“It’s Time to Shine a Light on Regulatory ‘Dark Matter’” By Angela Logomasini and Henry I. Miller.
Regulation is not the only way the federal bureaucracy inhibits innovation. President Donald Trump’s desire to shrink the regulatory state by significantly cutting the number of regulations and their impact is laudable. But it won’t be easy, and it won’t be sufficient, because the federal bureaucracy’s tentacles reach deep into private enterprise through a number of non-regulatory programs and actions that if left in place will continue to hinder economic growth. Clyde Wayne Crews of the Competitive Enterprise Institute refers to this phenomenon as “regulatory dark matter.” Like the “dark matter” of the universe, which is difficult to detect and virtually invisible, regulatory dark matter consists of bureaucratic activities that fall outside the purview of the Administrative Procedures Act (APA), which specifies the formal process that must be followed to issue regulations. Read more.
