Blog
“UN climate change goal? We’re there now” – John Christy
Every month John Christy and Roy Spencer of the University of Alabama, Huntsville, report global temperature data from their satellite monitoring program, known as the…
Blog
COP-21 Adopts Big, New Paris Climate Treaty (But We’re Not Supposed To Call It a Treaty)
COP-21 (the 21st Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change) concluded in Paris only one day late on Saturday, 12th…
Blog
Republican House and Senate Give Huge Victory to President Obama’s Climate Agenda
The House and Senate on 18th September passed omnibus appropriations legislation that provides $1.15 trillion to fund the federal government for the remainder of FY…
Blog
Automated Vehicles Update: California DMV Releases Draft Rules and Some Notes about that Crash Study
CALIFORNIA DMV AV OPPS RULES PROPOSED: On December 16, the California Department of Motor Vehicles released its draft licensing and operations rules for consumer automated vehicles,…
Blog
Obama Claims the Paris Climate Agreement Is Not a Treaty. Huh?
President Obama insists that the international climate agreement adopted at the COP 21 conference in Paris is not a treaty. His reason for doing so…
Blog
Congress Rewards Education Department for Overreaching and Flouting Checks and Balances
At Powerline, lawyer Paul Mirengoff writes about one of the many disturbing provisions buried in the budget-busting omnibus spending bill currently being passed by Congress as…
Blog
Obama Cements Status as King of Regulatory Bloat
Today marks a milestone for the one brandishing the Mighty Pen and Phone. The Federal Register hit 78,648 pages today. The Register is where the federal…
Blog
Omnibus: No Financial Reg Relief, Dangerous GSE Provision, But a Little CFPB Sunshine
My Competitive Enterprise Institute colleagues and I have made the case for members of Congress to use the omnibus spending bill as an exercise…
Blog
Why the Omnibus Shouldn’t Include Cybersecurity Legislation
Later this week, the House is slated to vote on a $1.1 trillion “omnibus” spending bill to fund the federal government through next fall. Naturally,…
Blog
FAA Releases Mandatory Drone Registration Interim Final Rule
On December 16, the FAA will publish its interim final rule (IFR) on Registration and Marking Requirements for Small Unmanned Aircraft in the Federal…
Blog
Omnibus with Significant Reg Relief May Be Worth Supporting
As the year-end omnibus spending bill is about to be unveiled, there will be a scramble to examine its provisions. In many policy areas, my…
Blog
RealClear Radio Hour: The Miracle of New Zealand
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
It was a comparatively slow week for regulations, though agencies still published new rules ranging from bright lamps to train doors. On to the data:…
Blog
COP-21 Nears Agreement on New Paris Climate Treaty
A third straight night of all-night negotiations will almost certainly end Saturday morning with a new climate deal at COP-21. The Paris Climate Treaty is…
Blog
Things Get Heated at Senate Hearing on Climate Science
Blog
CCAF Asks Supreme Court to Hear Challenge on Duracell Class Action Settlement
Today, the Center for Class Action Fairness petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to hear a case challenging an abusive class action practice where trial lawyers pay themselves…
Blog
5 Reasons the COP-21 Meeting in Paris will Fail
A white paper from the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee is the first comprehensive report by Congress on international climate negotiations, encompassing the United…
Blog
Congressional Committee Favors State-Based Legalization of Online Gambling
Wednesday’s hearing was not good for those hoping to make a case for a national online gambling prohibition. While the House Oversight Committee hearing was supposed…
Blog
FAST Act Debrief: A Few Policy Notes on the Latest Highway Bill
Last Friday, December 4, President Obama signed into law the FAST Act, which reauthorizes federal surface transportation programs through Fiscal Year 2020 to the tune…
Blog
Ex-Im Is Back from the Dead, Kind of
On Friday, President Obama signed into law a five-year, $305 billion highway bill. Marc Scribner, CEI’s resident transportation expert, has his thoughts on the…
Blog
Protecting American Workers and Job Creators with the Omnibus
This week, Congress is working against the clock to avert a government shutdown and pass new spending legislation before the current continuing resolution expires on…
Blog
Regulatory Dark Matter
How do regulations get made? Agencies have to follow specific procedures, first outlined in the 1946 Administrative Procedure Act. The trouble is that many agencies simply…
Blog
Deck Stacked at House Oversight Committee Hearing on Internet Gambling
Tomorrow the House Oversight and Government Reform (OGR) Committee will hold a hearing titled, “Casino in Every Smartphone – Law Enforcement Implications,” to discuss…
Blog
Deflate Drug Prices by Reforming the FDA
This Wednesday, the Senate Select Committee on Aging will hold a hearing on “sudden price spikes” among certain off-patent drugs. The most widely publicized of these…
