Blog
CEI Podcast for June 3, 2014: EPA Proposes Major Carbon Emission Regulation
Senior Fellow William Yeatman breaks down a proposed EPA regulation intended to significantly reduce carbon emissions in the U.S.
Blog
Airline Pilots Union’s Questionable Ad Campaign against Low-Cost Foreign Airline
In a previous post, I document labor unions and their history of advocating for discriminatory policies like the Davis-Bacon Act and Project Labor Agreements.
Blog
The Doctor Will Release You Now: How Official Time Contributed to the VA Scandal
Socialized medicine and union corruption are a potent combination and, in the case of the VA, a deadly one. The VA scandal has brought the…
Blog
The NLRB and the Department of Labor: Exemplars of Activist Bureaucracy
When one thinks of American bureaucracy, notions of political neutrality, professionalism, and disinterested arbitration come to mind. Well, maybe not… but at least those are…
The Freeman
Earthquake Europe
An earthquake, they called it. The European political establishment looked on helplessly over Memorial Day weekend as elections for representatives to the European Parliament showed…
EU Observer
Italy’s ‘trust no one’ culture holding back growth
For visitors this spring, a trip to Bella Italia’s countryside and picturesque towns will feel like taking a trip back in time. Because it is.
Blog
33 House Republicans Join ALPA to Restrict Competition and Soak Consumers
I previously wrote about the campaign from the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) against Norwegian Air International's (NAI) attempt to offer low-cost flights from the U.S.
EU Observer
Obama Sprinting to Finish Line to ‘Transform’ America
Forbes
There’s A Way To Pay Off America’s Budget Deficits That Is Easy, And Wholly Painless
Whatever your views on the role of government, one thing is clear: There will be no way to pay for it if the economy doesn’t…
Blog
Seattle Minimum Wage Hike Already Hurting Businesses
What did they think would happen? Seattle is likely to lift its minimum wage to $15 an hour. The move, supported by leftists and labor…
Blog
Federal Government Mismanagement and Union Official Time
Mismanagement within the federal government may not be at an all-time high, but it is close. The latest blunder is the Department of Veterans Affairs…
Blog
The Funnel of Gov — OMB’s 2014 Report to Congress on the Benefits and Costs of Federal Regulations
Over the weekend the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) released the 2014 Draft Report to Congress on the Benefits and…
Blog
House Intel Committee Chair Ignores Report Calling NSA Surveillance Illegal
At a recent event titled “A Statesman Forum on Cybersecurity Policy and Diplomacy” at George Washington University, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Mich.)…
Blog
Unions Gain Obamacare Exemptions after Complaining about Lack of Privileges
The Obama administration is exempting many labor unions from provisions of the new health care law after all.
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
62 new regulations, from electric motors to handling kiwifruit.
Blog
How State Governments Can Stay in the Black
A study by the University of California, Berkeley’s Sarah F. Anzia and Stanford University’s Terry M. Moe finds that public sector unions greatly increase costs…
Blog
Are My Ten Thousand Command “Mints” to Be Regulated?
The Food and Drug Administration FDA wants to regulate serving size of breath mints. That's right. This rule was issued March 2014:…
Blog
CEI Labor and Employment Scorecard: Insourcing Amendment to Intelligence Authorization Act
This week, the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) will score a vote in the U.S. House of Representatives in its consideration of the Intelligence Authorization Act…
Blog
CEI Labor and Employment Scorecard: Insourcing Amendment to Intelligence Authorization Act
This week, the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) will score a vote in the U.S. House of Representatives in its consideration of the Intelligence Authorization Act…
The Oklahoman
Think Tank Fellow: Taxing At Place Of Origin Is The Best Method
Starved for cash, cities in Oklahoma and across the nation are looking to new sources of revenue. Their latest target? The Internet. Municipal officials are…
Washington Times
Inflamed Debate Over A Soda Additive
A recent announcement by Coca-Cola and PepsiCo that these companies are pulling the ingredient brominated vegetable oil (BVO) out of their soft drinks is no big…
Blog
Reihan Salam’s Argument for Alcohol “Prohibition Lite” Doesn’t Hold Water
In Slate recently, Reihan Salam argued that as America eases up on the criminalization of marijuana use it ought to consider ramping up the war…
Blog
Obama’s New Unified Agenda of Federal Regulations Shows Big Rules Are Growing
In the just-released Spring 2014 Unified Agenda of Federal Regulations, published twice a year by the Office of Management and Budget,…
Blog
21 Chicago Aldermen Introduce $15 Minimum Wage Bill
Proponents of a government-imposed wage hike in Chicago are gaining steam. On May 28, 21 of the city's 50 council members signed on as co-sponsors…
Blog
CEI Podcast for May 29, 2014: Rachel Was Wrong
Seeing as Carson's book set malaria prevention back decades, CEI Senior Fellow Angela Logomasini thinks there are other figures more deserving of such tributes.
