Washington Times
The Light Fantastic
Washington Times
EDITORIAL: Lights-out ‘Earth Hour’ is 60 minutes wasted
Politico
Shut Up With All The Plane Silence Talk, CEI Says
Washington Times
School-Conduct Codes Aren’t Racist
Washington Times
Turn ON the Lights and Do Something Constructive for the Planet
News Release
CEI Short Film “I, Pencil” Wins Grand Prize at Manning Centre Competition
WASHINGTON, March 28 –The Competitive Enterprise Institute’s (CEI) animated short film, “I, Pencil” about the free-market wonders of making the common pencil won first…
Blog
Human Achievement of the Day from HumanProgress.org: Organ Replacement Technology
We are only three days away from Human Achievement Hour (March 29, 8:30pm to 9:30pm)! What better way to celebrate than with a post from…
Blog
CEI Podcast for March 27, 2014: Bait and Reciprocal Switch
CEI Fellow Marc Scribner talks about his new paper, “Bait and Reciprocal Switch: Forced Access Regulation Threatens the Rail Renaissance.”…
Blog
Human Achievement of the Day: 3D Printing Cups, Cars, Houses, and Faces
3D printing is a relatively recent technological development that has already begun to revolutionize model-building, structural and other medical procedures, and construction of items from…
Legal Brief
King v Sebelius – Reply brief for Appellants
Comment
Comments to USDOT in the matter of Use of Mobile Wireless Devices for Voice Calls on Aircraft
Full Document Available in PDF On behalf of the Competitive Enterprise Institute (“CEI”), I respectfully submit these comments in response…
Blog
Sneaky Regulation? Federal Agencies Issue over 24,000 “Public Notices” Annually
A mixed economy like ours does not remain static. Economic activity increasingly shifts toward government outright (health care, retirement, education) or exists under "Mother-May-I" constraints…
Blog
Human Achievement of the Day: Autonomous Vehicles, from Imagination to Reality
[caption id="attachment_55209" align="alignright" width="300"] CEI General Counsel Sam Kazman about to take a spin in a Google self-driving car in May 2012. (Photo by Marc…
Daily Caller
White House: raising minimum wage would help women
Blog
How Matt Drudge (and Other Obamacare Victims) Can Escape the “Liberty Tax”
Former Competitive Enterprise Institute Research Associate Michael Mayfield provided invaluable assistance with this post. Matt Drudge's widely discussed…
Blog
CEI Appeals Agency’s Withholding of Documents about Its 2013 Government Shutdown Shenanigans
Earlier, I wrote about how Obama administration officials have been very “tight-lipped in response to FOIA requests” about their “government shutdown shenanigans,” such as closing private…
Blog
Human Achievement of the Day: Breakthrough toward Unlimited Clean and Cheap Energy
Shocking as it might seem, some of us at CEI agree with environmentalists that reducing personal waste is a good idea. Voluntarily reducing our individual…
Washington Examiner
Genetically Modified Foods are as Safe as Conventional Ones
Fox Business
Small Biz vs. ObamaCare One Step Closer to Supreme Court
Today’s hearing brings the case one step closer to the Supreme Court, according to Kazman, as neither side is likely to bow out. “It was…
Forbes
The Rise Of The Nanny State Is Why America Needs A Regulatory Budget
National Review
Administration Still Dragging Feet on Official Time
Study
INFOGRAPHIC: The Cost of Regulating Biotechnology and Genetically-Engineered Food
Legal Brief
FOIA Appeal – USDA, Forest Service
Letters
The Social Cost of Carbon
Blog
Kicking off Human Achievement Hour 2014
Annually since 2009, my colleague Michelle Minton has organized a celebration of economic liberty for one hour at the end of March, known as Human…
Study
Bait and Reciprocal Switch
Full Document Available in PDF America’s freight railroad industry is one of the greatest success stories of economic liberalization. After decades of…
News Release
Special Interest Lobby Threatens Freight Rail Deregulation
WASHINGTON, March 24 – A new effort by special interest groups threatens much-needed freight-rail investment, according to a new…
News Release
Competitive Enterprise Institute Celebrates Human Achievement Hour
Human Events
Celebrate Human Achievement Hour!
Forbes
Can Booming Dubai Remind America How To Grow Again?
