public announcements, direct certification mechanisms, and extensive documentation standards for households and local educational agencies.

This represents unconstitutional federal overreach into education and welfare—areas reserved to states under the 10th Amendment. It imposes massive bureaucratic burdens (extensive documentation, verification, record-keeping) on schools, creating a hidden tax in administrative costs that diverts resources from education. The complex eligibility rules create perverse incentives, stigmatize recipients, distort local decision-making, and invade family privacy through mandatory financial disclosure. Child nutrition is a legitimate concern but should be addressed through state/local solutions or direct federal-state partnerships that respect federalism. Washington cannot design optimal rules for thousands of diverse communities, violating Hayek's knowledge principle. Federal mandates stifle innovation and local accountability.

USDA regulation implementing NEPA procedural requirements for departmental actions, establishing categorical exclusions, environmental assessment and impact statement processes, and coordinating with other environmental laws.

The hidden tax of NEPA compliance—delays, paperwork burdens, and litigation risks—diverts billions from productive use, disproportionately crushing small businesses and farmers. States are fully capable of environmental reviews for activities within their borders, and for truly federal lands, Congress should replace this one-size-fits-all procedural maze with targeted, time-limited reviews that don't paralyze beneficial projects. The Tenth Amendment reserves land use and environmental policy to the states; this federalized process violates constitutional federalism while producing no commensurate benefit that couldn't be achieved through decentralized, market-based stewardship.

Establishes comprehensive conduct rules for all persons on DHS-protected federal property, covering security screenings, prohibitions on activities (speech, assembly, photography, firearms, drugs, alcohol, camping, solicitation, etc.), and enforcement with fines/imprisonment.

Duplicates state/local criminal laws, overbroadly restricts First Amendment rights on public forums, creates enforcement bureaucracy costs, federalizes minor offenses under Tenth Amendment, and imposes permit barriers to civic engagement with minimal security justification.

Procedural regulation establishing subpoena authority for the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA) Panel, including issuance requirements, exemption for internal agency communications, filing deadlines (15 days), particularity standards, revocation process, court enforcement by the Solicitor, and witness compensation rules.

Without subpoena power, the FLRA cannot gather necessary evidence to fairly adjudicate federal labor disputes, leading to uninformed decisions that waste taxpayer resources and deny due process. The regulation's particularity requirement and revocation mechanisms provide essential checks against agency overreach while enabling basic fact-finding.

Regulation outlines appeal process for VA employees challenging orders to recoup bonuses or relocation expenses to OPM. Covers filing deadlines (7 days), required documentation, evidence submission, representative rules, election with grievance procedures, and 30-day written decision based on procedural compliance.

Imposes administrative costs for narrow, specialized appeals, duplicates existing grievance mechanisms, and adds to regulatory bloat. Centralized OPM review of VA personnel decisions is inefficient and encourages unnecessary litigation. Due process protections remain available through negotiated grievances and judicial review; this layer is an expensive redundancy.

This Civil Service Rule mandates standardized probationary (1 year) and trial (1-2 years) periods for new federal employees, sets rules for crediting prior service, requires agency certification of public interest for retention, and establishes limited appeal procedures.

This regulation imposes unnecessary bureaucratic complexity on federal personnel management, consuming OPM and agency resources to administer detailed rules that could be handled with simple statutory guidance. It creates a rigid framework that reduces agency flexibility to design evaluation periods suited to their missions, and its detailed provisions invite litigation and administrative burdens. More insidiously, it reinforces the career civil service system by codifying the transition to tenure, which insulates federal employees from performance accountability after probation and expands the permanent bureaucracy—contrary to limited government principles. The regulation's unseen cost is its contribution to the growth of an unaccountable administrative state that stifles innovation and dynamism in public service.

Establishes uniform policies for Department of Energy's other transaction agreements for research, development, and demonstration projects, including cost-sharing requirements, competitive processes, intellectual property rights, and administrative procedures.

Creates excessive bureaucratic overhead for federal research funding with complex cost-sharing requirements, extensive documentation burdens, and restrictive intellectual property provisions that stifle innovation and commercial development.