Washington Examiner
OMB: 13-year High For New And Costly Federal Regulations
The group that tracks regulations, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, told Secrets that Obama has issued far more big dollar regs in his first six years…
Fox News
EPA: The Obama Administration’s New Legislative Branch
Will the Environmental Protection Agency resurrect the defunct Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill, a 1,428-page behemoth that threatened to slam the brakes on the U.S. economy before…
Mint Press News
Black And Hispanic Students Punished More Severely Than White Counterparts
Overlawyered
Schools Roundup
On school discipline and zero tolerance, Eric Holder draws the wrong lessons [Hans Bader, CEI "Open Market"] “Prior problem behavior accounts for the racial gap…
Investor's Business Daily
Study Hits Holder’s ‘School-Prison Pipeline’ Charge
As the attorney general again warns schools that even race-neutral discipline policies discriminate against black students, a study finds serial misbehavior "completely" explains the racial…
Cato Institute
Piling On: More New Research Shows No Link Between “Polar Vortex” and Global Warming
Spurred by all of this, the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) sent a petition to the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy (OSTP)…
Blog
Chattanooga Mayor Berke Delivers City Employees to SEIU
In today's Chattanooga Times Free Press, Matt Patterson, executive director at the Center for Worker Freedom, draws attention to the behind the scenes deal between…
Blog
NLRB Rules That Employees Have the Right to Be Disrespectful to Fellow Employees
The NLRB has ruled, once again, that a company’s employee handbook cannot require its employees to be courteous to fellow employees.
Blog
How Policy Makers Should Approach Google’s Driverless Shuttles
Yesterday, Chris Urmson, director of Google’s Self-Driving Car Project, wrote a post for the company blog describing Google’s newest prototype: fully automated vehicles that…
Cato Institute
Which Study Has The Right Conclusion On Obama Climate Rule?
The Competitive Enterprise Institute, which has long studied the effects of government rules, estimates that “government compliance and intervention” cost the economy $1.8 trillion…
Cato Institute
Distracted Drivers Or Driverless Cars?
The treatment of self-driving vehicles by policymakers represents one of the major barriers to their emergence, according to the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Only New…
Washington Post
The Obama Economy Offers Bad News For Millennials
Ronald Reagan lightened the weight of government as measured by taxation and regulation. Obama has done the opposite. According to the annual "snapshot of…
Financial Times
Capitalists ought not to be cowed by their critics
Sir, Lynn Forester de Rothschild’s recent column (“Capitalism thrives by looking past the bottom line,” May 21) provides new evidence of the prescience of legendary…
Blog
Red Tapeworm 2014: U.S. Regulation Compared to the World’s Largest Economies
This is Part 7 of a series taking a walk through some sections of Ten Thousand Commandments: An Annual…
Blog
Phoenix Ends Pension Spiking
Most state constitutions contain a little-used provision known as the "gift clause," which prohibit certain public expenditures to private entities. Unfortunately, only the Goldwater Institute,…
Blog
Do Home Care Workers Really Rely on Unions?
Ai-Jen Poo has made the case that home care workers benefit from union representation:…
Blog
Dodd-Frank’s Durbin Amendment Drives Up Costs on Memorial Day and Every Day
Over the Memorial Day weekend, the Big Retail lobby created a dubious driving distraction. The Merchants Payments Coalition, whose members include retail giants like Walmart and…
Blog
Senate Leaders Kill Patent Reform, Once again Thwarting Democracy to Protect Special Interests
Hundreds of moderate and conservative bills have passed the House of Representatives, often overwhelmingly, only to die in the Senate without even being voted…
National Review
Quick Hits
Hans Bader writes about how Harry Reid killed a bipartisan patent-reform bill, and simultaneously undermined one of President Obama’s favorite talking points.
News Busters
Google Honors Radical Environmentalist Rachel Carson on Her Birthday
John Berlau, senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, explained DDT was actually used to preserve lives. He outlined in his book “Eco-Freaks” several positive…
News Busters
Consumer Groups Fight Back Against Junk Science Tactics
The Competitive Enterprise Institute’s report analyzed the “constant barrage of news headlines” that is instilling fear in consumers about synthetic and natural chemicals.
News Busters
The Odd Couple Converge
Forbes
Lumber Union Protectionists Incited SWAT Raid On My Factory, Says Gibson Guitar CEO
“Henry. A SWAT team from Homeland Security just raided our factory!” “What? This must be a joke.” “No this is really serious. We got guys…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
66 new regulations, from Panama to refrigerants.