If you despair for America, visit Dubai. If you fear our nation’s best days are behind us, visit Dubai. If you believe American entrepreneurship is…
Blog
Draconian Dodd-Frank Durbin Debit Controls Need Not Be More Destructive, Court Rules
As the weather finally turns to spring, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals today blew a nice cool breeze of common sense. A bipartisan three-judge…
Blog
Agencies Withhold Documents about Closures of Private Businesses in Government Shutdown
In last October's government shutdown, the Obama administration closed down, or blocked access to, many private businesses that had been allowed to operate in earlier…
Free Beacon
A Tale of Two Cities
Legal Brief
King v Sebelius – Appellees Brief
Blog
Johnson-Crapo Is Phony Fannie-Freddie Reform
Ever since the phrase appeared in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet," and its variations, have…
Blog
The Wrong Way to Regulate High-Frequency Trading
Blog
Beekeeper Speaks Out against Anti-Pesticide Campaigns
Anyone worried about honey bee survival should read the piece by Canadian beekeeper Lee Townsend in the Guelph Mercury newspaper. In recent years, beekeepers have…
Washington Times
More Overtime Rules Enrich Obama
The Washington Times‘ editorial board notes that the Obama administration is poised to introduce “new and murkier definitions of overtime eligibility” that will “stifle job…
National Review
Lawmaker Excluded from CFPB Meeting, Unable to Hold Executive to Account
Blog
Ohio Constitution Prohibits Union Release Time
Yesterday, Media Trackers reported the Ohio Centerville Classroom Teachers Association membership agreed to a new collective bargaining agreement that is still waiting on approval from…
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Hoover’s Deficits
Regarding the March 12 letter “It’s Time to Reject National Debt Fear-Mongering”: Nathaniel Brodsky claimed that President Herbert Hoover made “attempts to shrink” the national…
Blog
MtGox is Dead, Long Live MtGox!
MtGox, once a pillar of the Bitcoin exchange market, filed for bankruptcy on March 10. In February, the website had ceased withdrawals before ceasing…
Blog
Car Dealership Takes Advantage of Union Tactics
A common practice of labor unions is to use myriad tactics -- protests, picketing, intimidation, and coordinating with progressive allies -- to apply pressure on…
Blog
New Data: Code of Federal Regulations Expanding, Faster Pace under Obama
The annual Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) is the "codification of the general and permanent rules published in the Federal Register…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
67 new regulations, from reformulated gasoline to vitamin D2.
Human Events
Celebrating Whisky’s Marketplace Journey
Washington Examiner
Obama’s overtime-pay proposal is really a bid for votes
Forbes
Can Silicon Valley Sic Schumpeterian Disruption On Bloated City Governments?
It’s one thing to ship your tax money off to Washington, resigned to the fact that you have little control over the distant bureaucracy that…
Legal Brief
Halbig v Sebelius – Appellants Motion to Strike
A group of small business owners (and individuals) in six states filed a lawsuit on May 2, 2013 against the federal government over an IRS…
Legal Brief
Halbig v Sebelius – Government Notice of Supplemental Authority
A group of small business owners (and individuals) in six states filed a lawsuit on May 2, 2013 against the federal government over an IRS…
Newsmax
George Washington Was a Founding CEO
Legal Brief
Amicus Brief – American Broadcasting Companies v. Aereo, Inc.
Full document available in PDF CEI and ICLE filed a joint amicus brief in the Aereo case, which the Supreme Court…
Blog
Bureaucrats Line Up to Regulate Bitcoin
The regulators are tasting blood around bitcoin, and like sharks they are positioning for the kill. The blood that they taste was not actually shed…
Blog
CEI Podcast for March 12, 2014: CEI Turns 30
Blog
Supreme Court Overwhelmingly Votes to Uphold Rights of Private Property Owners
The Supreme Court has decided an important property rights case in favor of the private property owners and against the claim of the federal government…
Legal Brief
King v Sebelius – Amicus Brief by Oklahoma, Alabama, Georgia, West Virginia, Nebraska, and South Carolina
Legal Brief
King v Sebelius – Amicus Brief by the Galen Institute
Blog
Reining in the Executive Branch Bureaucracy, Part 11: Sunset Regulations and Implement a “One In, One Out” Procedure
Since the Federalist Papers, America has debated “Energy in the Executive.” But President Obama’s 2014 agenda framed by his…
Legal Brief
King v Sebelius – Amicus Brief by Kansas and Nebraska
Legal Brief
King v Sebelius – Supporting Amicus Brief of Senators Cornyn, Cruz, Hatch, Lee, Portman, Rubio and Congressman Issa
Legal Brief
King v Sebelius – Supporting Amicus Brief of Pacific Research Institute, Cato Institute and American Civil Rights Union
Comment
Comments to the FDA on Trans Fats
Legal Brief
King v Sebelius – Amicus Brief by Adler & Cannon
A group of four plaintiffs in Virginia filed a lawsuit on September 16, 2013 against the federal government over an IRS regulation imposed under the…
Baltimore Sun
Banning Energy Drinks for Kids Isn’t the Answer
Blog
More Unfunded Mandates for Private Colleges: Activists Seek Restrictions on Campus Sex in California
Legislators impose all sorts of misguided or costly mandates on colleges and schools that harm young people directly or indirectly. California activists are now seeking…
Blog
Minimum Wage Increase Is Still Bad Policy
For the past two years, President Obama has proposed raising the federal minimum wage in his State of the Union address. The main…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
84 new regulations, from soybean referendums to jaguars.
Human Events
Regulation: The Tax You Don’t See
Cato
Kansas Court Wrests School-Budget Decisions from Voters
Forbes
The Way It Was Under Walter Cronkite: We Were Starved For Media
“And that’s the way it is,” intoned Walter Cronkite, the “most trusted man in America,” at the end of each news broadcast. It seems…
Blog
“Muscle Milk Magnificence”
A former CCAF intern files an entertaining objection to a bad lawyer-driven settlement that doesn’t comply with Ninth Circuit Law, and Above the…
Blog
The “California Rule” and the “The Fall of Pacific Grove”
In my previous post, I described the "California rule," which puts state governments in a legal straitjacket when trying to reform underfunded public pensions.