This regulation establishes the National Marine Fisheries Service's voluntary Seafood Inspection Program (SIP), which provides inspection, grading, and certification services for fish and fishery products. It defines terms, sets application procedures, outlines inspection and sampling protocols, establishes fee structures based on cost recovery, and governs appeals and licensing of inspectors. The program issues certificates attesting to product quality, condition, and compliance with specifications. Participation is voluntary and fees cover program costs.

This voluntary certification programappropriates federal authority to provide a service that private actors could offer competitively. Even though it operates on a cost-recovery basis and participation is voluntary, it crowds out potential private certification markets, consumes federal resources and bureaucratic capacity, and risks regulatory capture where industry influences standards. The proper role of government is to protect rights, not to certify product quality—a function better performed by private entities responding to consumer demand through market competition. Eliminating this program would restore constitutional federalism by removing a federal activity that encroaches on domains traditionally managed by states and private market institutions.

TSA regulation requiring flight training providers and students to undergo security threat assessments, register with federal government, and report all training activities through mandatory FTSP Portal. Applies primarily to alien candidates; U.S. citizens must provide citizenship documentation. Imposes waiting periods, employee training, recordkeeping, and 24/7 security coordinator requirements.

Universal surveillance regime treating all flight students as suspects. Imposes massive compliance burden on thousands of small flight schools and instructors, invades privacy through biometric collection, delays training 5-30 days, harms foreign student revenue, and provides marginal security benefits that could be achieved through targeted law enforcement. Costly constitutional overreach under Commerce Clause.

This STB regulation establishes procedures for shippers to petition the Board to mandate alternative rail service when an incumbent carrier provides inadequate service, with both standard and accelerated emergency processes. It dictates filing timelines, service requirements, and substantive standards including showing substantial deterioration, failed negotiations, and identifying alternative carriers, balanced against potential impairment to other customers.

This represents costly federal overreach into private contractual relationships. Rail service issues should be resolved through contract law, market competition, or state-level remedies, not centralized bureaucratic prescription. The regulation invites rent-seeking, distorts investment incentives by creating a government safety net, and imposes substantial compliance costs on railroads and shippers—burdens that fall disproportionately on small operators. The vague 'substantial deterioration' standard invites abuse, while mandatory alternative service amounts to regulatory taking. Any emergency exigencies can be addressed through existing legal frameworks without this permanent, expansive administrative apparatus.

Regulation establishes performance standards and procedures for prescription of reciprocal switching agreements between Class I railroads when shippers have access to only one railroad. Sets service reliability, consistency, and spot/pull metrics; defines defenses for non-compliance; outlines petition process and termination procedures. Forces incumbent railroads to allow competitors access to their terminal facilities to serve captive shippers.

This regulation violates property rights by forcing railroads to provide access to competitors and sets arbitrary performance metrics that distort market incentives. The 'practical physical access' standard invites subjective bureaucratic determinations about what constitutes feasible competition. Performance standards create compliance burdens that disproportionately harm smaller carriers and encourage gaming rather than genuine service improvement. The forced arbitration of compensation when carriers cannot agree is a price control that interferes with voluntary contracting.

Federal regulation requiring public transit agencies receiving federal funds to implement Safety Management Systems, maintain safety plans, establish safety committees (for large systems), and conduct risk assessments. Applies to state/local transit operators and other recipients of FTA funding.

Federal overreach into local transit safety matters; compliance costs drain resources from actual service and safety improvements; creates bureaucratic burdens without clear marginal safety benefits; state/local governments and market mechanisms (liability, public accountability) are better positioned to manage transit safety; Tenth Amendment reserves police power and transportation matters to states. The regulation's condition-of-funding approach effectively federalizes all transit systems, undermining state autonomy and creating one-size-fits-all mandates that cannot account for local conditions and innovation.

Mandates uniform safety certification training for state oversight agencies and rail transit agency personnel responsible for safety oversight, requiring initial training within 3 years and biennial recertification, with extensive reporting and record-keeping requirements.

Constitutional federalism violation: transit safety is a traditional state police power under the Tenth Amendment. Federal coercion through funding conditionality forces state/local compliance with one-size-fits-all mandates, overriding local knowledge and conditions. Unseen costs include disproportionate burden on smaller agencies, compliance overhead diverting resources from actual operations, regulatory capture by training bureaucracies, and stifled innovation through rigid standardization. States already have strong incentives to ensure transit safety through liability, insurance, and political accountability; federal intervention is unnecessary and counterproductive.