Study
Global Infrastructure Permitting
Executive Summary The construction of major infrastructure projects, such as power plants, highways, and ports, is heavily regulated. In major industrial economies, such projects typically…
News Release
CEI expert analyzes the permitting provisions in the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023
After several attempts to reform the United States’ broken permitting system for large infrastructure projects, major changes have finally made it to the president’s desk…
Study
Permitting reforms, finally
Introduction The United States has one of the world’s most burdensome, time-consuming, and unpredictable systems for authorizing major infrastructure projects. The centerpiece of that system…
National Review
The EPA Strikes Back
In last summer’s West Virginia v. EPA decision, the Supreme Court held that the EPA’s claims of vast new powers to reorganize America’s electricity sector raised…
National Review
Make Federal Red Tape Part of the Debt-Ceiling Fight
Last week, the House passed a bill that would raise the debt ceiling in exchange for more than $4 trillion in deficit cuts over a decade.
Real Clear Policy
The Greatest Trick ‘the Swamp’ Ever Pulled
Why are anti-establishment Republicans embracing the special interest racket of Washington, D.C.? In 2016, candidate Donald J. Trump ran on a promise to drain ‘the…
National Review
Puerto Rico Libre
The first airplane my father ever boarded was the one that took him from Puerto Rico to New York to attend the United States Military Academy…
National Review
Puerto Rico Libre
News Week
Climate Policies Not Based on Market Principles Will Fail
Financial flows and trading markets were high on the agenda at COP27, the United Nations‘ latest climate conference. Unfortunately, economic rationality was not, as the…
Net Zero Watch
Video: Mario Loyola Joins Net Zero Watch to Discuss COP27
Senior Fellow Mario Loyola joined Net Zero Watch to discuss COP27 and international climate policy.
Reason
Permitting Hell vs. Climate Hell at COP27
Competitive Enterprise Institute Senior Fellow Mario Loyola proceeded during the questions and answers session to elegantly puncture the sunny “stated policies” predictions of rapid renewable energy…
National Review
The Supreme Court Gets Another Chance to Rein in the Administrative State
The Constitution vests its executive power in the president of the United States. But in the 1935 case of Humphrey’s Executor v. U.S., the Supreme Court ruled…
News Release
Comprehensive Permitting Reform is Vital to Unleashing America’s Energy Abundance
WASHINGTON—The Biden administration and many environmental activists insist the United States and the rest of the world must transition to non-fossil fuel energy sources by…
Study
Unleashing America’s Energy Abundance
As a side deal to the Inflation Reduction Act of August 2022, Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Chuck Schumer (D-NY) agreed to streamline infrastructure permitting.
News Release
Negatives Outweigh the Positives in Manchin-Schumer Permitting Bill
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) released the text of a bill proposing minor changes to the federal permitting…
Wall Street Journal
Renewable Energy? Where’s Your Permit?
The U.S. has one of the developed world’s most costly, time-consuming and unpredictable systems for authorizing big infrastructure projects. In the Inflation Reduction Act, Sens. Joe…
Wall Street Journal
How Miami ‘Caught a Wave’ and Became the Hot New Tech Hub
This city has become the favorite destination for people escaping progressive dystopias like San Francisco and New York. During the pandemic it had the country’s…
News Release
Senate Votes on Sensible Reforms to Fix Broken Environmental Permitting System
In a vote that brings big implications for energy, mining, and infrastructure, the Senate voted today for reforms that would make improvements in the nation’s…
News Release
Manchin/Schumer Deal on Health Care, Energy Spending is Bad News for Inflation, Taxpayers
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senator Joe Manchin reportedly announced a surprise deal on July 27 that resuscitates Democrats’ big government spending ambitions on…
Wall Street Journal
Behind Biden’s EPA Power Grab
The Environmental Protection Agency had its way with both the Clean Air Act and the U.S. Constitution for decades. The Supreme Court’s decision Thursday in West…
Wall Street Journal
A Judicial Ruling Challenges the SEC’s Illegal Power
The Fifth Circuit says the agency violates the Constitution by acting as prosecutor, judge and jury. The U.S. Constitution’s separation of powers was meant to…
