New draft guidelines ensure effective standards for antitrust enforcement.

This past July, the DOJ and the FTC published draft guidelines that laid out the more expansive standards by which they’re prosecuting anticompetitive behavior. The merger guidelines are a sort of open letter to judges, and while they have no power to compel judges to rule a certain way, courts have given guidelines significant deference across every presidency they’ve been issued. As major cases loom, it may help prosecutors turn the tide.

Lawsuits by the FTC and the DOJ are only the most high-profile weapon in the Biden administration’s war against concentrated economic power. Less prominent but equally potent are the writing and enforcement of regulations based on statutory powers previous administrations have neglected. For instance, when Trump took office, enforcement actions by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau fell by 75 percent, but it has been revitalized by the Biden appointee Rohit Chopra. The CFPB has gone after companies for price gouging in captive markets like prison financial services, is working on rules that would make it easier for consumers to change banks, and is cracking down on “junk fees”—deceptive charges for service—in banking, part of an administration-wide fight against such fees.

New pro-competition, pro-consumer rules are popping up across the government. The Food and Drug Administration passed a rule to foster greater competition within the hearing aid industry, which is dominated by four companies that together control 85 percent of U.S. sales. With a new Democratic majority, the Federal Communications Commission is preparing to reinstate net neutrality rules to stop broadband providers like AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon from speeding up connection rates to favored websites and slowing service to others. And the Surface Transportation Board is developing rules that will inject more competition into railroading, one of the most consolidated industries in America, by giving shippers currently served by only one railroad greater options for routing their freight on other lines.

The most important rule changes have been at the FTC. Under Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act, the agency has broad authority to make new rules to stop “unfair methods of competition,” but previous administrations failed to use that power. That’s changed under Biden. In January, the FTC proposed a ban on noncompete agreements, which rob more than a quarter of private-sector workers of the basic right to freely switch jobs within the same industry. Under this same authority, the agency is developing rules to crack down on personal data collection and has voted to boost “right to repair” enforcement, prompting Microsoft and Apple to change their rules to allow consumers to repair their own electronic equipment.