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Elon vs. the Regulators
A $43 billion sale of Twitter to Elon Musk looks more and more like a done deal. Depending on who you ask, Musk will…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Air travelers no longer have to wear masks, although the decision is being appealed. Having solved all of the state’s other problems, Florida Republicans passed…
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My Response to the CFPB’s “Junky” Regulatory Inquiry on Fees
In response to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) “request for information” on what its Director Rohit Chopra has labeled as “junk fees” on financial…
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Protecting Pensions from Politicized Mismanagement
Recently the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), an organization of state legislators from across the country, unveiled model legislation aimed at protecting the retirement…
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Peer Review for Thee but Not for Me
In February 2017, the Competitive Enterprise Institute petitioned the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to reconsider the 2009 Greenhouse Gas Endangerment Finding. CEI explained in detail…
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The Flipside of Earth Day
If I wanted America to fail,To follow, not lead,To suffer, not prosperTo despair, not dreamI’d start with energy.I’d cut off America’s supply of cheap…
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The Updated Case for Free Trade
Trade is a core value of civilization. The very act of trade implies respect for people’s rights. Suppose you have something I want. I could…
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Countering Civil Forfeiture Myths with Facts
Every year, federal, state, and local government agents take—and permanently keep—billions of dollars of Americans’ property through civil forfeiture. The practice of civil forfeiture creates…
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Federal Judge Invalidates Federal Mask Mandate
For over a year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has threatened criminal and civil penalties and mandatory removal for not wearing a…
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Biden’s Escalating Fusion of Regulation and Censorship Requires Decisive Pushback
President Joe Biden’s “whole of government” advancement of numerous elements of an-interventionist “Building a Better America” agenda is accompanied by an alarming level…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The flagship of Russia’s Black Sea fleet was sunk. Baseball season began, marking the unofficial start of spring. Agencies issued new regulations ranging from Potato…
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Escalation of Surveillance Threatens Right to Anonymity
The Biden administration has pressured big tech social media platforms to advance its policies in areas like cultural debates, climate interventions, and to stifle dissent…
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NLRB General Counsel Calls for End to Secret Ballots in Workplace Elections
The general counsel for the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is calling on the agency to unilaterally adopt “card check” rules for all union…
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Members of Congress Push Back on SEC Climate Proposal
Skeptical members of Congress have begun weighing in on the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) recent climate disclosure proposal, and their objections are significant.
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SEC Ignores the Easiest Way to Reduce Climate Policy Risks – Oppose the NetZero Agenda
The Security and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) rationale for its proposed climate risk-disclosure rule does not pass the laugh test. The SEC claims it seeks…
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New Inflation Numbers Show Folly of Price Controls
Today’s release of inflation numbers by the Bureau of Labor Statistics confirms that the loudest voices in favor of price controls are usually the…
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E-15 May Do More Food Price Harm than Gas Price Good
The Biden administration Environmental Protection Agency has announced an emergency waiver allowing gasoline blends containing up to 15 percent ethanol in a bid to…
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Addressing Forever Crises
It does not suffice for this administration to attribute record 8.5 percent inflation to “Putin’s price hike.” We have endured not just…
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Inflation Rises to 8.5 Percent: Straining for Optimism
High inflation will likely be with us for a while, which means I’ll be writing a lot of posts like this. So, for the sake…
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Rep. Van Duyne Confronts Excesses of Climate Policy at SEC
Last week Rep. Beth Van Duyne (R-TX) and a dozen co-sponsors introduced the Stopping Excessive Climate Reporting Act (H.R.7355) to prevent the Securities and Exchange…
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Algae and High Gasoline Prices
If you have managed to avoid record-high gasoline prices by using algae fuel instead, you have former President Barack Obama to thank. If not, you…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The Senate confirmed Ketanji Jackson Brown as the newest Supreme Court Justice. A rabid fox bit nine people on Capitol Hill, this time literally…
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Time for a Sensible Sense of Congress Resolution on the Paris Agreement
National Journal yesterday confirmed what has become increasingly obvious since October 2021: “Biden’s Climate Goals Are in Peril.” The Democrat-controlled Congress has failed…
