FTC Recommends Anticompetitive Regulations for Deletion or Revision

On Tuesday, Federal Trade Commission Chairman Andrew N. Ferguson submitted recommendations for deleting or revising anticompetitive regulations across the entire federal government to the White House’s Office of Management and Budget. This report is a response to President Trump’s Executive Order on Reducing Anticompetitive Regulatory Barriers. The Executive Order tasked the FTC with finding unnecessary regulations that exclude new market entrants, protect dominant incumbents, and predetermine economic winners and losers, as a first step to repealing them.

“President Trump’s Executive Order recognizes that heavy-handed regulations can hurt competition, including by entrenching incumbent firms, raising costs for new entrants, and discouraging innovative new ways to serve customers,” said FTC Bureau of Competition Director Daniel Guarnera. “Competitive markets lower the cost of living, improve the quality of products and services, and drive innovation. Our engagement with citizens across the country and agencies across the federal government has underscored the importance of scrutinizing regulations to ensure that they don’t distort healthy, free-market competition.”

Examples of anticompetitive regulations that the Chairman recommends for deletion or modification include:

• Biden-era Department of Transportation regulations that preference businesses owned by “socially and economically disadvantaged individuals” when awarding contracts for transportation projects, rather than allowing free competition on the merits.
• Department of Education regulations that permit colleges and universities to include the cost of textbooks and supplies as part of annual tuition, which thwarts students’ ability to save money by buying their textbooks through alternative channels.
• Proposed Biden-era Consumer Product Safety Commission regulations that would require table saws to use expensive finger-detection technology controlled by the sole patent holder.
• A Forest Service handbook that establishes eligibility requirements that inhibited entry from a younger generation of ranchers.

The report is now under review at the Office of Management and Budget. The FTC will continue to work collaboratively with OMB and all of the relevant federal agencies to rescind or revise their regulations as appropriate.