News Release
Final NEPA Rule Will Encourage Anti-Development Lawsuits Against Fossil Fuel Projects
The White House today released its final rule updating the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the law governing permitting and environmental review for new federal…
City Journal
Food for the Table, Not for the Gas Tank
City Journal cites Senior Fellow Mario Loyola on the nature of the Environmental Protection Agency: The EPA has the authority to change or waive…
News Release
Unless Biden Admin Reverses its Anti-Energy Policies, Russian Oil Imports Ban Will Hurt American Consumers
The Biden administration announced a ban on oil imports from Russia, in response to the invasion of Ukraine. CEI experts reacted to the decision. Director…
E&E News
The Case that Could Change Climate Regulation as We Know It
E&E News cites Senior Fellow Mario Loyola on how Congress needs to use specific language when creating regulatory powers: But Mario Loyola, a senior…
The New York Sun
Why the EPA Needs a Lesson in Constitutional Law
The Supreme Court on Monday has a chance to remind the Environmental Protection Agency that there are limits to its power. During the Obama administration,…
The New York Sun
Welcome to Jimmy Carter’s Second Term: It’s Worse Than the First
President Carter’s dreary four years in the White House discredited the Democratic Party for a generation. After he left, it took Democrats 12 years to…
News Release
New CEI Paper Outlines Key Reforms to Aim State Antitrust Efforts Toward Consumer Welfare
In his 1978 book The Antitrust Paradox, Judge Robert Bork argued that the only benefit of antitrust law was to improve “consumer welfare.” Rarely has…
Study
The State Antitrust Paradox
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY American antitrust law is the bedrock of competition policy in the United States. It has also proven among the most intellectually challenging areas…
National Review
The Great Lockdown Lie
In the 1927 silent-film classic Metropolis, a dystopian city of the future is divided into elites living comfortably in opulent skyscrapers and workers toiling in dirty,…
National Review
The Environmental Left Is Its Own Worst Enemy
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse has staked his legacy on the persecution of “climate deniers.” It’s a cause for which he seems ideally suited: He…
National Review
They Couldn’t Cancel Him
National Review
The Covid Mandates Should Be Ignored
the highways in South Florida, the speed limit is generally 55 mph. I don’t know why, but it doesn’t matter: Everyone blows right through going…
National Review
Unite and Get Ready to Fight
The Wall Street Journal recently ran one of those opinion pieces you know you’ll remember years later. In “The Impossible Insurrection of January…
Blog
The “Public Nuisance” Theory of Pharmaceutical Liability for the Opioids Crisis Is … a Public Nuisance
The jury in a federal court in Ohio has found three major pharmacy chains—CVS, Walmart, and Walgreens—liable for the opioids crisis in two plaintiff…
National Review
The Race-Marxists Finally Went Too Far
What good American would disagree that “black lives matter”? Who could be opposed to “diversity, equity, and inclusion”? Who doesn’t believe…
National Review
The Real Culprit in Our Supply-Chain Crisis
The supply chain for an Apple iPhone crosses an international border more than 600 times, and if it didn’t, you probably wouldn’t have one —…
National Review
Rise of the Woke Taliban
The ascent of civilizations is a wondrous thing. On the way up, each generation produces treasures of its own, building on the achievements of those…
National Review
A Preemptive Attack on the Supreme Court
America’s progressives have spent most of the past year wailing about people who undermine faith in democratic institutions. “Misinformation” that casts doubt on the election of…
National Review
Lessons of 20 Years of War
In his “Iron Curtain” speech after World War II, Winston Churchill remarked: There never was a war in all history easier to prevent by…
National Review
Time to Reclaim the Right to Choose
One of the more entertaining features of the late pandemic period is the ongoing battle between the Democrats’ State Media (CNN, Washington Post) and Red State…
National Review
DeSantis vs. Dr. Fauci
The latest skirmish in the blue media vs. red state wars started when Florida governor Ron DeSantis had the temerity to suggest that vaccination against…
National Review
What Truths Do We Still Hold to Be Self-Evident?