Blog
COP21: CEI’s Myron Ebell and Chris Horner Branded as Climate Criminals for Threatening Bogus Consensus
A group calling itself Avaaz (“Voice”) has plastered “wanted” posters of seven “climate criminals” on Paris streets and billboards during the COP21 climate negotiations. Avaaz worries that…
Blog
RealClear Radio Hour: Polarizing Media & Intellectual Safety
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
With most of December still to go, the 2015 Federal Register is already the seventh largest ever, going back to 1936. It remains on pace to set the…
Blog
Repealed 82 Years Ago, the Spirit of Prohibition Lives On
Tomorrow, December 5, many of us will raise a glass in celebration of Repeal Day—the anniversary of the end of that disastrous experiment of alcohol prohibition…
Blog
COOL Ruling Puts U.S. in the Hot Seat
In a move intended to avoid harmful retaliatory tariffs from Canada and Mexico, five Democratic senators wrote to both majority and minority Senate leaders,…
Blog
Four Takeaways from the COP-21 Paris Climate Treaty
As we near the end of the first week of the COP-21 negotiations in Paris, the focal points of the expected climate treaty have…
Blog
Senate EPW White Paper: Essential Background on the Obama Administration’s Climate Treaty Agenda
A new white paper from the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee is the first comprehensive report by Congress on international climate negotiations, encompassing…
Blog
Official Time and Criminal Misconduct by Federal Employees
With under two weeks until Congress must pass an omnibus spending bill to avoid a government shutdown, one policy that should be on the chopping…
Blog
Five Facts on COP-21
As global leaders converge on Paris for the 2015 Climate Conference (COP-21), the goals of the meeting remain unclear to millions of Americans. To help…
Blog
Will DOL’s “Fiduciary Rule” Silence Dave Ramsey?
It is indeed sad that 40 percent of millennials favor the government banning speech that some deem offensive, according to a recent Pew poll. Even…
Blog
RealClear Radio Hour: Rocker Conservationist and Apocalypse Averted
Blog
Pennsylvania Legislature Begins Process of Firing Attorney General Kathleen Kane
Last month, Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane stubbornly clung to office, refusing to resign even after she was suspended from practicing law for her alleged…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
Despite a respite for Thanksgiving, the 2015 Federal Register is now on pace to set an all-time record page count. It began publication in 1936. New regulations…
Blog
Douglass North, 1920-2015
Blog
Much to Be Thankful For
Thanksgiving is tomorrow, and all of us have much to be thankful for. Over at Inside Sources, I have a Julian Simon-inspired take on the…
Blog
Thanksgiving: Massachusetts Discovers Property Rights
Thanksgiving is a day layered in tradition and myth. The standard story makes much of the creative efforts of our ancestors, the assistance provided by…
Blog
Washington’s Thanksgiving Turkeys: Here’s Your Chance to Fill Up on the White House’s 218 Economically Significant Rules
​The president will pardon a couple turkeys again this year for Thanksgiving. The birds will take a carbon-intensive cross country flight from San Francisco International…
Blog
Fracking: The Gift Keeps Giving
“U.S. proved crude oil reserves hit levels not seen since 1972, surpassing 39 billion barrels in 2014, according to newly released federal data,” Michael Bastasch…
Blog
3 Political Food Developments to Be Thankful For
For most of us in the U.S., we don’t have to worry about getting enough food. Quite the opposite actually; holidays like Thanksgiving can be…
Blog
A Fundamental Misunderstanding of Free Enterprise
Today, in The Guardian, columnist Zoe Williams repeats an idea often advanced by progressives, that entrepreneurial activity is dependent on the action of others, especially “government,”…
Blog
Problems with Mandatory Drone Registration
On Saturday, the Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) Registration Task Force issued its recommendations on a mandatory UAS registration proposal. The report is available here. On…
Blog
Government Submits TSA Body Scanner Final Rule Schedule to Court
On October 23, 2015, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ordered the Department of Homeland Security to produce a schedule for final rule…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
The number of new regulations on the year passed the 3,000 mark last week, and the Federal Register is nearly on pace to set an all-time record…
Blog
RealClear Radio Hour: Dodging The Devil’s Bargain, Appreciating Crowdsourced Evolution
Blog
House Commerce Committee Approves “Pizza” Bill to Ease Onerous Calorie Labeling Rule
While most consumers are blissfully unaware, a provision tucked into the Affordable Care Act could cause food vendors a lot of headaches. Starting on December…
Blog
Anti-Capitalism on Campus
Prof. Brad Thompson of Clemson University writes this week in Minding the Campus on the impact of corporate donations to institutions of higher education. In particular, he describes…