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Bipartisan Policy Center Highlights Concerns with SEC Climate Disclosure Rule
This week the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) hosted an event titled “Corporations and Climate: Potential Impacts of the SEC’s Proposed New Rule” on an…
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An Emergency Law to Extinguish Regulatory Dark Matter
Many of us are pondering when things will return to normal. The short response is: never. …. Nothing will ever return to the “broken”…
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NLRB General Counsel Targets Mandatory Attendance Meetings
National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) general counsel Jennifer Abruzzo is taking aim at “captive audience meetings” held by employers, arguing that it is unfair…
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“Right to Repair” Bill Is a Move in the Wrong Direction
The Fair Repair Act (S. 3830), introduced in the Senate last month, would require electronic manufactures like Apple and Samsung to make certain information…
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Rep. Bill Johnson Asks Oil CEOs to Stop Apologizing and Be Proud of Producing Energy
The House Energy and Commerce Committee held a long hearing yesterday to harangue oil company CEOs for price gouging as the cause of high…
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Recycle Your Work 2: Content Is All Around You
Earlier this week I wrote a blog post about recycling work—using the effort from one project to produce more output in another format. I…
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Elon Musk’s Purchase of Twitter Stock Is an Important Reminder of How Capitalism Works
The tech world was shaken by the recent news that Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, had bought up nearly one of every 10…
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Affordable Care Act Anniversary Gives Little Reason to Celebrate
President Obama is joining President Biden at the White House to commemorate the Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known as Obamacare. But there is…
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Getting Things Undone: Lessons from the Obliteration of Trump’s One-In, Two-Out Campaign
‘Tis the season. As midterms approach, we’re seeing “agendas” emerge from aspirational conservatives nominally opposed to Biden’s transformation of the United States. These anti-progressive inventories…
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FTC Merger Guidelines Update
All proposed corporate mergers above a certain size have to go through review by antitrust regulators. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Justice Department…
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Kigali Amendment Would Raise Air Conditioning Costs and Undercut American Competitiveness
Air conditioning season will soon be here, and it may prove to be the most expensive one in years thanks to a new federal program…
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CEI Joins Coalition Urging FDA Not to Ban Synthetic Nicotine
This week CEI joined a coalition of groups urging Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Robert Califf not to prohibit synthetic nicotine (read the…
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Celebrate Decade of JOBS Act as Deregulatory Success
10 years ago, a GOP-controlled House, a Democrat-controlled Senate, and a Democratic president came together to lighten the regulatory burden on America’s upstart job creators.
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Amazon Union Wins in Staten Island with Backing of 32 Percent of Workers
Key to understanding the union organizing win at Amazon’s Staten Island facility is that there were enough workers who wanted a union, or at…
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D.C. Policy Strategy: Recycle Your Work for Maximum Impact
Last week I gave an informal presentation to a group of my colleagues about recycling—not the plastic and cardboard variety, but the work product kind.
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The tide is slowly turning in Ukraine, though Europe’s biggest war since World War II continued. Meanwhile, conservative culture warriors declared “moral war against…
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Pay College Athletes
No March Madness tournament would be complete without at least one school being caught paying its players in violation of NCAA rules. This year, the…
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Deregulation is Key to Building a Broad-Based Economy
Critics of free market economic policy often point to declines in manufacturing employment or, worse, to the “hollowing-out” of the American middle class as evidence…
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Lassman Tells Insider President Biden’s So-Called Billionaire’s Tax Is Unconstitutional
In a recent interview with Insider, CEI President Kent Lassman outlined why the so-called Billionaire’s Minimum Income Tax included in President Biden’s 2022 White…
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Weil, That Was a Close One!
David Weil, the Biden administration’s pick to be the administrator of the Department of Labor’s (DOL) Wage and Hour Division, was rejected by…
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Invoking Defense Production Act Won’t Unleash Domestic Mining
President Biden is reportedly going to invoke the Defense Production Act for the minerals needed to make electric vehicle (EV) batteries. But it’s all…
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Testimony on Forfeiture Reform before the Tennessee General Assembly
Earlier today, I testified before the Tennessee General Assembly on HB 2525, a measure that would reform the Volunteer State’s system of asset forfeiture.
