The Washington Examiner
Obama Outdoes Bush on Small Business Rules
The Washington Examiner excerpts Wayne Crews' CEI blog post on President Obama's rules affecting small businesses: President Obama has issued nearly half…
Blog
Purple Haze, Seeing Red and Feeling Blue: The NLRB’s Crippling Overreach in Two Recent Actions
The National Labor Relations Board’s two recent actions cast aside decades of established practice and precedent. This disregard for the legal wisdom of consistency has…
Blog
Political vs. Market Regulation: Uber Edition
Earlier this week The Washington Post’s Catherine Rampell suggested that new entrants in the transportation market, like Uber, should face greater government regulation—despite having fueled much of…
Blog
Lame Duck Quacks Needed Dodd-Frank Relief
Waaaah! That’s the sound of former House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) crying about stinging, bipartisan rebukes to his legacy of the Dodd-Frank…
News Release
Big Labor Agenda Served By This Week’s NLRB Actions
RealClear Policy
Why Affordability Is Not Obamacare’s Primary Goal
Blog
Congress Seeks Multiemployer Pension Reform in the CRomnibus
Congress seeks to reform multiemployer pensions in the CRomnibus (Continuing Resolution/Omnibus spending bill), which as of this evening remains in a precarious position.
Blog
Indiana Supreme Court Upholds Right-to-Work Law
As the number of right-to-work states is expected to grow in the near future, the Indiana Supreme Court reaffirmed the legitimacy of the law in…
Blog
Deteriorating White House Regulatory Disclosure Needs Active Congressional Review
Recently we’ve spent time reviewing Washington’s “Unified Agenda” of federal regulations, which came out just before Thanksgiving. It purports to tell what the alphabet soup…
The Blaze
China Recoils on Transparency at Climate Conference, but Obama Administration Still Confident in Deal
CEI's Cristopher Horner weighs in on the Lima, Peru climate summit at The Blaze: Asserting the bilateral agreement is entirely separate from…
Blog
Rep. Leutkemeyer Moves to Choke off Operation Choke Point
The release this week of a new House Oversight and Government Reform Committee staff report into Operation Choke Point provides another opportunity to underline just how…
Products
I, Pencil: Resources and Curriculum
Blog
New Minimum Wage Study: Tradeoffs Exist
Many progressives strongly support minimum wage increases. This is troubling, because the effects those increases actually have on many poor people are regressive. Signaling your concern for…
Blog
The Future and the Regulated
Lawrence Summers, the enfant terrible of the economics profession, has written a thoughtful column on “Our Loss of Faith in the Future,” noting that…
Real Clear Markets
Entrepreneurs Want Capital, But Not Bank Capital
The Real Clear Markets cites CEi`s John Berlau on the investment regulations: The solution is to unleash capital from the bottom-up and where…
Blog
TTIP: Another Step in the (Lack of) Evolution in EU Trade Agreements
As the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) approaches an eighth round of negotiations between the United States and the European Union, the debate regarding…
Blog
Gruber Testifies Before Congress on Obamacare Transparency Issues
Today, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Marilyn Tavenner and MIT economist Jonathan Gruber are testifying before the House Oversight and Government Reform…
Op-Eds
A Professor Who Suffers No Fools
Blog
Small Business Regulations: Obama Red Tape Exceeds Bush Level
As we noted last week, President Obama has issued nearly half again as many “major,” $100-million regulations during his six years as President as George…
Blog
11 Groups Urge Senators to Allow More Time to Consider NLRB Nominee McFerran
The Competitive Enterprise Institute and 10 allied organizations signed a coalition letter urging the Senate to delay the nomination of Lauren McFerran to the National…
Blog
Competitive Enterprise Institute Event Highlights Department of Labor’s Crimanlization of Volunteer Work at For-Profit Businesses