“With all our divisions,” asks George Packer, “what do we have in common? Is there some underlying adhesive that can make us one country again?…
National Review
Back to Square One in the War on Terror
In time, the harrowing images from Afghanistan will disappear from television screens. Americans will debate the incompetence of the final withdrawal, which maximized the defeat,…
National Review
Barack Obama’s Tower of Power
Tourists have long marveled at the Arc de Triomphe near the center of Paris. That Napoleonic monument revived an ancient Roman tradition: After a great…
National Review
The True Meaning of ‘Misinformation’
Last week Senators Amy Klobuchar (D., Minn.) and Ben Ray Luján (D., N.M.) introduced a bill designed to suppress dangerous misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines. Like similar…
National Review
Biden Chooses Red Tape over Clean Energy
One of the Trump administration’s signature achievements was cutting the overwhelming red tape facing major infrastructure projects in America. This week the White House…
National Review
Missouri Defies the Feds on Gun Control
“Let the good of the people be the supreme law,” reads Missouri’s state motto. Sounds nice, but under the U.S. Constitution’s supremacy clause, it’s federal…
National Review
Israel Has Every Right to Destroy Hamas
For more than 50 years, the diplomacy surrounding major outbreaks of Israeli–Arab violence has followed a standard progression. The United Nations Security Council goes into…
National Review
Biden’s Green Pie in the Sky
Yesterday President Biden unveiled his American Families Plan before a joint session of Congress. Together with the rest of his infrastructure plan, it…
Marketplace
Democrats In Congress In No Hurry To Overturn Trump-Era Regulations
Marketplace cites Senior Fellow Mario Loyola on regulatory reform: Mario Loyola at the Competitive Enterprise Institute said that’s because Republicans were on the same…
National Review
The Green Dream: What AOC’s Signature Policy Really Aims to Accomplish
At a rally in Washington, D.C., this week, Senator Edward Markey described the scope of his Green New Deal: “Racial injustice, economic inequality, housing, education,…
Las Vegas Review Journal
EDITORIAL: Infrastructure Package Meets Federal Red Tape
The Las Vegas Review-Journal cites Senior Fellow Mario Loyola on Biden’s infrastructure plan: The projects that might survive the legislative process as part of…
The Wall Street Journal
It Takes Lots of Permits to Save the Planet
President Biden’s infrastructure plan proposes to spend trillions of dollars toward achieving zero greenhouse emissions by 2050. It won’t reach that goal, for two reasons.
Bloomberg Law
Biden Infrastructure Plan Has Unlikely Ally in Trump Permit Redo
Bloomberg Law cites Senior Fellow Mario Loyola on Biden’s infrastructure plan: Mario Loyola, who served as CEQ’s associate director for regulatory reform during the…
Marketplace
Next on Democrats’ Agenda, a “Holistic” Infrastructure Bill
Marketplace cites Senior Fellow Mario Loyola on the Biden administration’s infrastructure package: “Once you’re starting to spend, you know, a trillion or $2 trillion…
National Review
The Great Texas Power Crash
In the Japanese classic movie Rashomon, three witnesses to a murder give earnest but conflicting accounts of what happened. In the end, the audience is left wondering.
Op-Eds
Are Trump Supporters Losing Faith in Democracy?
National Review
The Dark Side of the Minimum Wage
President Biden and his fellow Democrats are pushing hard to increase the federal minimum wage to $15, and polls show strong…
News Release
Final NEPA Rule Offers Measured Reforms to Benefit Stakeholders
In the decades since the original regulation was adopted, the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) process has become a thicket of red tape and litigation…
Study
Modernizing Environmental Reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act
View Full Document as PDF The Trump administration has finalized a new set of rules to implement the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA),…
News Release
State AG and FTC Antitrust Actions against Facebook Fail to Prove Consumer Harm or Anticompetitive Behavior
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and 48 State Attorneys General today announced antitrust lawsuits against Facebook, asserting the social media company’s acquisitions of Instagram and…
News Release
Federal Bailouts for States Forestall Necessary Reforms Needed for Long Term Resilience
The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) today reacted to reports that Congress is considering including a provision for state bailouts in legislation aimed at…
Hoover Institution
The Opioid Crisis And A Distorted Legal Response
Hoover Institution cites CEI Senior Fellow Mario Loyola on Opioid Crisis. On behalf of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, Mario Loyola (one of its fellows) and Richard…
Legal Brief
Brief of Amicus Curiae – Supreme Court of Oklahoma: District Court Case No. CJ-2017-816
INTEREST OF AMICUS CURIAE The Competitive Enterprise Institute (“CEI”) is a non-profit public policy organization dedicated to advancing the principles of limited government, free enterprise,…
National Review
Trump Translation Service: ‘There Won’t Be a Transfer of Power’
