-
February 18, 2019
Congress and President Trump passed a spending bill to avoid another shutdown, but President Trump’s national emergency declaration over a non-emergency provides a troubling precedent that future presidents could also abuse, regardless of how this battle plays out in the courts. Republicans are forgetting a cardinal rule of politics: never give yourself powers you don’t want the other side to have. Meanwhile, new regulations for the week range from telling time during emergencies to electronic olive grower meetings.
-
February 17, 2019
California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) on February 12th unexpectedly slammed the brakes on the state’s high-speed rail project. The project “as currently planned, would cost too much and take too long” to build, Newsom explained during his first State of the State address.
-
February 16, 2019
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said on February 12th that he planned to schedule a vote on the Green New Deal Resolution in the near future using Rule 14 to bring it to the floor under expedited procedures. Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA), the chief sponsor of Senate Resolution 59, quickly whined on Twitter: “Don’t let Mitch McConnell fool you: this is nothing but an attempt to sabotage the movement we are building."
-
February 15, 2019
Reps. Greg Walden (R-OR) and Frank Lucas (R-OK), the ranking Republican members of the two committees with the most jurisdiction over climate science and energy-rationing policies, both sent strong signals this week that they will concede the scientific case for global warming alarmism and want to support “reasonable” measures to deal with it.
-
February 15, 2019
There are many types of burdensome government mandates, but of all the Ten Thousand Commandments, regulations that coerce the purchase of a particular product or commodity are among the most destructive.
-
February 15, 2019
Our old friend (and former CEI Warren Brookes Journalism Fellow) Tim Carney has a new book out, “Alienated America: Why Some Places Thrive While Others Collapse,” and the American Enterprise Institute recently hosted a public discussion to examine its “findings and claims.”
-
February 15, 2019
The Department of Justice is pushing back against a federal court decision that could jeopardize the future availability and affordability of natural gas across America’s east coast.
-
February 15, 2019
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency yesterday held an all-day “listening session” at its Washington, D.C. headquarters on its proposal to revise the Obama administration’s new source performance standards (NSPS) for carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants.
-
February 14, 2019
My colleagues have written elsewhere about the energy and environmental components of the “Green New Deal” proposals that have been enthusiastically agreed to by most declared Democrat candidates for the presidency and which are about to be debated in the Senate. In this post I will take a brief look at the “social justice” components of the proposed Deal, which cover issues such as monetary theory and labor and employment policy.
-
February 14, 2019
A holdover Obama regulation is costing businesses billions of dollars and workers millions of job opportunities. A survey conducted by the International Franchise Association found that the Obama joint-employer standard already costs businesses between $17 billion and $33.3 billion annually. It also represents a roadblock to job creation, with between 194,000 and 376,000 potential jobs eliminated.