This Week At the Center for Regulatory Freedom: Comments on Illegal Immigrants and Access to Welfare; National Freight Strategy; Risk and Regulation at the CPSC

This week, the CPAC Foundation’s Center for Regulatory Freedom (CRF) delivered a triple shot of substantive regulatory engagement to federal agencies. In the space of just a few days, CRF submitted detailed, evidence-driven comments to the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) on its National Freight Strategy, to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) on its interpretation of “Federal public benefit” under Title IV of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA), and to the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) on ways to reduce regulatory burdens.

CRF exists to bring a clear, common-sense perspective to the regulatory process, ensuring that rules are grounded in sound scientific and economic evidence and that ordinary Americans have a voice in the decisions that affect them.

Strengthening America’s Freight Backbone: DOT National Freight Strategy Comments

CRF’s filing to the US Department of Transportation (Docket No. DOT-OST-2025-0369) focuses on keeping America’s freight rail system strong, competitive, and privately financed. The message is straightforward: freight rail is a national asset, moving 1.5 billion tons of goods annually — from agricultural products and construction materials to vehicles and chemicals — without direct taxpayer funding for infrastructure. Since 1980, the rail industry has invested over $810 billion of its own capital into track, bridges, locomotives, and technology, delivering public benefits like reduced highway congestion, lower greenhouse gas emissions, and stable, well-paying jobs.

The comments lay out a comprehensive policy agenda: preserve the market-based regulatory framework of the Staggers Rail Act, maintain revenue sufficiency so railroads can reinvest in capacity and safety, and ensure modal equity by making all freight modes — especially heavy trucks — pay a fair share for the infrastructure they use. CRF warns against policy missteps such as crew-size mandates, prescriptive technology rules, or increases in truck size and weight limits without full cost recovery.

CRF also underscores the transformative potential of technologies like Automated Track Inspection, Machine Vision Systems, and predictive diagnostics, and calls for performance-based regulation that allows these tools to be adopted without delay. On infrastructure expansion, CRF recommends streamlining environmental permitting — codifying categorical exclusions for low-impact projects, making permitting-efficiency executive orders permanent, and refining historic-preservation reviews. The filing closes with strong support for public-private partnerships, like Chicago’s CREATE program, and continued investment in grade-crossing safety through federal grant programs.

Clarifying Welfare Law When It Comes to Illegal Immigrants: PRWORA Title IV Comments

In a separate filing to AHRQ (Docket No. AHRQ-2025-0002), CRF weighed in on the agency’s notice regarding the interpretation of “Federal public benefit” under Title IV of PRWORA — the landmark 1996 welfare reform law. That phrase determines which individuals are eligible for certain federal benefits and which categories are reserved for citizens or qualified non-citizens. Because PRWORA’s definitions interact with multiple statutes and agencies, clarity is essential for lawful, consistent, and administrable implementation.

CRF’s comments emphasize that any interpretation must remain faithful to the statute’s text and legislative intent, which sought to restrict certain benefits to eligible populations while leaving states flexibility in program design. Expanding the definition beyond congressional intent, CRF warns, could create compliance burdens for agencies, confusion for program administrators, and potential conflicts with existing immigration and benefit-eligibility law.

From an administrative law perspective, CRF urges AHRQ and HHS to adopt a clear, uniform interpretation that can be applied consistently across programs, rather than ad hoc determinations that vary by agency or program. The filing also stresses the importance of regulatory transparency — affected stakeholders, from state governments to private service providers, need certainty to operate lawfully. In CRF’s view, agencies should publish clear guidance, maintain open channels for stakeholder input, and ensure any definitional changes go through proper notice-and-comment procedures, as required under the Administrative Procedure Act.

Cutting Red Tape Without Cutting Corners: CPSC Regulatory Burden Comments

The third major filing of the week went to the Consumer Product Safety Commission (Docket No. CPSC-2025-0009) in response to its Request for Information on Reducing Regulatory Burdens. CRF’s position here is nuanced but firm: unnecessary regulatory burdens harm manufacturers, retailers, and ultimately consumers — but safety must remain paramount. The challenge is to achieve both safety and efficiency.

CRF identifies several areas where CPSC could modernize or streamline without compromising safety. First, the Commission should review and update legacy testing and certification requirements that may no longer align with current science or global best practices. Second, CPSC should expand recognition of international conformity-assessment bodies to reduce duplicative testing costs for U.S. companies competing globally. Third, CRF recommends adopting risk-based prioritization for enforcement and inspection activities, focusing resources on products with the greatest demonstrated safety concerns rather than blanket requirements that treat all products the same.

Another major theme is regulatory flexibility for small businesses. Many CPSC rules impose fixed compliance systems that scale poorly to smaller manufacturers, limiting innovation and market entry. CRF urges the Commission to build in alternative compliance pathways, use performance-based standards where feasible, and apply regulatory-flexibility analyses rigorously before finalizing new rules.

Finally, CRF calls for better stakeholder engagement. As with DOT and PRWORA, the comments press for transparent rulemaking processes, predictable timelines, and genuine incorporation of stakeholder input — not merely formalities in the administrative record. In CRF’s view, when agencies actively solicit and act on the knowledge of those who make, sell, and use consumer products, safety outcomes improve and compliance burdens decline.

A Unified Approach to Regulatory Engagement

While the subject matter of these three filings differs greatly — freight transportation, welfare eligibility, and consumer product safety — CRF’s approach is consistent across all of them. The foundation’s comments emphasize:

• Fidelity to statute and legislative intent — agencies must stay within the bounds Congress set.

• Performance-based standards over prescriptive rules — focus on outcomes, not fixed methods.

• Transparency and predictability in regulatory processes.

• Equitable treatment across regulated entities and modes.

• Efficiency without sacrificing safety or core program goals.

These principles are not abstract. They are grounded in CRF’s decades of engagement with federal agencies and informed by the experiences of the industries, communities, and citizens affected by federal rules.

CPAC Set To Launch the Coalition on Regulatory Engagement

To build on this work and expand the reach of informed public input, CPAC is launching the Coalition on Regulatory Engagement. This new initiative will bring together stakeholders from across sectors — industry representatives, policy experts, grassroots activists — to monitor, analyze, and respond to regulatory developments in real time.

A key feature of the Coalition will be a public calendar of upcoming regulatory comment deadlines. This tool will give activists, small-business owners, and engaged citizens the same early warning that lobbyists and trade associations enjoy, enabling them to prepare and submit meaningful comments before rules are finalized. The Coalition will also provide plain-language summaries of complex proposals, model comment templates, and training on effective participation in the regulatory process.

With the DOT, PRWORA, and CPSC filings this week, CRF has once again demonstrated the value of substantive, well-reasoned engagement. Through the Coalition on Regulatory Engagement, CPAC is inviting Americans everywhere to join in shaping the rules that govern their lives — because the administrative state should answer to the people, not the other way around.