The Competitive Enterprise Institute and Heritage Foundation are co-hosting an event on December 9th (see event details, here and below), which highlights the Department of…
Letters
11 Groups Urge Senators to Allow More Time to Consider NLRB Nominee McFerran
Read the full text of the coalition letter here The Competitive Enterprise Institute and 10 allied organizations signed a coalition letter urging…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
While the number of new regulations last week was normal, their cost was abnormal, totaling well over half a billion dollars just for the four…
Blog
Seven Quotes about Communism: Take 2
A few years ago I assembled several quotes about Communism that I thought would make good epitaphs for it. Unfortunately, the ideology has turned…
Washington Examiner
Senate ensures NLRB keeps Democratic majority
The Washington Examiner discusses CEI's coalition letter opposing McFerran's nomination to the NLRB: A coalition of conservative groups led by the Competitive…
Washington Times
The Land Grab Deemed a Backroom Deal
The Washington Times quotes Myron Ebell on the land grab hidden in the NDAA: Beware the land grab, adds Myron Ebell, energy and…
News Release
Coalition Opposes Obama NLRB Nominee
The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) and a coalition of 11 free-market and conservative organizations sent a letter today to all Members of the U.S. Senate…
Fox News
Regulation Nation: Gov’t regs estimated to pound private sector with $1.8T in costs
Fox News cites Wayne Crews' work on regulatory compliance: For America's businesses, the Obama administration has an unpleasant holiday surprise.
Blog
Obama’s Major Regulations 50 Percent Higher than Bush
Back in 2012, President Obama emphasized that he had issued fewer rules in his first three years as president than his predecessor President George W. Bush.
Letters
CEI Participates in Coalition Supporting the RASP Act
View the full coalition letter here The Competitive Enterprise Institute is participating in a large coalition of organizations in supporting the The Reliable,…
Library of Law and Liberty
The Surprising Economics of Consumer Credit
In the past few years, popular books about economics, such as Freakonomics and The Undercover Economist, have become surprise best-sellers, wowing readers by showing how…
The Washington Post
John Berlau Reviews “Consumer Credit and the American Economy”
The Washington Post cites CEI`s John Berlau on Consumer Credit and American Economy: John Berlau of the Competitive…
Statesman
John Berlau Reviews “Consumer Credit and the American Economy”
The Statesman cites CEI`s John Berlau on Consumer Credit and American Economy: John Berlau of the Competitive Enterprise…
Blog
Labor Scorecard Alert: “NO” on NLRB Nominee Lauren McFerran
The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) will score the upcoming U.S. Senate vote on the confirmation of Lauren McFerran to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).
Blog
Rep. Tom Petri Invokes Bad Reagan Policy to Justify Increasing the Gas Tax
Yesterday, retiring Rep. Tom Petri (R-Wisc.) joined wacky Rep. Earl "United Streetcar" Blumenauer (D-Ore.) to endorse increasing the federal gasoline tax by 80 percent.
Blog
Dodd-Frank’s Conflict Minerals Rules Increase Misery
Earlier, we wrote about the misery inflicted upon the Congo and millions of desperately poor people by the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act’s “conflict minerals” provisions. A…
The Hill
Conservatives Push Back Against Parks Provisions in Defense Bill
The Hill discusses our and other organizations' objections to the back-room dealings in the land package of the NDAA: Conservative organizations are backing…
CNS News
Dodd-Frank Act Causes Starvation and Misery Through Conflict-Minerals Rules
Much misery has been inflicted upon the Congo and millions of desperately poor people by the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act, through its “conflict minerals” provisions, known…
Blog
“I’ll Gladly Pay Future Generations for my Pension Check Today”
“I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today” was the trademark utterance of J. Wellington Wimpy, the mooching character from the old Popeye cartoons.