Blog
Reining in the Executive Branch Bureaucracy, Part 10: Congress Should Create an Annual Regulatory Reduction Commission
Since the Federalist Papers, America has debated “Energy in the Executive.” But President Obama’s 2014 agenda framed by his…
Blog
CEI Podcast for March 6, 2014: The ALERT Act and Regulatory Transparency
Last week was Stop Government Abuse Week in Congress, and the House passed a number of reform bills that would increase government transparency. One of…
Legal Brief
King v Sebelius – Appellants’ Opening Brief
A group of four plaintiffs in Virginia filed a lawsuit on September 16, 2013 against the federal government over an IRS regulation imposed under the…
Washington Times
BOOK REVIEW: ‘From Cupcakes to Chemicals’
“I was going to be an earth mommy — with my baby secured in my organic cotton baby sling, wandering around the farmers market, making…
Class Action Countermeasures
Guest Post – The Opt-Out Refund
Class Action Countermeasures features Adam Shulman's and his solution for settlements called the "Opt Out Refund." Adam Schulman of the Center for Class Action Fairness…
Blog
The Law Should Not Enable Union Violence
A general contractor is approached by a representative of a local union and told he “needed to hire a certain number of his guys.” When…
Blog
How the “California Rule” Holds Back Pension Reform
These days, local governments announcing bankruptcy seems like routine in California. Since the onset of the 2008 financial crisis, many state and local governments have…
Blog
To Enact Pension Reform, Make Good Policy Good Politics
In my previous post, I looked at some basic principles that should guide state policy makers when tackling pension reform. Now, we turn to the…
Blog
Who Wants to See Their State Go Broke?
Few people would raise their hands when asked that question. But actually putting a state's financing on sound footing is difficult in practice. That makes…
Blog
Obama and Camp’s “Carried Interest” Canard Adds Cost and Complexity to Code
Once again, according to a White House summary of his 2015 budget to be unveiled later today, President Obama will call for "closing loopholes"…
Blog
Obama FY 2015 Budget: Aviation Funding Recommendation Not Great, But a Step in the Right Direction
President Obama released his Fy 2015 budget today. Like his past budgets, as I noted in a previous post discussing the highway and…
Blog
“The bill doesn’t come due until well after the legislators who wrote the check have left office”
Thus describes an Illinois state Senator the challenge states face in reforming their public employee pension systems. Given that reality, it's astounding reform would ever…
Blog
JAMA’s Dangerous Hype: BPA and Cash Register Receipt Research Letter
This month’s issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) contains a “research letter” on a “study” conducted by researchers at Harvard…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
81 new regulations, from grading grapefruit to detaining journalists.
Human Events
CPAC’s Big Tent For The 80%
National Review
Man vs. Wild — California Water Crisis
National Review’s Law and Disorder Debate, “Man vs. Wild: California in Crisis,” took place in Washington, D.C., on February 28, 2014. The keynote speakers were…
Fox News
SolarCity’s skyrocketing stock dependent on government tax giveaways
Forbes
Acton Academy: Socrates’ Antidote for Government School Hemlock
Only someone in deep denial, or in total thrall to teachers’ union propaganda, believes our inner city public schools are anything more than dropout factories.
Blog
Michigan Unions Intimidate Workers Who Take Advantage of Right-to-Work
It seems ever time union privilege is threatened, unions turn to intimidation.
Blog
Bad Highway Policy Is a Bipartisan Affair
Two major pieces of surface transportation policy news dropped this week. President Obama is readying the release of his budget, which will contain over $300…
National Review
‘Stop Government Abuse’ Week
This week, House majority leader Eric Cantor (R., Va.) is promoting a series of ten bills as part of his Stop Government Abuse Week (hashtag:…
National Review
The EPA’s Anti-Transparency Antics
Citation
Pruitt Eyes New Legal Discovery To Bolster ‘Sue And Settle’ Attack On EPA
Blog
CEI Files Comments against IRS Proposed Rules That Would Illegally Restrict 501(C)(4) Speech
Today, CEI filed comments against the IRS’s proposed rules restricting speech by 501(c)(4) groups (which the IRS has suggested could be expanded in…
Blog
CEI Podcast for February 27, 2014: Can the EPA Regulate Greenhouse Gas Emissions?
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments this week in a case that could determine whether or not the EPA has the authority to regulate greenhouse…
Comment
CEI Comments to the IRS on Proposed New Restrictions on Candidate-Related Activities of 501(c)(4) Organizations
Full Document Available in PDF The Treasury Department’s proposed rule has been…
Blog
The Bizarre, Slanted Coverage of Arizona’s SB 1062
Yesterday, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer vetoed a bill that would have made clear that the state's Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) applied not…
Comment
Free Market Organizations’ Letter to Office of Management and Budget on Social Cost of Carbon
CEI and Freedom Action, along with members of the Cooler Heads Coalition, on February 26, 2014 submitted a public comment to the Office of Management…