Augusta Chronicle
Is The Private Sector Supposed to Serve Only Government? Of Course Not
For example, Wayne Crews of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, in his latest compendium on federal regulations (Ten Thousand Commandments), alone estimates that their compliance…
National Review
The Hard Sell On Climate Change; Media Outlets Continue To Push A Crisis Scenario, And The Public Isn’t Buying
More and more people in the middle of America — both geographically and culturally — have come to believe either that global warming is…
Daily Caller
Punishment Without Trial: The Department of Education Attacks Students’ Due Process Rights
How would you feel if you could be expelled from your dorm, or prevented from attending a class, just because someone accused you of something…
Blog
No, Gov. Perry, a Ban on Internet Gambling Won’t Protect the Internet or Individual Freedom
In an attempt to save face, Texas Governor Rick Perry is trying to justify his support for a federal online gambling ban by claiming that it’s the…
Blog
CEI Labor Scorecard: National Defense Authorization Act
This week, the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), a Washington, D.C.-based organization dedicated to the principles of free enterprise and limited government, will score a vote…
EE News
Public interest in climate change declining, but unaffected by recent scandals — study
Mass Live
Boston taxi drivers’ union to protest ride sharing service Uber
Services like Uber and Lyft upset cab drivers because they challenge the longtime status quo that has devolved into a cartel that limits innovation and…
Blog
IRS Employees Conducting Union Activity Costs Taxpayers $23.5 Million in FY 2013
Union "official time" is a massive taxpayer subsidy to government unions, which releases federal employees from their regular public duty, without suffering loss of pay,…
Blog
Punishment First, Trial Later, or Never: The Education Department’s Investigation of Tufts University
Imagine if you could be expelled from your dorm, or a class, just because someone accused you of something -- even if the accusation was…
Blog
Export-Import Bank Subsidizes the Western World
On its “About Us” page, the Export-Import Bank gives us its purported mission: “Ex-Im Bank does not compete with private sector lenders but provides…
Blog
Red Tapeworm 2014: The Federal Government “Eats” 31 Percent Of The U.S. Economy
This is Part 6 of a series taking a walk through some sections of Ten Thousand Commandments: An Annual…
Blog
Congress Must End Department of Transportation’s Abuse of “Unfair and Deceptive Practices” Authority
The Department of Transportation is opening a rulemaking proceeding to, among other things, require airlines and ticket agents to include ancillary fees (for, e.g.,…
Blog
CEI Labor Scorecard: National Defense Authorization Act
This week, the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), a Washington, D.C.-based organization dedicated to the principles of free enterprise and limited government, will score a vote…
Blog
CEI Podcast for May 20, 2014: Phones on a Plane
CEI Fellow Marc Scribner supports the FCC's attempt to lift a ban on in-flight cell phone use.
Blog
A Recipe for a Hostile Work Environment, Courtesy of the NLRB
The NLRB has forced the Fund for the Public Interest to reinstate one of its terminated union employees after the employee went to a local…
Blog
NLRB Okays Union Campaign Deception
A responsibility of the National Labor Relations Board is to protect employees' right to a free and fair choice of labor representatives. Given that, it…
Study
Why Family Businesses Matter
Blog
Consumers Will Win in Combined AT&T-DirecTV
AT&T agreed Sunday to purchase DirecTV for $67 billion in cash, stock, and acquired debt. If federal regulators approve the deal, the combined firm…
Blog
Attorney General’s School Discipline Push Will Backfire on Students and Reinforce Segregation and Zero Tolerance
In a speech Saturday, Attorney General Holder made a very ironic claim: blaming racial disparities in school discipline on "zero-tolerance" policies, even though such policies…
Wall Street Journal
On Colleges and Evidence Standards
Tucker Reed claims "it would be unduly burdensome" for a college "to apply a higher level of scrutiny than the 'preponderance of evidence' standard" in…
National Review
Holder vs. Roberts
Attorney General Eric Holder criticized Chief Justice John Roberts in a commencement speech a few days ago: "Chief Justice John Roberts has argued that the…
Forbes
Questions For Advocates Of Net Neutrality Regulation
Flawed premises notwithstanding, the Federal Communications Commission’s self interested campaign to inflict net neutrality rules on the private communications infrastructure continues with a new rulemaking…
One News Now
GM In Heavy Case Over Faulty Ignition Switches
Earlier this year, Toyota agreed to a $1.2 billion settlement with the Justice Department in a criminal probe over the company's recall of Toyota…
The Hill
Experts Debate Government Role In Alternate Fuels
Alternative fuel vehicles could improve the United States’ energy security and protect it from volatility in the oil market. But Myron Ebell, director of…
Newsmax
Climate Change Remains Unsettled, Say 31,072 Scientists
One more fallacy that the climate-change movement doesn't like to remember is the infamous "hockey stick" predictor, said Christopher Horner, a senior fellow at…
News Release
Report: Job Growth Greater With Family Businesses
WASHINGTON, May 20 – Today, the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) published a new study showing state and local governments could see more job growth…
Blog
The Premises of Net Neutrality
In the electric power industry, if you run an extension cord across the street to serve another, you go to jail. The local utility has…
Blog
Attorney General Holder’s Deceptive Attack on Chief Justice Roberts
In a speech this weekend, Attorney General Eric Holder said that "the way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to speak openly…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
77 new regulations, from cotton grading to walk-in coolers.