News Release
Lame Duck Land Grab Wedged Into Defense Authorization Bill
WASHINGTON, Dec. 3 – Last night, House and Senate lawmakers added a federal lands package to the National Defense Authorization Act (S. 2410, H. R. 4435)…
Blog
Fraternal Order of Police Once Again Opposes Internet Gambling Ban
Once again, the Fraternal Order of Police expressed their staunch opposition to a federal prohibition on Internet gambling. In a letter sent to Sens. Harry Reid…
Blog
Wisconsin Public Employees Exercise Freedom to Choose
Wisconsin unions have spent the better part of the past three years denouncing Governor Scott Walker's signature public-sector collective bargaining reform law, Act 10.
Comment
CEI and Free-Market Colleagues Comments to EPA on Clean Power Plan
Washington Examiner
Regulation Nation: Obama Issues Nearly 50% More Costly Regs Than Bush
The Washington Examiner cites Wayne Crews' work comparing President Bush's regulations to President Obama's: "According to an analysis by Clyde Wayne Crews Jr.,…
USA Today
Not Business as Usual: 200 firms back EPA climate regs
USA Today quotes Marlo Lewis on CEI's comments opposing the Clean Power Plan: Other business groups don't see such a rosy picture: This…
News Release
EPA’s “Clean Power Plan” is Costly, Illegitimate, and Unlawful, CEI Experts Argue in Public Comment
WASHINGTON, Dec. 2 — This week the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) and 11 other free-market organizations submitted public comments to the Environmental Protection Agency…
Blog
Towards a Humbler Monetary Policy
Is it possible for opposite policies to both be wrong? Over at the Washington Examiner, I argue that it is. The U.S. is ending…
Blog
United Streetcar: The Solyndra of Transportation
Over the weekend, The Washington Post published a fascinating article about the rise and fall of United Streetcar, an Oregon-based manufacturer that owes its very existence to the…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
Regulators had much to be thankful for during the short Thanksgiving work week, with new rules covering everything from grocery store ads to wireless signal…
Washington Examiner
Easy Come, Easy Go
The Federal Reserve announced Oct. 29 that it was ending quantitative easing, its program to keep interest rates low. Two days later and halfway around…
CNS News
UAW Seeks Foreign Labor Groups’ Help to Unionize American Workers
Imagine you are an auto worker and one day you find union representatives campaigning inside your workplace, assisted by a foreign labor union, trying…
Washington Examiner
What Lame Ducks Might Do
Iain Murray spoke with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review on Congress' Lame Duck December Q: With just a handful of legislative days remaining in December, what concerns…
Forbes
Mired In College Debt, Millennials Need Better Options
As national dialogue continues about the usefulness of a traditional, 4-year college degree, data show the Millennial generation is falling behind previous ones in savings,…
Blog
Thanksgiving and Markets
When the Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony celebrated the first Thanksgiving on Massachusetts’ Cape Cod, they shared a feast with the Pokanoket tribe, in thanks to…
Blog
Washington’s Thanksgiving Turkeys: Here Are All of the White House’s 200 Economically Significant Rules
As usual, the president will pardon a turkey again this year for Thanksgiving; For us turkey eaters, though, our federal holiday treat is lots and lots…
Forbes
Seventh Circuit Continues Scrutiny Of Class Action Settlements And ‘Cy Pres’
Forbes discusses the Center for Class Action Fairness’s objection in Pearson v. NBTY The Center for Class Action Fairness objected to the settlement…
Blog
Michael Mann Case Is about First Amendment, Not Global Warming
This morning the D.C. Court of Appeals heard oral arguments in Michael E. Mann v. Competitive Enterprise Institute, National Review, et al. CEI General Counsel…
News Release
Thanksgiving Regulation Report: 3,415 Rules & Regs
Just before the Thanksgiving holiday, the federal government dropped its Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions, which is supposed to shed some light…
Blog
How to Reform an Antiquated Union Model
Vincent Vernuccio of the Mackinac Center has written a report that addresses the major problems of an American labor movement on life support.