I’ve been noodling the idea of launching a Trump Translation Service for the large number of Trumpish phrases that his critics and the media don’t…
National Review
Fill the Supreme Court Vacancy Now
No party that controls both the White House and the Senate going into a general election would ever defer a Supreme Court vacancy to the next…
Blog
Don’t Panic Over Ad Tech
The Senate Judiciary Committee will hold an antitrust hearing on September 15 to examine Google’s 90 percent market share in online advertising. Senators who would…
National Review
How Trump Can Help Reopen America’s Schools
It’s almost the middle of August, and many parents still have little idea if their kids will be able to go to school in a few…
News Release
Report: #Neverneeded 1920 Jones Act Hinders Coronavirus Economic Recovery
A 100-year-old law that imposes restrictions on commercial shipping now stands as a barrier to economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic and imposes unfair costs…
Study
Repeal or Reform the Jones Act
The COVID-19 pandemic has triggered the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Tens of millions have lost their jobs. Unleashing the innovation and productivity…
Duluth News Tribune
Jones Act Draws Critics, Defenders: Battle Lines Are Forming as the Merchant Marine Act Marks its Centennial
The Duluth News Tribune references CEI senior fellow Mario Loyola’s writing on the Jones Act: Mario Loyola, a senior fellow with the Competitive Enterprise Institute,…
National Review
The Many Distortions of the Jones Act
Protectionism isn’t always bad. But sometimes protectionist measures are so poorly designed that they hurt everyone, including the intended the beneficiaries, and wind up benefiting America’s…
National Review
Trump’s Push to Modernize Our Infrastructure
Last week President Trump accomplished one of his most important goals: to reform the broken system of federal approvals for major infrastructure projects such as highways,…
National Review
The Deep End of the Swamp
If you’ve never heard of the Jones Act, there’s a good reason. It stays mostly hidden in the deepest part of “the swamp” of America’s special-interest…
News Release
100 Year-Old Jones Act Shipping Restrictions an “America Last” Policy
A new Competitive Enterprise Institute report details extensive damage inflicted by a 100 year old law called the “Jones Act,” which requires any ship traveling…
Study
America Last
The Jones Act requires any ship traveling between two U.S. points to be U.S.-manufactured, -owned, -flagged, and -crewed. This heavy-handed protectionist measure was enacted in 1920…
National Review
Public Choice and the Pandemic
Shocked by the large numbers of people congregating on California beaches, Governor Gavin Newsom recently decided to shut some of them down altogether. Large numbers of people then…
National Review
The Test’s the Thing
The White House is now balancing the risk to public health and the risk to economic welfare posed by the coronavirus crisis. Yet a solution could…
National Review
The Test’s the Thing
The Atlantic
Trump’s DOJ Interference Is Actually Not Crazy
National Review
Why Impeachment Failed
The Atlantic
Abuse of Power Is a Dangerous Standard for Democrats to Play With
Almost the minute after the White House released its 110-page brief for the Senate impeachment trial, careful observers noticed a contradiction between the White House counsel’s…
The Hill
Improving Federal Environmental Impact Assessments
Last week, the Trump administration proposed significant improvements to how agencies implement one of the most important laws you’ve never heard of: the National Environmental Policy…
The Atlantic
Democrats Have Failed to Prove Their Case Against Trump
The House Judiciary Committee has published articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump. Though potentially damning, the particular charges—abuse of power in connection with Ukraine…
The Atlantic
Stop the Ethanol Madness
The idea of requiring the nation’s gasoline supply to contain a certain amount of renewable biofuel was born in a short-lived doomsday fad of the…
The Wall Street Journal
Trump’s Pen Limits Executive Power
President Trump signed two executive orders curbing executive power Oct. 9. They’re a good start, but more is needed.
Blog
Stop State Government Abuse of Clean Water Act
Today the Competitive Enterprise Institute led a coalition letter in support of the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed rule, “Updating Regulations on Water Quality Certification.” The rule would…
Wall Street Journal
Trump’s Pen Limits Executive Power
National Review
A Shale-Gas Revolution, If We Can Keep It
Living conditions in the early Industrial Revolution were often atrocious, and Marx and Engels thought they saw a trend. They predicted in Capital that as capitalism evolved,…
The Atlantic
The Problem With the State-Level Investigation of Google
The battlefield is getting crowded. European antitrust enforcers have been fighting America’s tech giants for years. In the U.S., both the Justice Department and Federal…
The Wall Street Journal
Packing the Court Is a Real Threat
Democrats are threatening to pack the Supreme Court by enacting legislation to expand its size if they take the White House and Senate in 2020.