Blog
Failed Obamacare Exchanges and No-Work Contracts Drive up Obamacare Costs
Politico tallies the rising costs for "four failed Obamacare exchanges," reporting: Nearly half a billion dollars in federal money has been spent developing four …
Forbes
“Worst Mom in the World” Urges You to Set Your Children Free
“Go play outside. Come back when the street lights come on.” I can’t tell you how many times my Mom said that to me. And…
Human Events
Watergate Don’t Bother Me, Does The EPA Bother You?
Forbes
President Obama’s Global Warming Calculated Deception Means Democrats Have Abandoned Working People
In light of the incontestable real climate science discussed above, the Obama Administration’s National Climate Assessment released last week can only be considered an exercise…
Forbes
Government Employee Unions Tee Up California’s Bankruptcy
Half a Billion Dollars. That’s how much the California Teachers Association and the powerful Service Employees International Union have spent on California politics since 2000.
Blog
No, the FCC Did Not Allow “Fast Lanes” on the Internet, Yet
This week, the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) held an Open Meeting to propose new rules regarding regulation of Internet service providers (ISPs), such as Verizon and…
Blog
Missouri Union Protests by Placing Giant, Inflatable Rat by Funeral Home
I wish I was making that up, but Laborers Union Local 110 actually placed a huge, inflatable rat in front of the Kutis Funeral Home…
Blog
Red Tapeworm 2014: Regulations Cost More than Federal Income Taxes
This is Part 5 of a series taking a walk through some sections of Ten Thousand Commandments: An Annual…
Blog
Insurance Premiums Rising More Due to Obamacare
There are "rate hikes for all" coming due to Obamacare, predicts The Daily Caller, citing state insurance filings: Virginians will see upped health insurance premiums…
Money News
Johnson-Crapo Bill Furthers Govt Housing Mess
Yesterday, after delays and much opposition from many quarters on different grounds, the Johnson-Crapo housing finance overhaul cleared the Senate Banking Committee. The vote was…
Daily Caller
Wal-Mart, Other Big Corporations Not Opposing Minimum Wage Hikes
The Real News
TRNN Debate: Should The Internet Be Regulated Like A Utility?
ANTON WORONCZUK, TRNN PRODUCER: Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Anton Woronczuk in Baltimore. The Federal Communications Commission, or FCC, has just voted three…
Mapping the Internet
Parallel Internets, Another Internet Treaty Or Both? The Next Pieces Of The Internet Governance Jigsaw Puzzle – Part 2
For a long time before Brazil, Angela Merkel and others had awoken to the possibility of networks separate though connected to the currently US-dominated…
Blog
Unionization Obstructs Workplace Diversity
Executive editor at The Nation, Richard Kim, claims diversity at the liberal publication is being stifled due to its unionized workforce. Kim, in a recent…
Blog
Johnson-Crapo Is Fannie and Freddie on Steroids
Today, after delays and much opposition from many quarters on different grounds, the Johnson-Crapo housing finance overhaul is set to be voted on by the…
Blog
Red Tapeworm 2014: Regulations Catching Up to Government Spending?
This is Part 4 of a series taking a walk through some sections of Ten Thousand Commandments: An Annual…
Blog
CEI Podcast for May 14, 2014: Federal Ban on Online Gambling?
CEI Fellow Michelle Minton discusses why a federal ban on online gambling would be counterproductive.
National Review
The Anniversary of Anglo-American Constitutional Liberty
Blog
European “Right to Be Forgotten” Eats Free-Speech Rights of Google and Its Users’ Rights Too
In America, you can't invoke a "right to be forgotten" to suppress other people's speech on newsworthy (or even not-so-newsworthy) topics, as court rulings like…
Blog
Red Tapeworm 2014: Reckoning the Dollar Cost of Federal Regulation
This is Part 3 of a series taking a walk through some sections of Ten Thousand Commandments: An Annual…
Blog
EPW Drops Highway Bill Nothing Burger, Attempts to Bail Out Sinking Ship with Leaking Bucket
Yesterday evening, the Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee’s “big four” (Democrats Barbara Boxer and Tom Carper, and Republicans David Vitter…
Roll Call