CEI Today: Crushing regulation, investigating the EPA, and wind farms v condors

TEN THOUSAND COMMANDMENTS

Wall Street Journal: Red Tape Record Breakers

For two decades, Wayne Crews of the Competitive Enterprise Institute has tracked the growth of new federal regulations. In his 20th anniversary edition this week, he’ll report that pages in the Code of Federal Regulations hit an all-time high of 174,545 in 2012, an increase of more than 21% during the last decade. 

TARGETING CONSERVATIVE/LIBERTARIAN GROUPS

The Hill: EPA to review claims of bias against conservatives amid fight over IRS

The Environmental Protection Agency’s inspector general will review claims the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) refuses to waive public records fees for conservative groups while granting the waivers for environmental organizations.

The action follows a May 14 report by the conservative Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) that claims the EPA waives the fees for major environmental groups more than 90 percent of the time, while often denying fee waivers for CEI, Judicial Watch and other groups.

EPA LETS WIND FARMS KILL CONDORS – MARLO LEWIS

Globalwarming.org: No Fine If Wind Farm Kills Endangered Condors — Fish and Wildlife Service

Should industrial wind facilities have to pay a $100,000 fine – as oil and gas companies do – if they kill an endangered species? Many environmental activists think so. The Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) does not.

In a reversal of its official opinion, the FWS recently announced “it will not penalize the operator of a Southern California wind operator if its turbines kill or injure one California condor,” reports environmental journalist Chris Clarke in ReWire. > Read more >