Federal agencies are increasingly using informal guidance documents, memoranda and blog posts to create rules and skirt the formal regulatory process, and Congress must stop them.

Feds Using Blog Posts, Informal Docs To Skirt Regulatory Process https://t.co/0JObpJvdgl pic.twitter.com/JXFivKCNwE

— The Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) April 19, 2016

The federal government has no complete survey on the use of what CEI calls “regulatory dark matter.” The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) only reviewed 14 out of “thousands” of documents created by federal officials in 2014, CEI said.

But agencies are increasingly using these informal documents to create official regulations with consequences, like recent U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) guidance claiming landlords and home sellers who don’t rent or sell to convicted criminals are violating the Fair Housing Act.

These guidance documents are “purportedly not legally binding,” but they still “cajole and intimidate” people and businesses into complying with the agency, CEI said. Most new rules never reach the attention of the media or Congress....

“President Obama has been deservedly criticized for unilateral executive actions that are dreadnoughts of rule-without-congress,” CEI said. “But federal agency guidance documents, memoranda and other regulatory dark matter swell ominously, often out of sight.”