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“Letter” Rip: The Justice Department Would Like More Power, Please
In its first backing of specific antirust legislation, the Justice Department (DOJ) sent a letter in support of the American Innovation and Choice…
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Antitrust Triangulation
Sometimes it’s useful to introduce useless bills. The Prohibiting Anti-Competitive Mergers Act , sponsored by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Rep. Mondaire Jones (D-NY),…
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White House Confiscatory Tax Proposal Underlines Why CEI Is Challenging Provision of 2017 Tax Reform
Today President Biden previewed his proposed fiscal year 2023 budget. I am in complete agreement with the first five words: “Budgets are statements of values.” …
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Inflation and the Biden Budget
It is good that the Biden administration is beginning to take inflation seriously. Unfortunately, however, there isn’t much that the president and Congress can…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Ukraine continues to hold out against Putin’s unprovoked invasion. Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Jackson Brown had her Senate hearings. Meanwhile, agencies issued new regulations ranging…
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Why Cannabis Banking Liberalization Would Indeed Increase U.S. Competitiveness
As war continues in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, interest by policy makers and the media has spiked in competitiveness bills passed separately…
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Climate Police Occupy Wall Street
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Monday, March 21, released its proposed rule to require every “registrant” (i.e., publicly-traded company) to provide more…
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Edward Scissorhands and Federal Regulatory Disclosure
Recently, President Joe Biden proclaimed before the Business Roundtable’s CEO Quarterly Meeting on March 21 that there’s “going to be new world order”…
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Climate Overreach at the SEC: What Comes Next
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) today voted to recommend new proposed rules by which public companies would be required to disclose additional information about…
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Amazon Antitrust Lawsuit Dismissed
Last year, District of Columbia Attorney General Karl Racine filed an antitrust lawsuit against Amazon over its third-party seller program. On Friday, a judge…
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FDA’s Dysfunctional Regulation of E-cigs Created the Synthetic Nicotine Problem
Winston Churchill once said that “If you destroy a free market you create a black market” and nowhere is the validity of that statement…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The March Madness college basketball tournament began, continuing this month’s theme. Ukrainians continued to fight valiantly against Putin’s army, while ordinary Russian people are showing…
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New Anti-Merger Bill Not Indexed for Inflation
Yesterday, I wrote about four problems with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Rep. Mondaire Jones (D-NY)’s new antitrust bill, the Prohibiting Anti-Competitive Mergers…
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The Best Thing the Department of Labor Can Do for Freelancers is Keep the Trump-era Rule
In a surprising move, a federal court has thrown out the Biden administration’s attempt to throw out the Trump administration’s new rule to determine…
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Further Thoughts on the Supreme Court’s Clean Power Plan Case
I heartily recommend the reply briefs by petitioners West Virginia and Westmoreland Mining Holdings, LLC in the Supreme Court’s Clean Power Plan case,…
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New Antitrust Merger Bill Is Fatally Flawed
There is yet another antitrust bill in Congress. The Prohibiting Anticompetitive Mergers Act, sponsored by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Rep. Mondaire Jones…
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New Climate Disclosure Rule Coming Soon from SEC
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will soon release a new proposed rule that will likely require climate change disclosures by public companies. Douglas MacMillan…
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Biden Administration Seeks to Redefine Word “Prevailing”
The Biden administration has come up with an innovative way to aid its union allies: redefining the word “prevailing” to mean its opposite. The…
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The Russian Invasion of Ukraine And Energy Prices: Myth vs. Fact
Candidate Joe Biden repeatedly promised to aggressively target new domestic oil and natural gas projects in the U.S. as part of his climate change…
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Correcting a Couple of Inflation Whoppers
Over at National Review’s Capital Matters site, I have a piece pointing out that today’s high gas prices aren’t caused by inflation. They’re caused…
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Antitrust Is Political
Antitrust regulation is just as politicized as other forms of regulation. Arizona attorney general Mark Brnovich’s just-announced investigation into investors whose politics he doesn’t like…
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Biden’s Whole-of-Government Equity Agenda Precludes Limited Government
A 1977 Reason magazine review of Friedrich Hayek’s “Law, Legislation, and Liberty (Vol. 2) noted Hayek’s contention “that the prime public concern should be,…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Putin continued his unprovoked war, and Ukrainians and their allies continued their heroic resistance. Inflation rose from 7.5 percent to 7.9 percent. Gas prices…
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CEI Submits Appeal of Lack of Peer Review for EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Endangerment Finding
The Competitive Enterprise Institute is challenging the Environmental Protection Agency’s Endangerment Finding for Greenhouse Gases on procedural grounds. This is the document which supposedly…
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Social Cost of Carbon Litigation – Who Will Have the Last Laugh?
The 10-State litigation led by Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry to block the Biden administration’s use of social cost of greenhouse gases (SC-GHG) estimates in…
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Inflation Numbers Show a Minimum Wage Hike Is Still A Bad Idea
Like a slasher movie villain who refuses to die, the push to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour seems to have a…
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Climate Risk, Climate Policy, and the Ukraine Crisis
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) sea-level rise report made a media splash when the agency released it in February. Headlines in the…
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Inflation Sets Another 40-Year High: Relief Is in Sight, with Caveats
Inflation set a new 40-year high in February. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) increased by 0.8 percent in February, which annualizes to 7.9 percent.