Blog
GAO: Union Official Time Costs Underreported
In October, the Office of Personnel Management released the long-awaited report that estimates the cost and amount of time federal employees spend on union activities…
Blog
The Federal Register Topped 70,000 Pages Today
The Federal Register, where federal agencies’ daily rules, regulations, notices, “guidance,” bulletins and other material accumulate each day, just topped 70,000 pages for 2014. 70,052…
Blog
New Field Study Confirms Neonicotinoids Have Little Impact on Honeybees
As the Ontario provincial government in Canada considers policies that may force farmers to stop using, or drastically reduce use of, a class of pesticides called…
Blog
NLRB’s Mysterious New Member Dodges Important Questions, But Stresses Need for Fully Staffed Board
On December 16, Nancy Schiffer’s term on the National Labor Relations Board will end. Sharon Block was set to take her place but the Obama…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
It was a bit of a slow week as these things go, but regulators still published new rules on everything from stress testing to sage…
Forbes
Big Sexy Holiday Fun With The 2014 Unified Agenda Of Federal Regulations
The fall Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions always seems to appear just before the Holidays. You know, when nobody’s really looking. The…
Investor's Business Daily
The Other Amnesty
CEI's Hans Bader is cited in Investor's Business Daily on proposed racial quotas in school dicipline: In "People Who Care v. Rockford Board…
Forbes
Are Fiscal Issues Christie’s Achilles Heel for 2016?
With the Bridgegate scandal apparently fading, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is politically rising after leading GOP governors to a solid Election Day showing under…
Blog
Adelson’s Online Gambling Ban Losing Political Steam
It was a bad week for Sheldon Adelson. The billionaire casino owner has said he’ll spend whatever it takes to stop the spread of legal…
The Hill
An NLRB Prescription for Trouble
President Obama's nominations to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) have proven a prescription for trouble, and Lauren McFerran is no exception. Sen. Tom Harkin…
Blog
Taxpayer-Funded Green Ministries in Prince George’s County Violate the Constitution
Reporters like separation of church and state, unless it’s progressives violating it. Then, they lose interest in the concept. A recent Washington Post story cheerily reported on churches…
News Release
CEI’s Marlo Lewis on the EPA Retreat from Renewable Fuel Cutbacks
Today, news reports revealed that the EPA will pull back from its November 2013 proposal to reduce this year’s much fought-over Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS)…
Blog
President Obama’s Executive Overreach Compounded by Regulatory Dark Matter
In recent years the Federal Register has topped out at well over 70,000 pages, two times at more than 80,000. Each year over 3,500 rules issue from…
Blog
A Big Payoff for Patient Investors
There’s a fascinating story in The New York Times this week about pharmaceutical companies and the process of discovering new drugs. Fifteen years ago, the…
Blog
Corporate Action against Disease Points Way to Resiliency Strategy for Developing World
In a piece at The Freeman today, I examine how corporations in the developing world have reacted to the threat to their workers from diseases such…
Study
Beyond Gruber: How HHS Flip-Flopped on Federal Exchange Subsidies
News Release
New Report “Beyond Gruber” Shows Government Officials Flip-Flopped on Obamacare Subsidies Story
WASHINGTON, Nov. 20 – Today, the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) published a report by businessman and finance expert Scot Vorse highlighting a growing body…
Forbes
Judge Tosses Glucosamine Settlement
Forbes discusses the Center for Class Action Fairness’ case in Pearson v. NBTY Judge Richard Posner of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals…
Newsmax
Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Smith: Entertainment Industry Vilifies Business
Newsmax discusses Fred Smith's latest Forbes column: "The entertainment…
The Freeman
Greedy Corporations Save Lives
With Ebola wreaking havoc across West Africa, news that a private company has virtually eradicated the disease on its extensive property invites sighs of relief.
CNBC
Why Retailers are Wrong on Apple Pay
There's a war going on for your wallet. Around the world, the credit and debit cards we use every day are under threat from a…
Opportunity Lives
Are Big Box Stores Good For America?
