Executive Order 14294: Fighting Overcriminalization in Federal Regulations

What the order contains

Section headings exactly as they appear in the official text.

• Sec. 1. Purpose
• Sec. 2. Policy
• Sec. 3. Definitions
• Sec. 4. Report on Criminal Regulatory Offenses
• Sec. 5. Promoting Regulatory Transparency
• Sec. 6. Default Mens Rea for Criminal Regulatory Offenses
• Sec. 7. Agency Referrals for Potential Criminal Enforcement
• Sec. 8. Effect on Immigration Enforcement and National Security Functions
• Sec. 9. General Provisions

Section 1, quoted from the order

Verbatim text from the signed document. These are the words of the document, not SaveYourState’s.

The United States is drastically overregulated. The Code of Federal Regulations contains over 48,000 sections, stretching over 175,000 pages-- far more than any citizen can possibly read, let alone fully understand. Worse, many carry potential criminal penalties for violations. The situation has become so dire that no one--likely including those charged with enforcing our criminal laws at the Department of Justice--knows how many separate criminal offenses are contained in the Code of Federal Regulations, with at least one source estimating hundreds of thousands of such crimes. Many of these regulatory crimes are ``strict liability'' offenses, meaning that citizens need not have a guilty mental state to be convicted of a crime. This status quo is absurd and unjust. It allows the executive branch to write the law, in addition to executing it. […]