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Biden’s Repudiation of Trump’s Regulatory Streamlining Agenda: An Inventory
The explicit pro-regulatory shift by the Biden White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has entailed abandonment not merely of Trump’s…
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House Subcommittee on Energy and Commerce Hosts Less than Festive Parade for Big Tech Accountability
The House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Consumer Protection and Commerce met on Tuesday, March 1, for a legislative hearing on “Holding Big…
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How Newt Gingrich Laid the Groundwork for Congressional Staff Unionizing
The current effort by congressional staff to unionize builds on a legal groundwork laid decades ago by Republicans. In fact, the idea was…
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The New Office Normal
What is the best workplace model for employers to follow as COVID-19 (hopefully) continues to wind down? In an Inside Sources op-ed currently being…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The Ukrainian people have proven more resilient that the Kremlin anticipated, though Putin’s invasion continued. President Biden gave his State of the Union speech. Employment…
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Climate Change as an “Existential Threat” Is So 2021
President Joe Biden confirmed in his State of the Union address to Congress on March 1 that climate change was last…
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Stablecoins Come of Age in Ukraine-Russia Conflict
Across the globe, people living under oppressive regimes are already familiar with stablecoins—digital assets pegged to a stable monetary value, usually the U.S. dollar. Now,…
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Don’t Raise Accredited Investor Thresholds
The gulf between Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Gary Gensler’s rhetoric and the results of his leadership continues to widen. In interviews and…
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One Nation, Ungovernable? The Bipolar Unified Agenda of Federal Regulations
As we lurch from crisis to crisis, it is interesting to compare the way one administration’s philosophy of government response to both shock and normalcy…
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Clean Power Plan Litigation: The Supreme Court Should Rein in the EPA
On Monday, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency. Depending on how the Court decides it, the case…
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Disregard the U.N.’s Latest Climate Screed
The second big part of the newly released Sixth Assessment Report of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)—also known as the…
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Biden’s State of the Union “Trillions Down” on Big Government Mistakes
Ladies and Gentlemen, the State of the Union is that of far more government control over the nation’s economy in years. The years following 2022…
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What Do Workers Want?
Pundits and politicians are talking about how to get back to normal as COVID (hopefully) winds down into an endemic disease like the cold or…
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This Week’s Civil Forfeiture Outrage (Twelfth in a Series: Love Field Update)
A few months ago, I blogged about the curious case of a currency seizure at Dallas Love Field. In December, the Dallas Police Department (DPD)…
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FERC Ignores CEI’s Advice to Steer Clear of Climate Policy
The Social Cost of Carbon (SCC) is a deeply flawed attempt to assign a dollar value to the cumulative climate-related damages caused by…
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Judge Cain’s Injunction Concerning Social Cost of Carbon Is Reasonable
Jonathan Adler’s recent article on a preliminary injunction by Judge James D. Cain makes it sound like it’s crazy, but I’m afraid that…
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No Matter How You Heat Your Home, This Winter Is Costing A Lot More
We are wrapping up the winter of 2021-2022, the first full one under the Biden administration and its energy policies. It has been a rough…
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All Social Media Will Need to Moderate Content
Roughly a year after being booted off the most popular social media networks, former President Trump launched his own digital platform last weekend, Truth…
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Why the Mountain Valley Pipeline Matters
In what came as a surprise to few, if any, observers, the proposed Mountain Valley Pipeline has hit another judicial setback that will delay…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Congress avoided a government shutdown by passing a continuing resolution to fund the government through March 11. Meanwhile, agencies issued new regulations ranging from…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Russia invaded Ukraine last week. Meanwhile, agencies issued new regulations ranging from headlights to glucose monitors. On to the data: Agencies issued 44 final regulations…
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The One Area Where Voting Rights Isn’t Sacred: Union Elections.
There is one area of voting rights where many Democrats don’t seem to want every voice to be heard: union elections. Democratic lawmakers have accepted…
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Unions Likely Received $36 Million in Improper PPP Loans
It is possible that labor unions improperly received more than $36 million in “loans” under the federal Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). The program was intended…
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Vermont Considers Major Forfeiture Reform
Tomorrow, I will testify before the Vermont General Assembly on H. 533, a measure that would reform the Green Mountain State’s system of asset…
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George Washington, Larry David, Cryptocurrency, and Freedom
One of the most talked-about Super Bowl ads was that of Larry David traveling through history and naysaying innovations that turned out to be hugely…
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Staying the Course for Liberty
At the Competitive Enterprise Institute, we focus on policy issues ranging from tech and telecommunications to energy and the environment to financial regulation and monetary…
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