Are big box stores good for America? I thought about that last weekend during a panel where I spoke with fellow Millennials on issues…
The Daily Caller
Report: HHS Waffled On Federal Obamacare Subsidies Question
The Daily Caller discusses Scot Vorse's research on the ACA: "The Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Scot Vorse has published a timeline of the Department…
Newsmax
Cut the Red Tape on Crowdfunding
In America and around the world, aspiring entrepreneurs are meeting their colleagues and their mentors in official and unofficial sessions of Global Entrepreneurship Week. Created…
Blog
Don’t Get “Grubered” by the Lauren McFerran Nomination to NLRB
Chief Labor Counsel and Deputy Staff Director of the jurisdictional Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions Committee Lauren McFerran has her confirmation hearing at 10:00AM…
Blog
New NLRB Nominee Would Strengthen Big Labor’s Agenda
The left has a troubling Big Labor agenda that can only be accomplished by a pen-and-phone strategy to evade the U.S. Senate and House. The…
Forbes
U.S. Senate Keystone Pipeline Defeat Shows The Hazards Of Over-regulation
The meek shall inherit the Earth, but not its mineral rights. …
News Release
Dodd-Frank Constitutional Challenge To Be Argued in Appeals Court Today
WASHINGTON, Nov. 19 – The Competitive Enterprise Institute’s (CEI) constitutional challenge to the Dodd-Frank Act will be argued this morning in the U.S.
Legal Brief
State National Bank v. Lew – U.S. Court of Appeals
Blog
Liberals and Conservatives Challenge Overreach of Dodd-Frank’s FSOC on MetLife
As CEI brings suit before the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals tomorrow challenging the constitutionality of unaccountable bureaucracies created by the Dodd-Frank “financial reform” law…
Blog
Congress Needs to Act to Bring about a Drone Revolution
Earlier this morning, a full panel of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) overturned a previous ruling from an NTSB administrative law judge in the Pirker case. In Pirker, the…
Study
Top 5 Things Congress Should Consider During Lame-Duck Session
View the document here During Congress’ lame-duck session, both Republicans and Democrats will dig into a number of stalled pieces of legislation…
Blog
Crowdfunding Is Entrepreneurship’s History and its Future
In America and around the world, aspiring entrepreneurs are meeting their colleagues and their mentors in official and unofficial sessions of Global Entrepreneurship Week. Created…
Study
Declaration of Crowdfunding Independence
Crowdfunding regulation threatens entrepreneurs and their ability to start businesses, create jobs and bring innovative products to the market.
News Release
CEI Report on Crowdfunding Urges Congress, Regulators to End ‘Millionaires Only’ Rules for Investment
WASHINGTON, Nov. 18 – Today, during Global Entrepreneurship Week, the Competitive Enterprise Institute released a new report on how regulation threatens entrepreneurs and their abilities…
News Release
The Keystone No-Brainer
As the Senate readies to vote on the Keystone pipeline, CEI's Marlo Lewis makes a number of key points why opposition to the already…
Forbes
Confessions Of A Capitalist
The recent remake of The Manchurian Candidate is a curious thing. While it repeats most of the plot of the 1962 original, the North Korean…
Forbes
Stockton Highlights Nationwide Risk Of Conflict Between Muni Investors And Public Sector Unions
Fixed-income investors are now on notice that their rights could be trumped by public-sector union bosses, following a court ruling granting Franklin Templeton Investments…
The Blaze
Dodd-Frank Court Case Could Provide Injunctive Relief for America
The Dodd-Frank Act of 2010 has been a disaster for our financial system. Passed in haste after the financial crisis ostensibly in order to stop…
Roll Call
The Grinch Who Taxed The Internet
Blog
Biased Anti-Bias Regulations
Anti-bias regulations are sometimes biased and at odds with civil liberties. The Cato Institute’s Walter Olson gives a recent example from a left-leaning region in Spain:…